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dead bodies, not only of natives, but of strangers, filled this holy place."*

Read the whole history of that siege, rendered for ever memorable by the multitude of its calamities. See Jerusalem swimming with blood, and entombed in its own ashes. Mark how it was besieged, precisely at the time of their most solemn festival, when the Jews were assembled from all parts of the world to celebrate their passover. See how the blood of eleven hundred thousand persons was mingled with their sacrifices, and justified the expression in the text, "Suppose ye that these Galileans were more culpable? I tell you, nay; but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." See how the walls of Jerusalem, in the same siege, sapped by the Roman ram, and by a thousand engines of war, fell down and buried the citizens in their ruins, literally accomplishing this other part of the prophecy; "Suppose ye, that those eighteen on whom the tower of Siloam fell, were sinners above all that dwelt in Jerusalem; I tell you, nay; but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish."

God has the same designs in regard to us, while afflicting Europe before our eyes. This is the point at which we must now stop. We must leave the Jews, from whom the means of conversion were ultimately removed, to profit by their awful example; and especially, from the consideration of their impenitency, to derive the most serious motives for our own conversion. CONCLUSION.

There is then so perfect a conformity between us, my brethren, and those who came to report to Jesus Christ the calamity of the poor Galileans, that one must be wilfully blind not to perceive it. 1. The Jews had just seen examples of the divine vengeance, and we also have lately seen them. 2. The Jews had been spared, and we also are spared. 3. The Jews were likewise as great offenders as those that had fallen under the strokes of God; and we are as great offenders as those that now suffer before our eyes. 4. The Jews were taught by Jesus Christ what disposition of mind they should in future assume; and we are equally instructed. 5. Those Jews hardened their hearts against his warning, and were ultimately destroyed; (O God, avert this awful augur!) we harden our hearts in like manner, and we shall experience the same lot,

if we continue in the same state.

1. We ourselves, like the Jews who were present at that bloody scene, have seen examples of the divine vengeance. Europe is now an instructive theatre, and bespangled with tragic scenes. The destroying angel, armed with the awful sword of celestial vengeance, goes forth on our right hand, and on our left, distinguishing his route by carnage and horror. "The sword of the Lord intoxicated with blood," Jer. xlvii. 6, refuses to return to its scabbard, and seems wishful to make the whole

earth a vast sepulchre. Our Europe has often been visited with severe strokes; but I know not whether history records a period in which they were so severe, and so general. God once proposed to David a terrible choice of pestilence, of war, or of famine. The best was

Joseph. Wars of the Jews, book v.

awful. But now God does not propose; he inflicts them. He does not propose any one of three; he inflicts the whole at once. On what side can you cast your regards, and not be presented with the like objects? To what voice can you hearken which does not say, "Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish?" Hear the people whose unhappy countries have for many years become the theatre of war; who hear of nothing "but wars and rumours of wars," who see their harvest cut down before it is ripe, and the hopes of the year dissipated in a moment. These are instructive examples; these are loud calls, which say, "Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." Hear those people over whose heads the heavens are as brass, and under whose feet the earth is as iron, who are consumed by scarcity and drought: these are instructive examples; these are loud calls which say, "except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." Hear those people among whom death enters with the air they breathe, who see fall down before their eyes, here an infant, and there a husband, and who expect every moment to follow them. These are awful examples; these are loud calls, which say, "Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." Thus our first parallel is correct; we, like the Jews, have seen examples of the divine vengeance.

We

2. We, like the Jews, are still spared; and whatever part we may have hitherto had in the calamities of Europe, thank God, we have thers, and given us refuge under his wings." not fallen. "He has covered us with his feaWe have not been struck with "terror by night," nor with "the arrow that flieth by day," nor with " the pestilence that walketh in darkness," nor, "with the destruction that wasteth at noon-day. A thousand have fallen at our side, and ten thousand on our right hand; but the destruction has not come nigh and of fasting have ever been alleviated with to us," Ps. xci. 4-7. Our days of mourning joy; and this discourse which recalls so many gloomy thoughts, excites recollections of comfort. The prayers addressed to Heaven for so many unhappy mortals precipitated to peril, are enlivened with the voice of praise, inasmuch as we are still exempt from the scourge. with joy and with grief at the same instant; weep between the porch and the altar, with grief, from a conviction that our sins have excited the anger of God against Europe; tended to us; and if we say, with a contrite with joy because his fury has not as yet exheart, "O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee; but unto us confusion of face: O Lord, Lord, pardon the iniquity of thy people," we enter not into judgment with thy servants: O shall make these walls resound with our thanksgiving. We shall say with Hezekiah, hast in love to my soul delivered it from the "A great bitterness is come upon me, but thou pit of corruption." We shall say, with the prophet Jonah, "Thy billows and thy waves have passed over me; then I said I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again towards thy holy temple; and with Jeremiah, "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, and because his compassions fail not: they are new every morning." Our second parallel is there

