Sup

ousness, temperance, and a judgment to come. pose he had preached to-day before the multitude now present: let us speak ingenuously. What sort of application would he have made? What subject would he have discussed? What vices would he have reproved? What estimate would he have formed of most of your lives? What judgment would we have entertained concerning this worldly spirit, which captivates so great a multitude? What would he have said of that insatiable avarice in the acquisition of wealth, which actuates the general mass; which makes us like the grave, incessantly crying, give, give, and never says, it is enough? What would he have said concerning the indifference about religion said to be found among many of us, as though the sacrifices, formerly made for our reformation, had been the last efforts of an expiring religion, which no longer leaves the slightest trace upon the mind? What would he have said of those infamous debaucheries apparently sanctioned by a frantic custom, and which ought not to be named among Christians? Extend the supposition. It is St. Paul who delivers those admonitions. It is Paul himself who expands to your view the hell he opened before Felix and Drusilla; who conjures you by the awful glory of the God, who will judge the living and the dead, to reform your lives, and assume a conduct correspondent to the Christian name, you have the honour to bear.

To the ministry of the apostle, we will join, exhortations, entreaties, and fervent prayers. We conjure you by the mercies of that God who took his

Son from his own bosom and gave him for you, and by the value of your salvation, to yield to a ministry so pathetic.

Be mindful of righteousness, temperance, and a judgment to come. Observe this equity in your dealings never indulge the propensity to unlawful gain. Render to Cæsar the things that are Casar's, Mark xii. 17. Respect the rights of the sovereign. Pay tribute to whom tribute is due, Rom. xiii. 7. Let the indigence and obscurity of your labourers, and lowest artists, be respectable in your sight; recollecting that the little that a righteous man hath, is beller than the riches of many wicked, Psalm xxxvii. 16. Do not narrow the rules of rectitude: keep it in view, that God did not send you into the world to live for yourselves.-To live solely for ourselves is a maxim altogether unbecoming a Christian; and to entrench ourselves in hoards of gold and silver, placed above the vicissitudes of human life, is a conduct the most incompatible with that religion whose sole characteristic is compassion and benevolence.

Observe also this temperance.

Exclude luxury

from every avenue of your heart. Renounce all unlawful pleasures, and every criminal intrigue. Caution your conduct, especially in this licentious place, in which the facility of vice, is a continual temptation to its charms. Let your chastity be apparent in your dress, in your furniture, in your conversation. Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, Col. iv. 6. According to St. Peter's advice, Let not the adorning of women be that outward

adorning, of plaiting the hair, and of wearing gold, or of putting on of apparel: but let it be the hidden man of the heart, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price, 1 Pet. iii. 3, 4. Recollect, that the law of God is spiritual; that there is an impurity of the mind, an adultery of the heart; that certain desires to please, certain artful emotions, certain lascivious airs, and certain attempts to wound the virtue of others, (though we may apparently observe the most rigid rules of decorum,) may be as heinous before God as the most glaring faults into which a man may have been reluctantly precipitated by his passions, and in which the will may have had the less

concern.

Keep constantly in view, the judgment to come. Think, O think that an invisible eye watches over all your actions. Think that they are all registered in a faithful journal which shall be produced before the universe, in the great day, when Jesus Christ shall descend in glory from heaven.

My dear brethren, be not ingenious to enfeeble conviction by accounting the object remote. The trumpet is ready to sound, the books are about to be opened, and the throne is already prepared. The views of the soul are circumscribed, like the sight of the body. The narrow circle of surrounding objects engrosses nearly the whole of our attention; and retards the extension of thought to superior concerns. The reality of a judgment, comprises so many amazing revolutions in the universe, that we cannot regard the design as ready for execution. We cannot con

ceive the face of nature to change with such rapidity; and that those awful revolutions which must precede the advent of the Son of God, may occur in a few ages. But let us not be deceived. I grant, you are right in the principle, but you err in the consequence. There is nothing in the most distant occurrence of this period which can flatter security. If the judgment is remote with regard to the world, it is near with respect to you. It is not necessary, with regard to you, for the face of nature to be changed, the Jews to be called into the covenant, the sound of the gospel to go to the end of the earth, the moon to be turned to darkness, the stars to fall from heaven, the elements to melt with fervent heat, the heavens to pass away with a great noise, and the earth to be dissolved. There is only wanting a deficiency of humours in your body; only a little blood out of its place; only some fibre disorganized; only an inflammation in the head, a little diminution, or augnentation of heat or cold, in the brain;-and, behold your sentence is pronounced. Behold, with regard to you, the world overturned, the sun darkened, the moon become bloody, the gospel preached, the Jews converted, the elements dissolved, the heavens folded up as a garment, the foundations of the earth shaken, and its fashion passed away.

Enter seriously into these reflections. And, since each of the duties we have prescribed requires time and labour, avoid dissipation and excess of business. My brethren, it is here that we would redouble our zeal, and would yet find the way to your hearts. We will not enter into the detail of your engage

thents; we will not turn over the pages of your account. We will not visit your counting-houses. We will not even put the question, whether your business is always lawful; whether the rights of the sovereign and the individual are punctually discharged. We will suppose that all is fair on these points. But consider only that the most innocent engagements become criminal, when pursued with excessive application, and preferred to the work of salvation.

This maxim belongs to you, merchants, dealers, tradesmen. You see at this period, the poverty and wretchedness which assail an infinite number of families. The soldier languishes in the midst of war without employment, and he is in some sort obliged to beg his bread, The nobleman, far from his means, a thousand times more unhappy than the peasant has no industry to procure his bread. The learned man is even a burden; and the productions of the greatest geniuses, so far from receiving remuneration, are not even noticed.

Amid such a series of calamities, you alone have means for the acquisition of riches. A government mild and lenient, a commerce vast and productive opens, if I may so speak, all the avenues of fortune. The eastern and western world seem to concur in the augmentation of your wealth. You live not only with ease, but elegance. Your houses are sumptuously furnished, your tables deliciously served and after the enjoyment of these advantages, you transmit them to posterity; even after death you still taste and enjoy them in the persons of your children.