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 councils of their own wisdom; while without interposition from above, generals conquered or fell, according to the vicissitude 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 tenour, 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 out 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 thy God require of thee, but to do justly and love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God?

* Micah, vi. 8.

16

SERMON II.

On the Influence of RELIGION upon ADVERSITY,

PSALM XXVii. 5.

In the time of trouble, he shall hide me in his pavilion; in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me ; he shall set me upon a rock.

THE life of man has always been a very mixed

state, full of uncertainty and vicissitudes, 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.*

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 contemplate them in prospect without dismay, and, if they must befal, to bear them without dejection. Throughout every

* Eccles. xi. 8.

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 terrour 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. It brings them into the secret of his tabernacle, by opening to them sources of con

solation 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 connections, 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 upon them from that quarter.

They have neither principles nor temper which