evident; and yet frequent admonitions are needed, to renew the impression of it upon mankind. For what purpose did thy Creator place thee in this world, in the midst of human society, but that as a man among men thou mightest cultivate humanity; that each in his place might contribute to the general welfare: that as a spouse, a brother, a son, or a friend, thou mightest act thy part with an upright and a tender heart; and thus aspire to resemble Him who ever consults the good of his creatures, and whose tender mercies are over all his works? And darest thou, who hast been sacrificing unsuspicious innocence to thy loose pleasures; thou, who hast been disturbing the repose of society by thine ambition or craft; thou, who, to increase thy treasures, hast been making the widow and the orphan weep; darest thou approach God with thy worship and thy prayers, and entertain the hope that he will look down upon thee in peace? Will the God of order and justice accept such poor compensation for his violated laws? Will the God of love regard the services of one who is an enemy to his creatures? Shall a corrupter of the society of men aspire to the habitations of pure and blessed spirits?Believe it, He that saith he loveth God, must love his brother also. Cease to do ecil, learn to do well. Seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow! And then, Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to thee; call upon him in the day of trouble, and he will answer thee. Thy prayers and thine alms shall then ascend in joint memorial before the Most High.

I have now shewn the evil of maiming and splitting of religion; of dividing asunder two things, which though in theory they may be separated, yet in practice must always coexist, if either of them be real; devo

tion to God, and charity to men. Let us consider the next happy effects of their union.

Their union forms the consistent, the graceful, the respectable character of the real Christian, the man of true worth. If you leave either of them out of your system, even though you excel in the other, you can stand trial only in one point of view. It is only on one side your character is fair; on the other, it will always be open to much reproach. And as you dishonour yourselves, so you do great injustice to religion. For, by dividing its parts from one another, you never fail to expose it to the censure of the world: and perhaps, by this sort of partial and divided goodness, religion has suffered more in the esteem of mankind, than by open profligacy. The unbeliever will scoff at your piety, when he sees you negligent of moral duties. The bigot will decry all morality, when he sees you pretending to be a follower of virtue, though you be a despiser of God. Whereas, he who fears God, and is at the same time just and beneficent to men, exhibits religion to the world with full propriety. It shines in his conduct with its native splendour; and its rays throw a glory round him. His character is above reproach. It is at once amiable and venerable. Malice itself is afraid to attack him; and even the worst men respect and honour him in their hearts.

This too is the man whose life will be most peaceful and happy. He who fails materially either in piety or in virtue, is always obnoxious to the anguish of remorse. His partial goodness may flatter him in the day of superficial observation; but when solitude or distress awakens the powers of reflection, he shall be made to feel that one part of duty performed, atones not for another which is neglected. In the midst of his prayers, the remembrance of injustice will

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braid him with hypocrisy; and in the distribution of his alms, the prayers which the poor put up for him will make him blush for his neglect of God. Conscience will supply the place of the hand coming forth to write over against him on the wall, Thou art weighed in the balance, and art found wanting.. (Dan. v. 27.) Whereas he who holds both faith and a good conscience, who attends equally to the discharge of his duty towards God and towards man, enjoys, as far as human imperfection allows, the sense of fairness and consistency in conduct, of integrity and soundness of heart.

The man of mere morality is a stranger to all the delicate and refined pleasures of devotion. In works of beneficence and mercy, he may enjoy satisfaction. But his satisfaction is destitute of that glow of affection, which enlivens the feelings of one who lifts his heart at the same time to the Father of the universe, and considers himself as imitating God. The man again who rests solely in devotion, if that devotion open not his heart to humanity, not only remains a stranger to the pleasures of beneficence, but must often undergo the pain arising from bad passions. But when beneficence and devotion are united, they pour upon the man in whom they meet the full pleasures of a good and pure heart. His alms connected him with men, his prayers with God. He looks without dismay on both worlds. All nature has to him a benign aspect. If engaged in active life, he is the friend of men; and he is happy in the exertions of that friendship. If left in retirement, he walks among the works of nature as with God. Every object is enlivened to him by the sense of the Divine presence. Every where he traces the beneficent hand of the Author of nature; and every where with glowing heart, he hears and an

swers his secret voice. When he looks up to heaven, he rejoices in the thought that there dwells that God whom he serves and honours; that Saviour in whom he trusts; that Spirit of grace from whose inspiration his piety and his charity flow. When he looks around him on the world, he is soothed with the pleasing remembrance of good offices which he has done, or at least has studied to do, to many who dwell there. How comfortable the reflection, that him no poor man can upbraid for having withheld his due; him no unfortunate man can reproach for having seen and despised his sorrows; but that on his head are descending the prayers of the needy and aged; and that the hands of those whom his protection has supported, or his bounty has fed, are lifted up in secret to bless him!

