the kind of snares, these are the kind of sophisms, the apostle apparently had in view, when he speaks of "weights, and the sin that doth so easily beset us."

Thanks be to God, my dear brethren, that though we are right, on the one hand, in saying that some among you, "have need to be taught again the first principles of the doctrine of Christ; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat," Heb. v. 12; thanks be to God, that you afford us, on the other hand, the consolation granted to our apostle, of seeing among you cultivated minds, geniuses conversant with the sublime mysteries of Christianity, and with the severest maxims of morality. Hence I should deem it an injustice to your discernment and knowledge, if, in the instructions I may give to-day, whether for the period of persecution, or for the ordinary conduct of life, I should enlarge on those truths which properly belong to young converts. What? in a church cherished by God in so dear a manner: what! in a church which enjoys a ministry like yours, is it necessary to affirm, that people are unworthy of the Christian name, when, during the period of persecution, they anticipate, if I may so speak, every wish of the persecutors, when they carry in their bosoms, formularies which abjure their religion; when they attend all the services of superstition; when they enjoy, in consequence of their apostacy, not only their own property, but the property of those "who have gone with Jesus Christ without the camp, bearing his reproach?" What! in a church like this, would it be requisite to preach, that men are unworthy of the Christian name, who, in the time of ecclesiastical repose, deliberately live in habits of fornication and adultery; who, in the face of heaven and earth, entice their neighbour's wife, who wallow in wickedness, who are ever disposed either to give or to receive "the wages of unrighteousness?" Oh! my very dear brethren, these are not plausible pretences; these are not subtle snares; they are the sensible sophisms, the broad snares which deceive those only who are resolved to be deceived. There are, however, subtle snares, which deceive the most established Christians. To these the apostle has immediate reference when he exhorts us to "lay aside every weight, and the sin that does so easily beset us." On this shall turn chiefly the explication we shall give of the terms. What are those peculiar kinds of temptations? What are the precautions we must take to resist them? These are the two leading subjects of this discourse; to these subjects will venture to solicit the continuation of the attention with which you have designed to favour me.

I. Let us begin with the temptations, to which we are exposed in the time of ecclesiastical tribulation.

1. The devil would sometimes inspire us with sentiments of unbelief respecting the truth of the promises God has given the church. It seems a difficult task, to reconcile the magnificence of those promises with the deluge of calamities which have inundated it in periods of persecution. What is this church, according to the prophets? It is a society, which was to be completely irradiated with the glory of God.

It was a society to which kings were to be the nursing-fathers, and queens the nursing-mothers. It is a society, whose prosperity should have no end, which should realize this prediction: "Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment; but my salvation shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished," Isa. li. 6. It is a society, whose prosperity made the prophets exclaim, "Break forth into joy; sing together ye waste places of Jerusalem: for the Lord hath comforted his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God," Isa. lii. 9, 10. To say all in one word, it is a society built upon the rock, and of which Jesus Christ has said, "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it," Matt. xvi. 18. What is the conformity between these promises and the event! or if you please, what likeness is there between the portrait and the original! Does not hell prevail against the church, when her enemies exile her pastors, scatter her flock, suppress her worship, and burn her sanctuaries? Do all nations see the salvation of God, the arm of the Lord made bare, to effectuate distinguished events in behalf of this society; when they are given up to the fury of their tyrants; when Pilate and Herod are confederated to destroy them; when they obtain over them daily new victories? Do the waste places of Jerusalem sing, when the ways of Zion mourn, "when her priests sigh," and when "her virgins are afflicted?" Does her salvation remain for ever, when the church has scarcely breathed in one place, before she is agitated in another; when she has scarcely survived one calamity, before she is overtaken with another; when the beast causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, bond and free, to receive his mark in their hand, or in their forehead? Rev. xiii. 16. Are kings nursing-fathers to the church, and queens nursing-mothers, when they snatch the children from her breasts; when they populate the deserts with fugitives; and cause the dead bodies of her witnesses to lie in the streets of the great city, which is called Sodom and Egypt? Rev. xi. 8.

It is against this first device of Satan, St. Paul would fortify the Hebrews in the words of my text. Hear his admonitions and instructions; have you forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children; my son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him? For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and Scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he, whom the Father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards and not sons," Heb. xii. 5—8.

