and be affected with thy danger. God may meet thee with true conviction, and give thee repentance unto life.

I must also warn you who are careless of all religion, not to exult over "the generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet are not washed from their filthiness." You wallow, as swine, in your filthiness of sin, and will ye exult over those, in the same condition, who yet are not so impudently revelling in it as you are? They are restrained by some degree of religious reverence : you do not think it worth while to profess any regard to God. Their very profession of religion evinces some respect to the righteous Governor of the World. But you despise him openly. The very profession of serious religion excites your contempt, and can ye justify this even to your own consciences? You are glad to find false professors disgraced. But remember true religion loses none of its excellencies by their hypocrisy and ill conduct. There are counterfeits in all things. If a man is to treat true experimental religion with contempt, because of false profession, there is not one thing in the world that he can value; for there never was a good thing but it had its counterfeits. Instead of treating all religion with reproach on this account, it would be your wisdom to study true religion, and learn to distinguish it from false. A glass toy may glitter, and seem as valuable, to one who is no judge of such things, as a diamond. Yet on being shown the deception, he would not conclude there were no such things as diamonds. But he judges as foolishly who despises all religion on account of hypocrites.

A word to those that are poor and of a contrite spirit, and whose hearts stand in awe of the Divine word. I hope you may have heard, this day, not only something that may condemn the false professor, but comfort the true. That self-knowledge and self-despair which makes no part of the hypocrite's character, is a strong feature in yours. That entire dependance upon Christ alone, and increasing sense of his strength, and of human weakness, which the false professor is an utter stranger to, forms a distinguishing part of your religious experience. The more you thus grow in grace, and in the knowledge of your Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ," the more you will be washed from your idols, and from your filthiness, and enabled to perfect holiness in the fear of God.

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SERMON IX.

THE DIFFERENT MANNER IN WHICH THE

RIGHTEOUS AND THE WICKED DIE.

Proverbs, xiv. 32.

The Wicked is driven away in his wickedness: but the Righteous hath hope in his death.

HAVING considered in some former discourses the way of obtaining righteousness and sanctification by faith in Jesus Christ, I need not say to those who know them by experience, how necessary to their well-being, both here and hereafter, it is, that they should be established in the truth of these doctrines. But now, methinks, I can conceive the opinion which many form of such discourses, if in truth they think it worth while to think of such subjects at all. They wonder why one should deal so much in abstruse speculations, and refined notions of things. They see no use, or importance in them, but think it would be better to confine our discourses to plain moral subjects, which the vulgar can understand. These thoughts are so suited to the perverted state of nature, that I wonder not that so many are duped by them. Indeed all will, in general, think thus, except persons with whom religion is matter of heart-work. These will pity the ignorance of such objectors, and assure them, that Jesus " made of God righteousness and sanctification," is no such

abstruse subject as to require any depth of human learning to comprehend it, since it is taught of God. The proudest scholar must learn it of the Holy Ghost, or not at all; and the simplest and most unlettered soul, when taught of God, can comprehend it as well as the brightest scholars.

These subjects are christianity itself; necessary to the being of a christian, and among many most valuable purposes, which I stay not now to mention, this is one fruit of a spiritual understanding of them, that they fit a man for death. Yes: in that awful hour the soul who knows Jesus as his righteousness and sanctification, can rejoice and leave the world in triumph, as one who is going to enjoy his true rest, while all who are destitute of this knowledge either die in terror, in stupidity, or at least in false peace. To be fitted for death is reason enough for learning any thing. What should the grand business of life be, but to prepare for death?

Do thou, good Lord, infix a real solemnity in our hearts, while we weigh this subject. Do thou place death with proper weight on our souls, and deliver us from levity and carelessness of spirit. Thy truths always prevail where men are serious. Do thou, therefore, give seriousness to us who are here, while we consider the usefulness of Christ in the heart to a dying man, and the misery of the soul that in death is destitute of this knowledge, whatever it may know besides.

Solomon observes the different the righteous and the wicked die. hath hope in his death :" therefore he dies in peace, and resigns his breath into the hands of his Saviour with joy. Would you see the righteous man thus die in peace? Behold Stephen, the first Christian martyr. The fury of his enemies and the volley of their stones disturb not, at all, the heaven within him. He sees the glory of God, and " Jesus standing at the right-hand of God." He says to his Saviour and his friend, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." He prays heartily for his enemies, and then falls asleep. For his hope is full of immortality. Generally speaking, it is in the article of death that the light of God's countenance, more particularly, shines on the saint. However he may have been tossed with tempests, darkened, as to his evidences, and chastised by his heavenly Father for his sins, while in health, yet in death the Lord remembers him, and favours him with the manifestations of his grace, that so he may take up the Apostle's song,

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O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be to God who giveth me the victory through Jesus Christ my Lord."

Thus "the righteous hath hope in his death." But it is not so with the wicked: he " is driven away in his wickedness:" Led captive indeed, and hurried along by sin and Satan all his life, so that he moves not like a free man, but eminently in his death is he "driven away." You can conceive how the condemned malefactor is driven away to death, when against his will he is carried to the place of execution. But not he only, all who die in their wickedness, unpardoned, unreconciled to God, are hurried out of life against their wills, divorced from that which makes their heaven-this earth's enjoyments-to appear before God in judgment, and be sentenced to everlasting fire. There may be different degrees in which this unwillingness of the wicked to