fore correct; we like the Jews, are still spared. | if these walls which surround us were about Dan. ix. 7; Joel ii. 17; Isa. xxxviii. 17; Jonah ii. 3; Lam. iii. 22, 23.

3. Like the Jews, we are not less guilty than those who fall before our eyes under the judgments of God. What a revolting proposition, you will say? What! the men whose hands were so often dipped in the most innocent blood, the men who used their utmost efforts to extinguish the lamp of truth, the men who are rendered for ever infamous by the death of so many martyrs, are they to be compared to us? Can we say of their calamities, what the Lord said to the Jews concerning the calamities named in the text, "Think ye that these Galileans were sinners above all Galileans? Think ye that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell, were sinners above all that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, nay.” We would wish you, my brethren, to have as much patience in attending to the parallel, as we have had ground for drawing it. Who then, in your opinion, is the greater sinner, he who opposes a religion he believes to be bad, or he who gives himself no sort of concern to cherish and extend a religion he believes to be good? He, who for the sake of his religion sacrifices the goods, the liberty, and the lives of those that oppose it, or he who sacrifices his religion to human hopes, to a sordid interest, and to a prudence purely worldly? He who enters with a lever and a hatchet into houses he believes profane, or he who feels but languor and indifference when called upon to revive the ashes he accounts holy, and to raise the foundations he believes sacred? A glance on the third parallel is, I presume, sufficient to induce you to acknowledge its propriety.

to fall, and to make us like the eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell? And what would our situation be, if the curses on those ancient people, and which are this day accomplished in so many parts of Europe, should fall upon us? "The Lord shall make the pestilence cleave unto thee, until he consume thee from off the land. The heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron. The Lord shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies. And because thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joyfulness and with gladness of heart, thou shalt serve in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in want, an enemy which shall put a yoke upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee. And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters which the Lord thy God shall give thee," Deut. xxviii. 21. 23. 25. 47, 48. 53.

My brethren, let us not contend with God, let us not arm ourselves with an infatuated fortitude. Instead of braving the justice of God, let us endeavour to appease it, by a speedy recourse to his mercy, and by a genuine change of conduct.

This is the duty imposed on this nation; this is the work of all the faithful assembled here. But permit me to say it, with all the respect of a subject who addresses his masters, and, at the same time, with all the frankness of a minister of the gospel who addresses the subjects of the King of kings, this is peculiarly your work, high and mighty lords of these provinces, fathers of this people. In vain do you adopt the measures of prudence to avert the calamities with which we are threatened, unless you endeavour to purge the city of God of the crimes which attract them. The languishing church extends to you her arms. The ministry, rendered useless by the profligacy of the age, has need of your influence to maintain itself, and to be exercised with success; to put a period to the horrible profanation of the sab

Amid so many dissipations, and this is the fourth point of similarity, Jesus Christ still teaches us the same lessons he once taught the Jews. He renders us attentive to Providence. He proves that we are concerned in those events. He opens our eyes to the war, the pestilence, and famine, by which we are menaced. He exhibits the example of the multi-bath, which has so long and so justly become tude who fall under those calamities. He says, "surely thou shalt receive instruction." He avers that the same lot awaits us. He speaks, he presses, he urges. "He hews us by his prophets, and slays us by his word," to use an expression of Hosca, vi. 5. To all these traits, our situation perfectly coincides. What then can obstruct our application of the latter," Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish."

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our reproach; to suppress those scandalous publications which are ushered with insolence, and by which are erected before your eyes, with impunity, a system of atheism and irreligion; to punish the blasphemers; and thus to revive the enlightened laws of Constantine and Theodosius.

