about, and his lights burning, like unto them that wait for their Lord, that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately? Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord when he cometh shall find watching; and if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants. Be ye therefore ready, for the Son of Man cometh at an hour when ye think

not.

The holy spirit of God is constantly at hand, endeavouring to inspire into our hearts his vital influence. But he requires that we should prepare our hearts for its reception. He requires that we should watch for the happy moments when we are alive to devotional feelings, and endeavour to prolong and improve them. When he finds us carelessly banishing from our thoughts every serious idea, and eagerly running the career of foolish and vicious pleasure, he is grieved and departs.

He returns indeed; for mercy is patient and not easily provoked, but he returns less frequently, and after having been repeatedly rejected, he reluctantly leaves the wretched sinner to his folly and his fate.

The very nature of religion, its great rewards and dreadful punishments, the sentiments it inspires, and the morality it inculcates, all demand a serious, though not a melancholy mind. Do not the scriptures themselves represent the duties of a Christian as laborious? We are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. It is a work that requires our daily thoughts, our most anxious solicitude. "But how can I bestow so much attention upon it?” says a lover of pleasure more than a lover of God. "I go to church on Sundays, like my neighbours, but I can find no other time for religion. I have important business, and a thousand engage

ments, both of interest and amusement." If thus thou thinkest to satisfy thy duty as a Christian, thou art greatly mistaken. Thou hoverest round

the luminous meteors of pleasure, like the poor insect, which, dazzled by the taper's light, rashly flies near it, scorches its wings, and drops to rise no

more.

Ye men of business, men of pleasure, men of wit, men of the world, if you never seriously think, you cannot be Christians. Persuade not yourselves that it will be sufficient, even if it were possible in your careless course, to consume the days of your probation in innocent trifles. Your mind, your spirit, has much to perform, to render you acceptable, and to draw down the blessing of Heaven. You have much work to do, even though you are exempted by the bounty of fortune, or rather of Providence, from manual labour. No rank, no opulence can deliver you from the necessity of spiritual labour, if ye admit the truth, and depend on the promises of the Gospel. Work then, while it is day, for the night approaches, when no man can work.

Meditation, as it is a duty and delight, is also a principal means of improvement in grace and wisdom to the true Christian. It is, indeed, absolutely necessary to preserve his spiritual life.

O, that the voice of the preacher could speak to the hearts of those thousands, and tens of thousands, who are busying themselves from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same, in every species of vanity and folly! They seem to have lost all religious sensibility, and are content to live without God in the world. Dreadful idea! Poor orphans, bereaved of their heavenly Father! Forlorn and deplorable is their condition. Whither shall they fly for succour? More wretched still, they know not

that they stand in need of it. They smile and congratulate each other on every new invented scene of amusement. And the harp, and the viol, the tabret and pipe, and wine, are in their feasts; but they regard not the work of the Lord, neither consider the operation of his hands, How shall their joy be turned into mourning, when, as the same prophet proceeds, hell shall enlarge herself, and open her mouth without measure, and THEIR GLORY, and their MULtitude, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it? Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust, because they have cast away the law of the Lord of Hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

Listen then, ye who have erred and strayed like lost sheep, listen to the friendly voice of the shepherd of your souls. Turn ye, turn ye from the paths of vanity. Enter the sanctuary of the Lord. Open your ears and your hearts. Light and life shall reward your attention. Strange that ye should be so reluctant to exert yourselves, when the salvation of your souls depends upon your efforts. Were a trifling profit, or a fashionable amusement proposed, with what ardour would you engage in the pursuit of it? But when you are addressed on the subject of religion, and the state of your soul, you say in your hearts, Go away this time, at a more convenient season I will speak to thee. You cannot bear to be grave, for gravity is ungraceful.

Who that entertains in his bosom the sentiments of natural philanthropy, or rather of Christian charity, but must mourn over the lost souls of creatures capable of immortality and divine happiness? When the feeling Christian views men flourishing in fancied prosperity, rioting in nominal pleasure, and reposing

in deceitful ease, he views them with pious pity. He would not imbitter their enjoyments, but he would sweeten and substantiate them, by giving them a better foundation.

He would say to each individual, as to his friend, (and who, indeed, is not the friend of the true Christian?) Let me conjure you to remember the purposes of your creation, and to support, with your utmost efforts, the comparative dignity of your nature. Exert the noble faculties which God has given you, in a daily attention to that which is truly and substantially your temporal and eternal interest. Is it a hard thing that is required of you? You are only entreated to be kind to yourself. Remember, that now is your day. Short at best; perhaps it is already far spent. Think how much you would value, when your sun is set in this world, a few of those hours which are now carelessly squandered, as if they were incapable of improvement. For a single day, you would resign every pleasure, honour, and emolument. Let this remembrance have due weight with you now. Let it lead you, at every convenient interval, to retire from the busy crowd of common life, to commune with yourself in your chamber, to dwell with God and your own soul in the sweet exercises of pious meditation. This practice will tend to sanctify all your secular employments; to purify and exalt every pleasure and amusement; to secure a peaceful life, a happy death, and a joyful resurrection.

SERMON VII.

PERSEVERANCE IN THE RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLES TAUGHT IN YOUTH, AND PARTICULARLY IN FAITH AND HOPE, RE

COMMENDED.

COL. i. 23.—Continue in the faith, grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel which ye have heard.

It is an old observation, that fewer deviate from the path of rectitude through defect of knowledge than of resolution. Most men might say, with the poet of antiquity, We see and approve better things, while we are pursuing what we know to be worse. Though men wander in the labyrinth of life and lose their way, it is not because there are not lamps on the side of the road, and fingers pointing at every turning, but because they listen, as they pass, to some siren song in the thicket, and step aside to pluck some golden fruit, whose smiling hue raises the ardour of vehement desire.

The earliest instruction is usually religious. And though we despise the lesson of the mother or matron who presides over our infantine age, her words are often the words of the truest wisdom. She teaches us the plain doctrines of elementary Christianity, which, though it has nothing of ostentation to recommend it, is replete with the most valuable instruction. It has pleased a gracious God to render the knowledge of our duty plain and easy. It is perplexed only by the sophistry of human reason.

Even when we have relinquished this infantine period, we are seldom left destitute of religious