Life, passed under the influence of such dispositions, naturally leads to a happy end. It is not enough to say, that faith and piety, joined with active virtue, constitute the requisite preparation for heaven. They, in truth, begin the enjoyment of heaven. In every state of our existence, they form the chief ingredients of felicity. Hence they are the great marks of Christian regeneration. They are the signature of that Holy Spirit, by which good men are said to be sealed unto the day of redemption. The text affords a striking proof of the estimation in which they are held by God. Amidst that infinite variety of human events which pass under his eye, the prayers and the alms of Cornelius attracted his particular notice. He remarked the amiable dispositions which rose in the heart of this

good man. But he saw that they were yet imperfect, while he remained unenlightened by the principles of the Christian religion. In order to remove this obstruction to his rising graces, and to bring him to the full

knowledge of that God whom he sought to honour, he was favoured with a supernatural message from heaven. While the princes of the earth were left to act by the counsels of their own wisdom; while, without interposition from above, generals conquered or fell, according to the vicissitudes of human things; to this good centurion an angel was commissioned from the throne of God. What can I say more or higher in praise of this blessed character, than that it is what God delights to honour? Men single out, as the objects of distinction, the great, the brave, or the renowned. But he who seeth not as man seeth, passing by those qualities which often shine with false splendour to human observation, looks to the inward principles of action; to those principles which form the essence of a worthy character, and which, if called forth, would give birth to whatever is laudable or excellent in conduct. Is there one, though in humble station, or obscure

life, who feareth God and worketh righteousness; whose prayers and alms, proceeding in regular unaffected tenor, bespeak the upright, the tender, the devout heart? Those alms and prayers come up in memorial before that God who is no respecter of persons. The Almighty beholds him from his throne with complacency. Divine illumination is ready to instruct him. Angels minister to him. They now mark him out on earth as their future associate, and for him they make ready in paradise, the white robes, the palms, and the sceptres of the just.

To this honour, to this blessedness, let our hearts continually aspire; and throughout the whole of life, let those solemn and sacred words with which I conclude, sound in our ears, and be the great directory of our conduct. He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but—to do justly and to love mercy--and to walk humbly with thy God? (Mic. vi. 8.)

THE life of man has always been a very mixed state, full of uncertainty and vicissitude, of anxieties and fears. In every religious audience, there are many who fall under the denomination of the unfortunate; and the rest are ignorant how soon they may be called to join them. For the prosperity of no man on earth is stable and assured. Dark clouds may soon gather over the heads of those whose

sky is now most bright. In the midst of the deceitful calm which they enjoy, the storm that is to overwhelm them has perhaps already begun to ferment. If a man live many years and rejoice in them all; yet let him remember the days of darkness, for they shall be many. (Eccles. xi. 8.)

Hence, to a thoughtful mind, no study can appear more important, than how to be suitably prepared for

the misfortunes of life; so as to con- | template them in prospect without dismay, and, if they must befal, to bear them without dejection. Throughout every age, the wisdom of the wise, the treasures of the rich, and the power of the mighty, have been employed, either in guarding their state against the approach of distress, or in rendering themselves less vulnerable by its attacks. Power has endeavoured to remove adversity to a distance; philosophy has studied, when it drew nigh, to conquer it by patience; and wealth has sought out every pleasure that can compensate or alleviate pain.

While the wisdom of the world is thus occupied, religion has been no less attentive to the same important object. It informs us in the text, of a pavilion, which God erects to shelter his servants in the time of trouble; of a secret place in his tabernacle, into which he brings them; of a rock on which he sets them up; and elsewhere he tells us, of a shield and a buckler, which he spreads before them, to cover them from the terror by night, and the arrow that flieth by day. Now of what nature are those instruments of defence which God is represented as providing with such solicitous care for those who fear him? Has he reared up any bulwarks, impregnable by misfortune, in order to separate the pious and virtuous from the rest of mankind, and to screen them from the common disasters of life? No; to those disasters we behold them liable no less than others. The defence which religion provides, is altogether of an internal kind. It is the heart, not the outward state, which it professes to guard. When the time of trouble comes, as come it must to all, it places good men under the pavilion of the Almighty, by affording them that security and peace which arise from the belief of divine protection. If brings them into the secret of his

tabernacle, by opening to them sources of consolation which are hidden from others. By that strength of mind with which it endows them, it sets them up upon a rock, against which the tempest may violently beat, but which it cannot shake.

How far the comforts proceeding from religion merit those high titles under which they are here figuratively described, I shall in this Discourse endeavour to shew. I shall for this end compare together the situation of bad men and that of the good, when both are suffering the misfortunes of life; and then make such improvement as the subject will naturally suggest.

I.-Religion prepares the mind for encountering, with fortitude, the most severe shocks of adversity; whereas vice, by its natural influence on the temper, tends to produce dejection under the slightest trials. While worldly men enlarge their possessions, and extend their connexions, they imagine that they are strengthening themselves against all the possible vicissitudes of life. They say in their hearts, My mountain stands strong, and I shall never be moved. But so fatal is their delusion, that, instead of strengthening, they are weakening, that which can only support them when those vicissitudes come. It is their mind which must then support them; and their mind, by their sensual attachments, is corrupted and enfeebled. Addicted with intemperate fondness to the pleasures of the world they incur two great and certain evils; they both exclude themselves from every resource except the world; and they increase their sensibility to every blow which comes them from that quarter.

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They have neither principles nor temper which can stand the assault of trouble. They have no principles which lead them to look beyond the ordinary rotation of events; and