If in this manner, we shall correspond with the designs of God in the present chastiseAnd shall events so bloody leave no impres- ments of men, he will continue to protect and sion on your mind? Ye shall all likewise defend us. He will dissipate the tempests perish?" What would your situation be, if ready to burst on our heads. He will confirm this prophecy were about to be acccomplished? to us the truth of that promise he once made If our lot were about to be like that of the to the Jews by the ministry of Jeremiah; "At Galileans? If on a fast-day, a sacramental what instant I shall speak concerning a nation day, a day in which our people hold an extra--to pull down and to destroy it-If that naordinary assembly, a cruel and ferocious soldiery, with rage in their hearts, with fury in their eyes, and murderous weapons in their hands, should rush and confound our devotion with carnage, sacrificing the father before the eyes of the son, and the son before the eyes of the father, and make this church swim with the blood of the worshippers? What would your situation be, if the foundations of this church were about to be shook under our feet,

tion turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil I thought to do unto them,” xviii. 7, 8. In a word, after having rendered our own life happy, and society tranquil, he will exalt us above all clouds and tempests, to those happier regions, where there shall be "no more sorrow, nor crying, nor pain;" and where "all tears shall be for ever wiped from our eyes." Rev. vii. 17; xxi. 4. God grant us the grace: to whom be honour and glory for ever. Amen.

SERMON XCVII.

A TASTE FOR DEVOTION.

PSALM lxiii. 5, 6.

convinced; but that religion charmed, ravished, and absorbed his soul by its comforts. "My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my soul shall praise thee with joyful lips; when I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate upon thee in the night-watches.”—In discussing the subject,

I. We shall trace the emotions of our pro

II. We shall consider the words with regard to the humiliation they reflect on the most part of Christians; and inquire into the judgment we ought to form of our own state, when destitute of the piety of sentiment and taste, so consoling to a regenerate soul.

My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fat-phet, and to give you the ideas, if it be possible ness, and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful to give them, of what we understand by the lips: when I remember thee upon my bed, and piety of taste and sentiment. meditate upon thee in the night-watches. Ir is a felicity to be acquainted with the arguments which forcibly attach us to religion. It is a great advantage to be able to arrange, with conclusive propriety, the arguments which render virtue preferable to vice. It is a high favour to be able to proceed from principle to principle, and from consequence to consequence, so as to say in one's own breast, with a conscious mind of the excellence of piety, I am persuaded that a good man is happy.

But how sublime soever this way of soaring to God may be, it is not always sufficient. Arguments may indeed impose silence on the passions; but they are not always sufficiently cogent to eradicate them. However conclusive demonstrations may be in a book, in a school, in the closet, they appear extremely weak, and of very inadequate force, when opposed to sentiments of anguish, or to the attractions of pleasure. The arguments adduced to suffer for religion, lose much of their efficacy, not to say of their evidence, when proposed to a man about to be broken alive on the wheel, or consumed on a pile. The arguments for resisting the flesh; for rising superior to matter and sense, vanish, for the most part, on viewing the objects of concupiscence. How worthy then is that man of pity who knows no way of approaching God, but that of discussion and argument!

There is one way of leading us to God much more safe; and of inducing to abide in fellowship with him, whenever it is embraced; that is, the way of taste and of sentiment. Happy the man, who, in the conflicts to which he is exposed from the enemy of his soul, can oppose pleasure to pleasure, and joy to joy; the pleasures of piety and of converse with Heaven to the pleasure of the world; the delights of recollection and solitude to those of brilliant circles, of dissipations, and of theatres! Such a man is firm in his duty, because he is a man; and because it depends not on man to refuse affection to what opens to his soul the fountains of life. Such a man is attached to religion by the same motives which attach the world to the objects of their passions, which afford them exquisite delight. Such a man has support in the time of temptation, because "the peace of God which passeth all understanding, keeps," so to speak, the propensities of his heart, and the divine comforts which inundate his soul, obstructs his being drawn away to sin.

Let us attend to-day to a great master in the science of salvation. It is our prophet. He knew the argumentative way of coming to God. "Thy word," said he to himself, "is a lamp unto my feet, and a lantern to my paths," Ps. cxix. 105. But he knew also the way of taste and of sentiment. He said to God in the words of my text, not only that he was persuaded and

III. We shall investigate the cause of this calamity.

IV. We shall propose some maxims for the acquisition of this piety, the want of which is so deplorable; and to enable you to say with David, "My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my soul shall praise thee with joyful lips, when I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate upon thee in the night-watches."