I have no need to arm you with any other shield against the sentiments of unbelief, with which some of you are assailed on viewing the calamities of the church. Ecclesiastical persecutions are paternal chastisements, which God inflicts upon her members. I would ask our brethren, who complain of the length of

First, the positive declarations of our Scriptures. God is merciful, it is true; but he is an arbitrator of the terms on which his mercy is offered: or, as it is written, he extends mercy to whom he pleases; and God who extends mercy to whom he pleases, declares that he will show no mercy to those who refuse to honour his truth. He declares, that "he will deny those before his Father, who deny him before men," Matt. x. 33. He declares, that "he who loveth father or mother more than him, is not worthy of him," Matt. x. 37. He declares, that "they who receive the mark of the beast, or worship his image, shall be cast alive into the lake of fire, burning with brimstone," Rev. xix. 20. He declares, that he will class in the great day, "the fearful;" that is, those who have not had courage to confess their religion, with the "unbelieving," with "the abominable," with "the murderers," with "the whoremongers," with "the sorcerers," with "the idolaters," with "the liars." He declares, that "the fearful shall," in common with others, be cast into the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death," Rev. xxi. 8.

The second reflection, which should be a shield for repelling this illusion of the devil, arises from the nature of the crime itself, accounted a mere infirmity. Four characters contribute to the atrocity of a crime. 1. When it is not committed in a moment of surprise, in which we are taken unawares. 2. When we persist in it not only for a few hours, or days, but live in it for whole years. 3. When during those years of criminality, we have all the opportunities we could reasonably ask of emancipation. 4. When this crime not only captivates the solitary offender, but draws a great number more into the same perdition. These four characters all associate with the crime in question, the crime reckoned a weakness, and obstinately classed among the infirmities of nature. But I have not resolution to enlarge upon this subject, and to prove, that our unhappy brethren are in such imminent danger of destruction. And the expiration of my time is a subordinate inducement to proceed to other subjects.

II. Were it possible for the discourses introduced into this pulpit to be finished pieces, in which we were allowed to exhaust the subjects; were you capable of paying the same attention to exercises, which turn on spiritual subjects, you bestow on business or pleasure, I would present you with a new scheme of arguments; I would reduce, to different classes, the temptations which Satan employs to obstract you in the course. But we should never promise ourselves the completion of a subject in the scanty limits to which we are prescribed.

I shall take a shorter course, harmonizing the extent and importance of the remaining subject

1. Scarcely will you be liberated from the arms of the nurse, when you fall under the care of weak and indulgent people; who will, through a cruel complaisance, take as much pains to cherish the corrupt propensities of nature, as they ought to take for their subjugation. At this early period they will sow in your heart awful seeds, which will produce an increase of thirty, sixty, or an hundred-fold. They will make a jest of your faults, they will applaud your vices, and so avail themselves of your tender age, to give a thousand and a thousand wounds to your innocence, that all your application will scarcely heal, when you shall be capable of application. If you do not avail yourselves of the first sentiments of piety and reason, to resist so far as the weakness of childhood will permit, those dangerous snares, you will find yourselves very far advanced in the road of vice before your situation is perceived. 2. Is infancy succeeded by youth? Fresh snares, new temptations, occur. On the commencement of reflection, you will discover ex isting, in your constitution and temperature, principles grossly opposed to the law of God. Perhaps the evil may have its principal seat in the soul, perhaps in the body. In the temperature of the soul, you will find principles of envy, principles of vanity, or principles of avarice. In the temperature of the body, you will find principles of anger, principles of impurity, or principles of indolence. If you are not aware of this class of temptations, you will readily suffer yourselves to be carried away by your propensity, and you will obey it without remorse; you will invest it with privilege to do with innocence, what the rest of the world cannot do without a crime. You must expect to find in your temperature principles which will dispense with virtue, and to be captivated by maxims which too much predominate in the world, and which you will daily hear from the mouths of your companions in dissipation. These maxims are, that youth is the age of pleasure; that it is unbecoming a young man to be grave, serious, devout, and scrupulous; that now we ought to excuse not only games, pleasure, and the theatres, but even debauchery, drunkenness, luxury, and profaneness; that swearing gives a young man an air of chivalry becoming his age, and debauchery an air of gallantry which does him credit in the world. Caution yourselves against this class of temptations: reject the sin which so easily destroys you, if you should relax in one single instance. Ah!

think, my son, that you may never survive those years you devote to the world, think that the small-pox, a fever, a single quarrel, or one act of debauchery, may snatch away your life. Think, though you should run your full course, you will never have such flexible organs, so retentive a memory, so ready a conception, as you have to-day; and consequently, you will never have such a facility for forming habits of holiness. Think how you will one day lament to have lost so precious an opportunity. Consecrate your early life to duty, dispose your heart, at this period, to ensure salvation. "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, in which thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them," Eccles. xii. 1.

