feem quite overstocked with the days and hours of it, and are continually

fending out into the ftreets of the city for and take it off their

highways and guests to come. hands.-If fome

of the more distressful objects of this kind were to fit down, and write a bill of their time, though partial as that of the unjust steward,-when they found in reality, that the whole fum of it, for many years, amounted to little more than this,—that they had rose up to eat, -to drink,-to play,-and had laid down again, merely because they were fit for nothing else :-when they looked back and beheld this fair space, capable of fuch heavenly improvements,all fcrawled over and defaced with a fucceffion of fo many unmeaning cyphers, -good GOD!-how would they be afhamed and confounded at the account!

With what reflections will they be able to support themselves in the decline of a life fo miferably caft away, -should it happen, as it fometimes

does, that they have ftood idle even unto the eleventh hour?-We have not always power, and are not always in a temper, to impofe upon ourselves.When the edge of appetite is worn down, and the spirits of youthful days are cooled, which hurried us on in a circle of pleasure and impertinence,then reafon and reflection will have the weight which they deferve;-afflictions, or the bed of fickness, will fupply the place of confcience ;-and if they should fail,-old age will overtake us at last,

and fhew us the paft purfuits of life, -and force us to look upon them in their true point of view.-If there is any thing more to caft a cloud upon fo melancholy a profpet as this fhews us, it is furely the difficulty and hazard of having all the work of the day to perform in the last hour;—of making an atonement to GOD, when we have no facrifice to offer him, but the dregs and infirmities of those days, when we could have no pleasure in them.

How far GOD may be pleased to accept fuch late and imperfect services, is beyond the intention of this difcourfe. Whatever ftrefs fome may lay upon it, a death-bed repentance is but a weak and flender plank to trust our all upon.-Such as it is;-to that, and GOD's infinite mercies, we commit them, who will not employ that time and opportunity he has given to provide a better fecurity.

That we may all make a right use of the time allotted us,-GOD grant through the merits of his Son Jefus Christ. Amen.

SERMON

XXXVIII.

On Enthusiasm.

O

ST. JOHN XV. 5.

-For without me, ye can do nothing.

UR Saviour, in the former part of the verfe, having told his difciples, -That he was the vine, and that they were only branches ;-intimating, in what a degree their good fruits, as well as the fuccefs of all their endeavours, were to depend upon his communications with them;-he closes the illuftration with the inference from it, in the words of the text,-For without me, ye can do nothing. In the 11th chapter to the Romans, where the manner is explained in which a chriftian stands by faith,there is a like illustration made use of, and probably with an eye to this,-where St. Paul instructs us,-that a good man