I. We must define what we understand by the piety of taste and sentiment. Wishful to compress the subject, we shall not oppose profanation to eminent piety, nor apparent piety to that which is genuine. We shall oppose reality to reality; true piety to true piety; and the religion of the heart to that which is rational and argumentative. A few examples, derived from human life, will illustrate this article of religion.

Suppose two pupils of a philosopher, both emulous to make a proficiency in science; both attentive to the maxims of their master; both surmounting the greatest difficulties to retain a permanent impression of what they hear. But the one finds study a fatigue like the man tottering under a burden: to him study is a severe and arduous task: he hears because he is obliged to hear what is dictated. The other, on the contrary, enters into the spirit of study; its pains are compensated by its pleasures: he loves truth for the sake of truth; and not for the sake of the encomiums conferred on literary characters, and the preceptors of science.

Take another example. The case of two warriors, both loyal to their sovereign; both alert and vigilant in military discipline, which, of all others, requires the greatest vigilance and precision; both ready to sacrifice life when duty shall so require; but the one groans under the heavy fatigues he endures, and sighs for repose: his imagination is struck with the danger to which he is exposed by his honour: he braves dangers, because he is obliged to brave them, and because God will require an account of the public safety of those who may have had the baseness to sacrifice it to personal preservation: yet amid triumphs he envies the lot of the cottager, who having held the plough by day, finds the rewards at night of domestic repose. The other, on the contrary, is born with an insatiable thirst of glory, to which nothing can be arduous: he has by nature, that noble courage, shall I call it, or that happy temerity, that amid the greatest danger, he sees no dan

ger; victory is ever before his eyes; and every | thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, yea, step that leads to conquest is regarded as a victory already obtained.

for the living God," Ps. xxvii. 8; xlii. 1. The delicious sentiments he finds in the communion of Jesus Christ, prompts him to forget all the sacrifices he has made for a participation therein.

These examples are more than sufficient to confirm your ideas, and make you perceive the vast distinction we make between a speculative and an experimental piety, and to enable you In a word, not to multiply cases, the one in some sort to trace the sentiments of our pro- dies because he must die: he yields to that irphet, "My soul shall be satisfied as with mar-revocable sentence, "Return, ye children of row and fatness, and my soul shall praise thee with joyful lips; when I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate upon thee in the nightwatches." He who has a rational and a speculative piety, and he who has a piety of taste and sentiment, are both sincere in their efforts; both devoted to their duty; both pure in purpose; both in some sort pleasing to God; and both alike engaged in studying his precepts, and in reducing them to practice; but O, how different is their state!

The one prays because he is awed by his wants, and because prayer is the resource of the wretched. The other prays because the exercise of prayer transports him to another world; because it vanishes the objects which obstruct his divine reflections; and because it strengthens those ties which unite him to that God, whose love constitutes all his consolation, and all his treasure.

The one reads the word of God because his heart would reproach him for neglecting a duty so strongly enjoined, and because without the Bible he would be embarrassed at every step. The other reads because his heart burns whenever the Scriptures are opened; and because this word composes his mind, assuages his anguish, and beguiles his care.

The one gives alms, because the doors of heaven shall be shut against the unpitiable; because without alms there is no religion; because Jesus Christ shall one day say to those who have been insensible to the wants of others, "Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire, for I was hungry, and ye gave me no meat;" and because the rust of the gold and silver of "the covetous shall be a witness against them, and shall eat their flesh as a fire," Matt. xxv. 41; James v. 3. The other gives because there is a kind of instinct and mechanical impulse, if you will excuse the phrase, which excite in his breast the most delicious sensations in the distribution of alms: he gives because his soul is formed on the model of that God, whose character is love, "who left not himself without witness, in that he did good," and whose happiness consists in the power of imparting that felicity to others.