3. After having considered the period of youth, we proceed to maturer age. A new stage, fresh snares, more temptations. What profession can you choose, which the spirit of the world has not infected with its venom; and which has not, so to speak, its peculiar morality? The peculiar morality of a soldier, whose duty is to defend society, to maintain religion, to repress licentiousness, to oppose rapine by force: and to deduce, from so many dangers, which open the way of death, motives to render the account which Heaven will require: but it is a profession in which a man thinks himself authorized to insult society, to despise religion, to foment licentiousness, to lend his arm, to sacrifice his life, to sell his person for the most ambitious designs, the most iniquitous conquests, and sanguinary enterprises of sovereigns.

The peculiar morality of the statesman and magistrate, whose profession is to preserve the oppressed, to weigh with calmness a long detail of causes and consequences, to avail himself of the dignity to which he is elevated to afford examples of virtue; but it is a profession in which he thinks himself entitled to become inaccessible to the injured, to weary them out with mortifying reserves, with insupportable delays, and to dispense with labour and application, abandoning himself to dissipation and vice.

The peculiar morality of the lawyer, whose duty is to restrict his ministry to truth and justice, never to plead for a cause which has not the appearance of equity, and to be the advocate of those who are inadequate to reward his services: but it is a profession in which a man thinks himself authorized to maintain both falsehood and truth, to support iniquity and falsehood, and to direct his efforts to the celebrity he may acquire, or the remuneration he may receive.

The peculiar morality of the merchant, whose duty is to detest short weights and false measures, to pay the revenue, and to be satisfied with a moderate profit: but a profession in which he thinks himself authorized to indulge those very vices he ought in particular to avoid.

The peculiar morality of the minister. What is the vocation of a minister? Is it not to devote himself entirely to virtue? Is it not to set a pattern to all the church? Is it not to visit the hospitals, and houses of affliction, and to alleviate, as far as he can, the pressure of their calamities Is it not to direct his studies, not to subjects by which he may acquire celebrity for learning and eloquence, but to those which may

render him most useful? Is it not to determine on the choice of a text, not by the caprice of the people, which on this point is often weak, and mostly partial, but by the immediate wants of the flock? Is it not to pay the same attention to a dying man, born of an obscure family, stretched on a couch of grass, and unknown to the rest of the world, as to him who possesses a distinguished name, who abounds in wealth, who provides the most splendid coffin and magnificent funeral? Is it not to "cry aloud, to lift up his voice like a trumpet, to show the people their transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sins; to know no man after the flesh;" and when he ascends this pulpit, to reprove vice with firmness, however exalted may be the situation of the offender? But what is the morality of a pastor? "Enter not into judgment with thy servants, O Lord; for we cannot answer thee one of a thousand." Caution yourselves against this class of temptations. The world is neither your legislator, nor your judge; Jesus Christ, and not the world, is the sovereign arbitrator. It is the morality of Jesus Christ, and not the maxims of men, which you should follow.

4. Having reviewed human life in infancy, youth, and manhood, I proceed to consider it in old age; in that old age, which seems so distant, but which is, in fact, within a few years; in that old age which seems, in some sort, at the distance of eternity, but which advances with astonishing rapidity. A new state, fresh snares, more temptations occur: infirmities, troubles, and cares, arrive with age. The less there remains on earth to defend, the more men are resolved not to let it go. The love of life having predominated for fifty or sixty years, sometimes unites and attaches itself, so to speak, yet more closely to the short period, which they think is still promised. It is so rooted and intrenched in the heart, as to be immoveable by all our sermons on eternity. They look on all who witness the calamities they suffer, as though they were the cause: it seems as though they were reproached for having lived so long, and they make them atone for this imaginary fault, as though they were really guilty. The thoughts of death they put away with the greater care, as it approaches nearer, it being impossible to avoid the idea, without these efforts to remove it. They call to their aid amusements, which would scarcely be excusable in the age of infancy: thus they lose the precious remains of life,-granted by the longsuffering of God, as they have lost the long course of years, of which nothing now remains but the recollection.

Be on your guard, aged men, against this class of temptations, and against these illusions, which will easily beset you, unless the whole of your strength be collected for precaution and defence. Let prayer be joined to vigilance: let those hands, trembling and enfeebled with the weight of years, be raised to heaven: let that voice, scarcely capable of articulating accents, be addressed to God: entreat him, who succoured you in the weakness of infancy, in the vigour of youth, in the bustle of riper age, still to sustain you, when the hand of time is heavy upon your head.

Hitherto, my dear brethren, I have address