Can we find these means in the world--in the lights and efforts of unassisted reason?

Can we find the means of securing our spiritual perfection and happiness in the world? The world is the enemy of our spiritual and immortal hopes; the world is the enemy whose temptations we are to shun with the greatest solicitude, whose allurements we are to resist with the most sacred resolution for inspiration hath pronounced-" The friendship of the world is enmity with God." With the world, indeed, we must in some measure be occupied; to its numerous duties we must be sedulously attentive; of its innocent pleasures we may occasionally and with moderation partake. But if we give up to the world the whole of our affections and of our time; if we expect, by the devoted pursuit of its treasures and honours, and by the eager indulgence of its pleasures, to advance our true perfection and happiness, how great will be our disappointment! how deplorable our mistake!

Commune then with your own hearts concerning the world; consult your own experience, appeal to your experience, and see how vain are all its allurcments, how uncertain all its plans, how unsatisfying all its joys, and how dangerous and corrupting its temptations. Idle and delusive, then, the expectation to advance our spiritual perfection and happiness by devotion to a world which lieth in wickedness, whose flattering prospects terminate in disappointment, and which is to be consumed by the fires of the last day.

Can we advance and secure our spiritual perfection and happiness by the unassisted lights and efforts of reason?

himself time seriously to reflect that there is a God, a judgment, an eternal existence-obduracy will soon seal his heart; given up to a reprobate mind, God will not be in all his thoughts. Arouse, then, sinner; reflect on the guilt and danger of thy impenitent course: seek thy God while he may be found, call upon him while he is near.

This sacred communion with the heart is also necessary to the sincere Christian.

It is necessary to his perfection in the Christian graces, and to his enjoyment of the Christian hopes.

In proportion as you retire, Christians, from the bustle and gayety of the world, to commune with your own hearts, to hold converse with your God, to meditate on the mercy and love of your Saviour, on the riches of the eternal inheritance which he has provided for you, will be your progress in piety and virtue, and your consolation and joy in your holy course. Blessed is the privilege of meditating on heaven and heavenly things! Happy above the happiest moments which you can find in the world, are those which are devoted to your God, to communion with him, to the anticipation of the bliss prepared for you in his presence. In these devout exercises you will find a solace for all your cares, a healing balm for your wounded spirit. In sacred communion with your hearts, you will experience that God is gracious; that blessed are all they that trust in him; that you are strengthened against temptation; that you are raised above the imperfect joys of the world, and prepared for that heaven where there is fulness of joy, and where there is pleasure for evermore.

SERMON XXI.

CONSIDERATION OF TEMPORAL AND SPIRITUAL DUTIES.

ROMANS xii. 11.

Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord.

THESE words are an admirable summary of the duty of a Christian; they are an appropriate and forcible exhibition of his external conduct as it regards the world, of the temper of mind which he should cultivate towards God, and of the great end at which he should aim in all his actions, and the principle by which he should regulate all his dispositions and affections. As it respects the world, he is enjoined "not to be slothful in business;" as it respects his piety to God, he is to be "fervent in spirit;" and the great end at which he should aim in all his actions, and the principle by which he should regulate all his dispositions and affections, is "serving the Lord." He is not permitted to extenuate or excuse his indolence or negligence in the concerns of the world, by the plea of being engrossed by the fervour of his religious feelings. He is not to excuse his lukewarmness in the exercises and duties of religion, by the care and diligence which his worldly affairs demand. Nor is be to defend either that excessive devotedness and diligence in the concerns of the world, which lead him to neglect the duties of a fervent piety, or that immoderate fervour of religious feeling which

prompts him to neglect or contemn his worldly business, by the pretext that God is to be served solely by worldly industry on the one hand, or religious fervour on the other. No; according to the injunction of the apostle, these duties are all of indispensable obligation, and all strictly compatible; and they have an important influence upon each other-" Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord."

Let these then be the divisions of our discourse: 1. These duties are all binding upon us. 2. They are strictly compatible with each other. 3. And they have a mutual and important influence.

1. These duties are all binding upon us. "Not slothful in business."

The universe is full of motion; countless worlds incessantly rolling through immeasurable space, proclaim that activity is the first law of nature. The great Creator himself is unceasingly occupied in superintending that universe which his power called into existence, and in diffusing through its almost infinitely distant parts, life, and glory, and felicity his eternal perfections lead to incessant and ineffably exalted activity.

That blessed personage who, the brightness of the Father's glory, went through a series of the most active and painful labours for the salvation of the human race, is still incessantly engaged, at the right hand of the Father, in pouring forth intercessions for those for whom he shed his blood, in dispensing his truth and his grace to guide and defend his redeemed people.

Angels and archangels, cherubim and seraphim,

the most perfect and the most blessed of the numerous ranks of created beings, find their felicity in unceasing activity-in doing the pleasure of Him whose throne they surround, whose glorious praises they cease not day nor night to celebrate.

Even those lower ranks of beings who are destitute of the active principle of intelligence, are urged by that instinct with which Almighty Power hath endued them, to industry and labour-industry and labour often even more than necessary to their preservation and comfort..

Shall then the universe, through its boundless range-shall the Creator of the universe, the eternal Fountain of being and felicity-shall the Redeemer of the world, God over all, blessed for evermore-shall the host of heaven, foremost among intelligent creatures-shall they who, guided only by instinct, rank lowest in the scale of animate creation-shall all these be active and industrious, and in that activity find their perfection and bliss ; and shall man be sluggish and, indolent, man who, made but a little lower than the angels, ought most to resemble them in vigour and activity? No; the powers of the human mind, so vigorous and inquisitive, prove that man was designed for action, for labour, for industry. By exercise only can his intellectual powers be preserved from decay, and be advanced in strength and purity. By useful employment only can that vacuity of mind be prevented which is the bane of real enjoyment, and in which, as a hot-bed, shoot up the rankest vices.. By industrious application of his body and mind only can he provide for the comfort and welfare of those whom nature hath made dependent on him, and discharge his duty to society, which, extending to VOL. III.

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