The one approaches the Lord's table, because the supreme wisdom has enjoined it; he subdues his passions because the sacrifice is required; in resuming his heart from the objects of vice, he seems to abscind his own flesh; it would seem requisite always to repeat in his ears this text, "He that eateth this bread, and drinketh this cup unworthily, eateth and drinketh his own condemnation." The other comes to the Lord's table as to a feast; he brings a heart hungering and thirsting for righteousness; he inwardly hears the gentle voice of God, saying, "Seek ye my face:" he replies, "Thy face, Lord, I will seek. As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after VOL. II.-49

men,"* Ps. xc. 3. Submission, resignation, and patience, are the pillars which sustain him in his agony. The other, on the contrary, meets death as one who would go to a triumph. He anticipates the happy moment with aspirations, which shall give flight to his soul; he cries, he incessantly cries, "Come Lord Jesus, come quickly." Patience, resignation, submission, seem to him virtues out of season: he exercised them while condemned to live; not when he is called to die. Henceforth his soul abandons itself wholly to joy, to gratitude, and to transports.

II. Let us inquire in the second article what judgment we should pass upon ourselves when destitute of the heartfelt piety we have just described.

There are few subjects in the code of holiness, which require greater precision, and in which we should be more cautious to avoid visionary notions. Some persons regard piety of taste and sentiment so essential to salvation, as to reprobate all those who, as yet, have not attained it. Certain passages of Scripture misconstrued serve as the basis of this opinion. Because the Spirit of God sheds a profusion of consolations on the souls of some believers, it would seem that he must shed it on all. They presume that a Christian must judge of the state of his mind less by the uprightness of his heart, and the purity of his motives, than by the enjoyments, or the privation of certain spiritual comforts. A man shall powerfully wrestle with his passions, be always at war with himself, and make to God the severest sacrifices, yet if we do not feel certain transports, he must be regarded as a reprobate. A man, on the contrary, who shall be less attentive to the conditions of salvation, and less severe towards himself, must, according to the casuists I attack, banish all sorts of doubt and scruple of his salvation, provided he attain to certain transports of ecstacy and joy.

Whatever basis or solidity there may be in one part of the principles which constitute the foundation of this system, there are few that are more dangerous. It often gives occasion to certain ebullitions of passion, of which we have too many examples. It is much easier to warm the imagination than to reform the heart. How often have we seen persons who thought themselves superior to all our instructions, because they flattered themselves with having the Spirit of God for a guide, which inwardly assured them of their pardon and eternal salvation? How often have we seen persons of this description take offence because we doubted of what they presumed was already decided in

*What critic besides our author gives this turn to these words of Moses! Their glosses are, either return by repentance, or, "Come again as the grass after the scythe, and re-people the earth, after being desolated a thousand years before the flood."

J. S.

their breast, by a divine influence and supernatural voice? How often have we seen them reject with high disdain and revolt, strictures of which they were but too worthy? Let us not give place to enthusiasm. Let us ever preserve our judgment. The Spirit of God guides indeed, but he does not blind. I prefer a humility destitute of transports, to transports destitute of humility. The piety of taste and sentiment is certainly the privilege of some regenerate people: it is indeed a disposition of mind to which all the regenerate should aspire; but we must not exclude those that are weak from regeneration.*

But if there is danger of striking on the first rock, there is some danger of striking on the second. Under a plea that one may be saved without the conscious comforts we have described, shall we give ourselves no inquietude about acquiring them? Shall we give our heart, and our warmest affections to the world; and offer to God but an exhausted, a constrained and reluctant obedience? Let us inquire in what case, and what respects we may console ourselves when deprived of conscious comfort; and in what case, and what respects, we ought to mourn when deprived of those divine favours. 1. Abstract and spiritual objects seldom make so deep an impression on the mind as those which are sensible. This is not always

But

Saurin, in twenty places of his sermons, attacks a class of opponents whom he calls casuists, or guides and directors of the soul. These were the supralapsarians. That class of men, I have little doubt, were very clear in the doctrine of the Spirit. And Saurin is not only clear, but sublimely so, as will appear from this sermon. he errs in too much restricting it to the more highly favoured class of saints. Perhaps this arose from early prejudice; perhaps from want of seeing the work of conversion on an extended scale; perhaps the opposition he received urged his replies beyond the feelings of his heart, and so far as to drive him to apparent contradictions of himself. We must never console the well disposed with the doctrine of unconscious salvation, but urge them to

