Here, then, let us turn afle from this gay foene, and suffer me to take you with me for a moment to one much fitter for your meditation. Let us go into the house of mourning, made so by fuch actions as have been brought in, merely by the common cross-accidents and difafters to which our condition is exposed—where, perhaps, the aged parents fit broken-hearted, pierced to their fouls with the folly. and indifcretion of a thanklefs child—the child of their prayers, in whom all their hopes and expectations centered:-perhaps a more affecting fcenea virtuous family lying pinched with want, where the unfortunate fupport of it having long ftruggled with a train of misfortunes, and bravely fought up against them is now piteously borne down at the laft-overwhelmed with a cruel blow which no forecaft or frugality could have prevented.O GOD! look upon his afflictions-Behold him diftracted with many forrows, furrounded with the tender pledges of his love, and the partner of his careswithout bread to give them: unable, from the remembrance of better days, to dig;-to beg, afhamed.

When we enter into the house of mourning fuch as this-it is impoffible to infult the unfortunate even with an improper look-Under whatever levity and diffipation of heart fuch objects catch our eyes, they catch likewise our attentions, collect and call home our scatter'd thoughts, and exercise them with wif dom. A tranfient scene of diftrefs, fuch as is here fketched, how foon does it furnish materials to fet the mind at work? how neceffarily does it it to the confideration of the miseries and misfortunes the dangers and calamities to which the life of man

fubject? By holding up fuch a glafs before it, it forces the mind to fee and reflect upon the vanity-the perifhing condition and uncertain tenure of every thing in the world. From reflections of this serious cast, how insensibly do the thoughts carry us farther

and, from confidering, what we are-what kind of world we live in-and what evils befal us in it, how naturally do they fet us to look forwards at what poffibly we fhall be?-for what kind of world we are intended-what evils may befal us there and what provifion we should make against them here, whilft we have time and opportunity.

If these leffons are so infeparable from the house of mourning here fuppofed-we shall find it a still more inftructive school of wisdom, when we take a view of the place in that more affecting light in which the wife man feems to confine it in the text, in which, by the house of mourning, I believe he means that particular scene of forrow, where there is lamentation and mourning for the dead.

Turn in hither, I befeech you, for a moment. Behold a dead man ready to be carried out, the only fon of his mother, and the a widow. Perhaps a more affecting spectacle-a kind and indulgent father of a numerous family lies breathless-snatched away in the strength of his age-torn in an evil hour from his children and the bofom of a difconfolate wife.

Behold much people of the city gathered together, to mix their tears, with fettled forrow in their looks, going heavily along to the houfe of mourning, to perform that last melancholy office, which, when the debt of nature is paid, we are called upon to pay to each other.

If this fad occafion which leads him there, has not done it already, take notice, to what a ferious and devout frame of mind every man is reduced, the moment he enters this gate of affliction. The busy and fluttering spirits, which in the house of mirth were wont to transport him from one diverting object to another fee how they are fallen! how peaceably they are laid! In this gloomy manfion, full of fhades and uncomfortable damps to feize the foul-fee, the light and easy heart, which never knew what it was to think before, how penfive it is now, how foft, how susceptible, how full of religious impreffions, how deeply it is fmitten with fenfe and with a love of virtue. Could we, in this crifis, whilft this empire of reafon and religion lafts, and the heart is thus exercifed with wifdom, and bufied with heavenly contemplations could we fee it naked as it isftripped of its paffions, unspotted by the world, and regardless of its pleasures-we might then fafely rest our caufe upon this fingle evidence, and appeal to the most fenfual, whether Solomon has not made a juft determination here, in favour of the houfe of mourning?—not for its own fake, but as it is fruitful in virtue, and becomes the occafion of fo much good. Without this end, forrow I own, has no ufe but to shorten a man's days-nor can gravity, with all its ftudied folemnity of look and carriage, ferve any end but to make one half of the world merry, and impose upon the other.

Confider what has been said; and may God of his mercy bless you! Amen.

SERMON III.

Philanthropy recommended.

LUKE X. 36, 37.

Which now of these three thinkeft thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?—And he said, He that showed -Go, and do thou mercy on him. Then faid Jefus unto him

likewife.

In the foregoing verfes of this chapter, the Evangelist relates, that a certain lawyer ftood up and tempted JESUS, faying, Mafter, what fhail I do to -To which inquiry our SAinherit eternal life?

VIOUR, as his manner was, when any enfnaring queftion was put to him, which he faw proceeded more from a defign to entangle him, than an honest view of getting information-inftead of giving a direct answer, which might afford a handle to malice, or at beft ferve only to gratify an impertinent humour -he immediately retorts the queftion upon the man who asked it, and unavoidably puts him upon the neceflity of anfwering himself;—and as, in the prefent cafe, the particular profeffion of the inquirer, and his fuppofed general knowledge of all other branches of learning, left no room to suspect he could be ignorant of the true anfwer to this question,

and especially of what every one knew was delivered upon that head by their great Legiflator, our SAVIOUR therefore refers him to his own memory of what he had found there in the course of his ftudies.——— What is written in the law, how readeft thou ?— Upon which the inquirer reciting the general heads of our duty to GOD and MAN, as delivered in the 18th of Leviticus and the 6th of Deuteronomy, namely-That we should worship the Lord our God with all our hearts, and love our neighbour as our felves; our bleffed SAVIOUR tells him, he had anfwered right, and if he followed that leffon, he could not fail of the bleffing he feemed defirous to inherit.This do, and thou shalt live.

But he, as the context tells us, willing to juftify himfelf-willing poffibly to gain more credit in the conference, or hoping perhaps to hear fuch a partial and narrow definition of the word neighbour, as would fuit his own principles, and juftify fome particular oppreffions of his own, or thofe of which his whole order lay under an accufation-fays unto JESUS in the 29th verfe-And who is my neighbour? Though the demand at first fight may feem utterly trifling, yet was it far from being so in fact. For according as you underflood the term in a more or lefs reftrained fenfeit produced many neceffary variations in the duties you owed from that relation.Our bleffed SAVICUR, to rectify any partial and pernicious mistake in this matter, and to place at once this duty of the love of our neighbour upon its true bottom of philanthropy and universal kindness, makes anfwer to the propofed question, not by any far