The Value of a good Reputation. PROVERBS X. 1.-A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favour rather than filver or gold. 284 Of Converfion from a bad Courfe of Life. LUKE XV. 18, 19.—I will arife and go to my father, and will fay unto him, Father, I have finned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy fon; make me as The Bleffedness of Beneficence. Prov. iv. 20, 21, 22.-My fon, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my fayings. Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart. For they are life unto thofe that find them, and health to all their flesh. 393 PSALM XXXIV. 8.-Oh tafte and fee how gracious the Lord is! 499 The Chriftian Doctrine concerning Happiness. MATTH. V. 2, 3, 4-10.-And he opened his mouth and taught them, faying, Bleffed are the poor in fpirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn; for they fhall be comforted. Bleffed are the meek: for they shall in- herit the earth. Bleffed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they fhall be filled. Bleffed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. Bleffed are the pure in heart: for they fhall fee God. Bleffed are the peace-makers; for they fhall be called the children of God. Bleffed are they which are perfecuted for righteoufnefs' fake for theirs is the Rules for rightly appretiating the Value of Things. Of the practical Character of Jefus Christ. SERMON XXVI. The Value of Social and Public Worship. GOD, to meditate on thee, to worship thee, to have communion with thee, how honourable, how bleffed an employment! How far it exalts us above the other inhabitants of the duft! How near it brings us to thy worshipers in heaven, and to thee thyself, who art all in all both to them and to us! Yes, in meditating on thee, we meditate on all that is good, that is great, that is exalted, that is vene rable and amiable! In praying to thee, we pray to the creator and fovereign of the universe, the wife and benign ruler, the gracious father, the great benefactor of us and of all mankind! In having communion with thee, we have communion with the eternal, inexhaustible fource of all light, of all life, of all happiness! In employing ourselves in thy service, we feel the whole dignity of the man and of the christian; feel that we are thy offspring, VOL. II. B thy thy children, that we are capable of high employ. ments, and are ordained by thee for fuch! Oh might then the fentiment of thee and of communion with thee ever be and procure to us what it may and should be and procure to mankind and to christians! Oh might we never enter the place which is *confecrated to this divine employment without reverence, and never leave it without a bleffing! Let us then, o Omniprefent, let us here ever intimately feel thy prefence, and ever powerfully experience the influences of thy holy fpirit! Let light and life, and energy and comfort flow down upon us from thy throne, when in the fentiment of our manifold and urgent neceffities, we here invoke thee for fupplies of thy bounty. Let it be our conftant aim in affembling here in thy prefence, ever more plainly and convincingly to difcern the truth, to confirm ourfelves in the belief in thee and in' thy fon Jefus, ever to advance in piety and goodness, in content and fatisfaction, to confolidate our hopes, to bring us nearer to our vocation, and to become conftantly more capable of the fuperior life; and let this be the fruit we fhall reap from our attendance in this place! Teach us, to that end, ever to gain juster conceptions of the value of focial and public worfhip, ever higher to prize it; and ever to make a more faithful application of it. Bless even now our reflections on thefe important objects, and hearken to our prayer, through Jefus Chrift, in whofe name we farther address thee, faying: Our father, &c. |