seek it, as the Scriptures do, and as our author fully does in the latter part of this discourse. The exceptions are in favour of men of a nervous and dejected mind, who mostly die more happily than they live. Now, I would ask, is a man to attain the whole Christian temper without the influences of the Spirit? Can the harvest and the fruits ripen without the solar influence? Can we be satisfied with our imperfect marks of conversion till assured that we consciously love God from a reaction of his love shed abroad in our heart? Rom. v. 5. Did not the primitive Churches walk in the comforts of the Holy Ghost? Acts ix. 31. And is there any intimation that the witness--the seal the unction-and the app or earnests and comforts of the Holy Spirit were confined to Christians of the first age? How are we to attain the Divine image without a Divine and conscious influence? And if God testify his frowns against all crimes by secret terrors of conscience, why may he not testify his approbation of the penitent, when he believes with the heart unto righteousness? Why should the most gracious of all beings keep us through the fear of death all our lives subject to bondage? Is heaven a feast of which only a few favoured ones can have a foretaste? Are there no consolations in Christ Jesus, exclusive of a future hope, to which our infirmities afford but a very defective title?' Hence, I cannot but lament the ignorance, or bewail the error of ministers, who ridicule the doctrine of the Spirit. Assurance, comfort, and the witness of adoption, are subjects of prayer rather than of dispute. This part of religion, according to Bishop Bull, is better understood by the heart than by the head. The reader who would wish to be adequately ac quainted with the doctrine of the Spirit, may consult St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and Macarius. In our own tongue, Bishop Bull's sermons; the sermon of Bishop Smallridge, and Dr. Conant on the comforter; Mr. Joseph Mede and Dr. Cudworth on 1 John ii. 3; Dr. Owen on the Spirit: Dr. Watts' three sermons, and Mr. Wesley's sermon on the witness of the Spirit; the collect for the sixth Sunday after Trinity.

an effect of our depravity, but a consequence of our infirmity. A man may be able to pay a better supported attention to an exhibition than to a course of holy meditation; not that he loves an exhibition more than holy meditation, but because the one devolves on abstract and spiritual truths, while the other presents him with spiritual objects. You feel no wandering thoughts in presence of an earthly monarch who holds your life and fortune in his hands; but a thousand distractions assail you in converse with the God, who can make you eternally happy, or eternally miserable. This is not because more exalted ideas of God's power than of the monarch's are denied; it is because in God's power the object is abstract, but in the monarch's, the object is sensible; it is because the impression of sensible objects is stronger than those which are abstract. This, perhaps, induced St. John to say, "If a man love not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?" This argument in appearance is defective.Does it follow, that because I love not my brother, whom I see, being full of imperfections, that I do not love God, who, though unseen, is an all-perfect being? This is not the apostle's argument. He means, that the dispositions of the soul are moved by sensible, rather than by abstract and spiritual objects. If we possessed that source of tenderness, which prompts the heart to love God, our tenderness would be moved at the sight of a man in distress, and we should be instantly led to succour him. If the sight of an afflicted man; if this sensible object make no impression upon us, the Divine perfections which are spiritual and abstract objects, will leave us lukewarm and unanimated. Let each of us, my brethren, apply this remark to the subject in hand. We sometimes want a taste and inclination for devotion; this is beritual, and make a less impression on the mind, cause the objects of piety are abstract and spithan the objects of sense. This is not always an effect of our corruption; it is sometimes a consequence of natural frailty.

2. The piety of preference and of sacrifice has a peculiar excellence, and may sometimes afford encouraging marks of salvation, though unaccompanied with the piety of sentiment and taste. You do not find the same vivacity in prayer that you once found in public diversions, but you prefer prayer to those diversions, and you sacrifice them for the sake of prayer. You do not find the same pleasure in reading books of piety you felt in reading profane books, but you sacrifice profane reading for books of devotion. You have not the same pleasure in the contemplation of death as in the prospects of life, but on being called on to die, you prefer death both to health and life. You uniformly surrender your health and your life to the pleasure of Heaven on being called to the crisis. You would not ransom, by the slightest violation of the divine law, this life and health, how dear soever they may be to you. Console yourselves, therefore, with the testimony of a good conscience. that you are sincere in the sight of God; and that while aspiring at perfection, your sincerity shall be a substitute for perfection.

Be assured

3. The holy Scriptures abound with passages

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