or who will shut their ears. But oh! if conscience whispers in the breasts of any of you, that to be a citizen of heaven, is more than all the treasures of the world; if that secret witness pleads, in the hidden chambers of your souls, and places the hopes and fears of eternity before you :-remember, that it is God's vicegerent you hear. Whatever it commands, or whatever it forbids, you must, at your peril, obey. If you disregard its admonitions, you are lost. If you are obedient to the heavenly calling, your salvation is built upon the assurances of God himself; and your happiness will be as lasting, as the days of eternity.

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SERMON XVI.

ST. MATTHEW, xiii. 45, 46.

"THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS LIKE UNTO A MERCHANTMAN, SEEKING GOODLY PEARLS: WHO, WHEN HE HAD FOUND ONE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE, WENT AND SOLD ALL THAT HE HAD, AND BOUGHT IT."

IN the New Testament, the kingdom of heaven does not always, or even generally, signify the life to come, or the state of blessedness in the other world. In my text, as in many other parts of Scripture, it denotes the Gospel dispensation upon earth; and it is called the kingdom of heaven, because its great end and purpose is the conformity of the soul to the laws of righteousness, whereby it pays a willing obedience unto Christ, and becomes a real subject of his invisible authority, and spiritual reign. Thus, every soul which is born again, enters into the kingdom of heaven.

To visit that new region, implies not that we traverse seas, or pass over tracts of mountains, such as fix the bounds of earthly territories. No ; -such is the nature of the spiritual world, that the soul can, in the secret depths of its own tranquillity, sometimes in a moment, in the twinkling

of an eye, undergo a transition far wider than that of him who circumnavigates the globe. It can cross the line of demarcation, between the two great hemispheres, into which the universe is divided. It can pass from darkness into light— I do not speak of material light, and darkness; these are but fleeting images of their invisible counterparts-but I mean light inextinguishable, celestial, and eternal; and darkness, in comparison of which, darkness that may be felt in this world, is clear as the meridian day. The kingdom of heaven, then, in this, and kindred passages, signifies, not a future, but a present life to God: if, perhaps, it may not be the juster view, that between these two states no line of intervention passes; that the kingdoms are one; that grace glory in its dawn; that the church below, and the church above, are parts of the same communion of saints; and that the soul which turns to God, commences, thereby, its everlasting course, and enters into the vestibule of the palace of eternity.

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This "kingdom of heaven," my text declares, is like "a merchantman, seeking goodly pearls." In all ages of the world, rare and precious stones have been estimated at high value. By the Jews they were particularly prized; and are made frequent mention of, in their Scriptures, as holding the same rank, in the material system, which the

richest treasures of wisdom and knowledge hold, in that sublimer scheme of things, to which these latter appertain.

Amongst the many admirable sayings of Solomon, on this point, I cannot deny myself the pleasure of repeating one: "Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire, are not to be compared unto her. Length of days are in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life, unto them that lay hold upon her; and happy is every one that retaineth her." (Prov. iii. 13-18.) Such is the pearl of great price, of which the merchantman, in my text, was the happy finder. For what can this long-sought treasure denote, but that of which we are instinctively in search; some satisfying good, commensurable to the capacities of the soul; some food, to fill its boundless appetites; some object, gift, or boon, which can render an endless life, an endless blessing?

There is, in every soul, an inextinguishable thirst for happiness; because the soul was formed for God, the source and centre of all bliss. This

call of the spiritual nature after God, is universal and unchangeable: nor can it cease, even where the soul has wandered widest from its great original. Nay, all its restlessness, and all its misery, proceed from this, that it is still in search of what it can never find. It has, in this view, been well observed, that the votaries of sinful pleasure, pay, in their very vices, a blind, unconscious homage to the sovereign good. And though, as the Apostle speaks, "they change the glory of the incorruptible God, into an image," made like unto whatever their vilest affections may shape to themselves, as happiness; still, in all this, God is, in some sense, ignorantly worshipped. And as the moth, by a strange fatuity of instinct, hovers round the fatal flame, and eludes every effort to preserve it ;-not because it is bent on its own destruction; but because it mistakes the midnight glare, for the dawning splendours of the day: so does the unhappy sinner lie prostrate before his idols, and defile himself with impurities;-not because he desires to perish; but because he takes each false appearance, for the reality of enjoyment, and is seeking, through the wide waste of the world, what alone can be found in God.

But the merchantman in my text, was doubtless, meant to represent, not the miserable slave of sensuality and vice, but one who sought for happi