is frequently going wrong-and you are peevish, four, and fullen, or violent, ftorming, and untractable, remember, on all thefe occafions, what your Saviour fays, that unless you copy the meekness of little children, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.-If the kingdom of heaven indeed were out of the question, it is your interest here on earth to live kindly among each other. If God Almighty pleases to straiten your circumftances, do not add one evil to another. Ill-nature and brutality only make things worse. Let your houses at least be comfortable. Kindness among yourselves will fweeten poverty. A burden borne by many who favour each other, will be lefs felt by all.

The next thing in which we are to imitate little children, is their teachable fpirit.—The little child is at least prepared to learn. It has no pride nor prejudice to contend with. The worldly man has often fo much pride, that he is above learning from the Gospel. The fcribes were above it. They had too high an opinion of themselves to be taught: and there are still many people, though they do not fo much fall in your way, who fet up their own reafon as a light to follow, in oppofition to Revelation; and like the Pharifees of old, have too much

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pride to believe the Gospel.-There are others again, who are too much prejudiced, and worldlyminded, to obey it: who being fashioned after the manner of this world, prefer its customs, and it's pleasures, and its concerns to the precepts of the Gospel. Of this kind of people we have many among ourselves. But if we had about us the humble teachable fpirit of little children, we should liften more to religion and lefs to the world. We should believe the Gospel, and obey its precepts.

The last thing we are to imitate in little children, is that trust which they repofe in their parents. In every thing they look up to them. If they want food, they folicit their parents. If they want case from pain, they apply to them: and from them they receive all the little gratifications of their lives.--Here is an exact image of that truft which we should repofe in our heavenly Father. On him we depend for every thing we enjoy, and should therefore receive every thing as his gift. Our very amusements and gratifications should be received as indulgences from him. He permits them, and therefore we should only use them as he allows. Thus in all things we should throw our

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elves as much on our heavenly Father's care, as the child throws himself on that of his parents.

Having thus feen on what the imitable part of the character of little children confifts-Let us now, as was propofed, fecondly, make an application of it to ourselves.

You see then, my brethren, that although the little child hath all these appearances of goodness about him, they are only appearances; for, in fact, there is nothing yet in the little child that is either good or bad. All is fimple nature; he has neither knowledge of duty, nor confcience of tranfgreffion. His actions are neither virtuous, nor vicious. This appearance of goodness therefore is only a want of paffions and appetites; and of an intimacy with the world, which hath not yet taken poffeffion of his heart. As his paffions arife, the natural pravity of man appears. Children therefore are only recommended to our imitation, as we are fent to learn industry from the ant, and refignation to Providence from the fowls of the air.

These appearances, therefore, of goodness in little children, you must improve in to realities. That

purity that innocence-that contentedness→ that love, that teachable spirit, and that confidence, which the little child appears to have by not knowing the world, you are to gain by conquering the world. What it has by nature, you are to acquire by grace and religious habit; and what it difcovers on fome accidental occafions, you are to make the ruling principles of your lives.

There is one thing more I fhould with you to confider on this fubject. Receiving the kingdom of heaven as little children, is not recommended to us as a matter of prudence, or of worldly wifdom: but as a matter of much greater moment: Except ye receive the kingdom of heaven as little childrenconfider what follows-ye fhall not enter therein.

Particular characters belong to particular stations. If a man wish to have an intereft in the kingdoms of this world, he must receive them as a statesman, as a lawyer, as a foldier, or under fome character which relates to the kingdoms of this world. But if a man wish to enter the kingdom of heaven, he may be affured there is no other way of entering it, but by adding to his profeffion in life the imita

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tion of a little child.It is humiliating enough, no doubt, to the wife man of this world, to be told, that after the attainment of all his learning, and after all the pains he has taken to accomplish himfelf, his acquirements are not equal in value to what he may learn from a little child.-But fo it is -and fo indeed is the whole scheme of the Chriftian religion. It is entirely founded on man's folly, and ignorance, and wickedness; and he who cannot relinquifh his worldly fchemes, and his worldly wisdom, fo far as to prefer the mild virtues of the Gospel before them;-if he cannot in the midst of the world receive the kingdom of heaven with the innocence, the purity, and humility of a little child, the word of God affures him, that he has loft what the world can never make up to him -his whole title to the promises of the Gospel.

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