degenerate into bony fibres, which are unable to perform their due action; for the heart propels the blood to the extreme parts by a contractile power. If this contractile force is abated by the hardness and inflexibility of the heart's fubftance, it is apparent that the circulation of the blood cannot be properly carried on; but momentary ftagnations, finkings of fpirits, and univerfal weakness will follow; because this power of contraction, like the wheel of a water engine, is the grand and principal cause of the distribution of the fluid through all the numerous channels of the fystem.-This is a true, though uncomfortable representation of the animal œconomy in the decline of life; and whoever attentively furveys this picture, and acts answerably to the admonitions which it fuggefts, will be folicitous to acquaint themselves with God from their youth; they will dedicate themselves to their great Creator in the early ftages of life; and by fo doing may, towards the close of it, with a humble and reafonable confidence, hope that God will not defert them when they are become old and grey-headed.

Every serious and thinking man must be convinced, that the confecrating the prime of his days and the vigour of his ftrength to Heaven, is both wisdom and piety; for what can all his fervices. avail him, under the corporeal imbecilities, mental failures, and the many incidental evils of extreme age?

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age? To all procraftinating votaries will not the prophet's interrogatory be very appofite?" If ye "offer the blind for facrifice, is it not evil? And "if ye offer the lame and the fick, is it not evil? "Offer it now unto thy governor, will he be "pleased with thee, or accept thy person, faith the "Lord of hofts?"

VERSE 7. Then shall the duft return to the earth as it was, and the spirit fhall return to God, who gave it.

But it must be also noticed, that these deficiencies and decays of the system are the immediate forerunners of its diffolution; that when this great change befalls us, the materials of which our bodies are compofed, fhall be refolved into earth, from whence they were taken; and our fouls, which animated these organiz'd particles of duft, shall return to God the father and judge of our spirits, who will reward or punish us according to our deeds in the flesh. This is an argument of infinite weight, and far fuperior to any hitherto urged for the remembering our Creator in the days of our youth: which advice, if we fedulously purfue, we fhall have no fuffering to fear, but every joy to hope for, "when "God fhall bring every work into judgment, with "every fecret thing, whether it be good, or whe"her it be evil."

SERMON

SERMON II.

St. JOHN'S

GOSPEL,

CHAP. XI. VERSES 25 and 26.

Jefus faid unto her, I am the refurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet fhall be live.

And whofoever liveth and believeth in me fhall never die.

HERE was at Bethany (a village within

two miles of Jerufalem) a happy family, whom our Lord had honoured with distinguished marks of his affection and friendship. This family confifted of a brother and two fifters. Lazarus, which was the name of the brother, laboured under a diftemper which threatened danger. His fifters Martha and Mary, being very anxious for his life, fent a meffenger to Jefus, who was then in the country beyond Jordan, to acquaint him with the fickness of his friend Lazarus, and to entreat his perfonal affiftance. When our Lord had received the intelligence, he declared to his difciples, that the diftemper fhould not terminate in the final removal of Lazarus out of this world, but that his temporary decease fhould occafion an illuftrious manifestation of the power of God, and at the D 4 fame

fame time should inconteftably prove the divine miffion of the Meffiah, the Son of God.

The Evangelift obferves, that Jefus entertained a very affectionate regard for this amiable family. But, notwithstanding his kind attachment to Lazarus, it is faid, that "he abode two days still in the "fame place where he was." St. John might defign to intimate, that our Lord forbore to haften to Bethany, because the great length of time which intervened between the death and refurrection of Lazarus, muft preclude all poffibility of doubt touching the fact of his decease; and also, that our Lord's abfence removed every fufpicion of fraud and artifice, and furnished him with an opportunity of displaying his divine power in the raifing of his friend from the dead.

At the expiration of two days, Jesus sat out for Bethany; and was no fooner come into the neighbourhood of the afflicted family, than the news of his approach reached Martha, who immediately haftened to meet him. Her fifter Mary, unacquainted with our Lord's arrival, fat weeping in the houfe with her mourning friends.

When Martha had found Jefus, fhe brake out into this plaintive exclamation of forrow, "Lord! "if THOU hadft been here my brother had not "died." Upon our reading this paffionate exprefsion of grief, we are naturally led to wonder, how Martha,

Martha, who had been intimately acquainted with our Lord, his doctrines and miracles, could poffibly imagine, that the actual prefence of Jesus was neceffary to fave her brother from death.

Had he never heard of our Lord's recovery of the Centurion's fervant? or of the cure of the Nobleman's fon at the diftance of Cana from Capernaum? Had the never received any information of his speaking the Ruler's daughter into life, or of the restoration of the Widow's fon from the dead? Or if it be urged, that Jefus was present when he rescued these two inftances from the grave, can we suppose that Martha really believed his immediate presence to be more effentially neceffary for the reftoration of the dead, than for the recovery of the diftant fick? Perhaps a reflection upon the nature of exceffive forrow will furnifh us with the most natural folution of these difficulties. It is ufual for immoderate grief to chain the mind down to the particular object of its attention, and to preclude all due exertions of thought; to vent its feelings in imperfect fentences, and in tender reproaches of friendship, and upon fudden conviction to recollect itfelf, and filence its own emotions. This appears to be the true cafe of Martha's fenfations. She had with warmth infinuated to our Lord, that her brother's death was occafioned by the noncompliance of Jefus with the message she had fent him

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