entirely different profpects then open upon thee against thy will, and to thy perdition, o thou who leadeft a finful life? What feeft thou in the hours of feriousness and confideration, which thou canst not always avoid, what feest thou then before thee? An unrelenting death, accompanied with all the horrors of anxiety and remorse! A tribunal, from the righteous severity whereof nothing can defend thee! Retributions, which allow thee to expect nothing good, but to dread the greatest calamity, the most grievous punishment! A ftate of total, everlasting deftitution of all thy former happiness, and the apprehension of an unutterable, long-continued, viewless tract of mifery! And if these prospects now alarm and terrify thee, o man, what hope has thy unchriftian, finful life left for thee? Perhaps the hope fometime hereafter, in the last years or days of thy life, of altering thy life for the better, and fo of efcaping future perdition! Perhaps the hope, if thou wouldft dare to call it fo, of being utterly annihilated by death, and thereby of avoiding all punishment! But how uncertain, how fallacious is that hope of amendment! As infecure as thy life, which, like the grafs, to-day flourishes, and to-morrow fades! As fallacious as fo many other good refolutions, which thou haft conceived in circumftances far more propitious, with far greater liberty and strength, and not yet put in practice! And how melancholy, how horrible is this hope of annihilation! How deeply muft the man be immerfed in depravity, how defperately

VOL. II.

P

rately wicked and miferable must he be, who builds his tranquillity and his confolation on the poffibility of lofing consciousness and life for ever!

And what are now, on the other hand, o man, the profpects in futurity, the hopes, of which an unchristian, finful courfe of life deprives thee, and which are the property of the devout, the real christian? Oh how manifold, how glorious! The profpect of a longer or fhorter fpace of life here on earth, in which we may hope to become ever wifer, ever better, and of approaching ever nearer to perfection; the profpect of doing and of effecting more and more good, and thereby of continually accumulating additional treasures for eternity; the profpect of walking safely and quietly the ways of innocence and virtue under the protection of the Almighty, and in full affurance of the divine com placency, in confcious rectitude, at all times and in all circumstances to have grounds of ferenity and com. fort, fources of fatisfaction and joy; the profpect of never being attacked unprepared by death, and by it to gain infinitely more than to lofe; the profpect, in fhort, of an everlasting fupremely happy life, where all want, defect, and fuffering are no more, where every fuperior capacity has to expect developement, every generous, chriftian difpofition the most glorious aliment, every virtuous aptitude a proportionate fphere of operation, every good and humane action its reward and praife. What profpects! What hopes, my dear friends! How irreparable must be

the lofs fuftained by thofe from whom they are ravished, to whom they are obfcured by fin, whom it deprives of these hopes, who have every thing to fear from it in futurity!

And now, o thou, who ftill leadeft an unchristian, a finful courfe of life, whofe ruling fentiments and affections are ftill wicked and vain, and who hast now contrafted the happiness which thou enjoyest with that which thou foregoeft, the troubles and fufferings which thou avoideft with those which thou bearest, the profpects and expectations which thou haft with those which thou art prevented from having, deny it if thou canft, that the end of these things is death, that thy life upon the whole, and compared with the life of the chriftian, is a wretched and miferable life, and yet only the commencement of a far more wretched and miferable life in the world to come: and if thou canst not deny it, if thou feeleft the truth of it, and the defire, the fervent defire of becoming better and happier, is excited in thy breaft, oh let not that conviction and that defire immediately die away, let them accompany thee to thy dwelling, follow thee into retirement, and there grow up into reality and action. A finful conduct is inimical to man, is a public nuifance; for never can we fin, without wafting and abufing the faculties and property and time, which we might and ought to have employed in promoting the welfare both of ourselves and others. Bid adieu then to fin, which is thy deftruction, re

fufe it thy fervice, thy obedience for ever. Watch, pray, contend, labour and persevere, and become progreffively more zealous, till thou haft mastered thyfelf, conquered thy base lufts, and corrected and improved thy temper and conduct by the precepts of wisdom and the gospel of Christ. Confider the magnitude of the concern: it is about avoiding : uttermost misery, it is about happiness, real, abiding happiness, and these thou canst never purchase too dearly, never too early enjoy, and yet thou canft nowhere, nowhere find them but on the path of christian virtue and piety! Bleffed is he who walks that path and perfeveres in it to the end! Satisfaction and hope will accompany him upon it, and its iffue is joy and felicity.

SERMON XLIII.

The Wisdom of a religious and virtuous Courfe of Life.

GOD, eternal, inexhaustible fountain of intel

lect and wisdom, lo, we, thy creatures, thy children, come into thy prefence in prayer to thee, the giver of all good gifts, for that understanding and that wisdom, which we are in want of for the accomplishment of thy will and the promotion of our own happiness. Thou addreffeft us thyself by one of thy minifters: If any of you lack wisdom let him afk of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it fhall be given him. Yes, we feel our want, o Father of Mercies! It is great, it is urgent, it occafions us too frequently to decline far, far from the paths of rectitude, of virtue, and of happinefs! Ah do thou fupply our want. Grant us the light and the warmth, the juft perceptions and the good, religious fentiments in which we are still defective, in order to be thoroughly intelligent and wife in heart and life. Give us thoroughly to understand, what real wisdom is, on what path we are to feek and to find it, how we may fecure to ourfelves its poffeffion for ever, and grant that we may