thoughts; by such hearts God is not defied, he is only forgotten. Of this forgetfulness, the general causes are worldly cares and sensual pleasures. If there is a man, of whose soul avarice or ambition have complete possession, and who places his hope in riches or advancement, he will be employed in bargains or in schemes, and make no excursion into remote futurity, nor consider the time in which the rich and the poor shall lie down together; when all temporal advantages shall forsake him, and he shall appear before the supreme tribunal of eternal justice. The slave of pleasure soon sinks into a kind of voluptuous dotage, intoxicated with present delights, and careless of every thing else, his days and his nights glide away in luxury or in vice, and he has no cure, but to keep thought away; for thought is always troublesome to him who lives without his own approbation.

That such men are not roused to the knowledge and the consideration of their real state, will appear less strange, when it is observed, that they are almost always either stupidly or profanely negligent of those external duties of religion, which are instituted to excite and preserve the fear of God. By perpetual absence from public worship, they miss all opportunities, which the pious wisdom of Christianity has afforded them, of comparing their lives with the rules which the Scripture contains; and awakening their attention to the presence of God, by hearing him invoked, and joining their own voices in the common supplication. That carelessness of the world to come, which first suffered them to omit the duties of devotion, is, by that omission, hourly increased; and having first neglected the

means of holiness, they in time do not remember them.

A great part of them whose hearts are thus hardened, may justly impute that insensibility to the violation of the sabbath. He that keeps one day in the week holy, has not time to become profligate, before the returning day of recollection reinstates his principles, and renews his caution. This is the benefit of periodical worship. But he, to whom all days are alike, will find no day for prayer and repentance.

Many enjoyments, innocent in themselves, may become dangerous by too much frequency; public spectacles, convivial entertainments, domestic games, sports of the field, or gay or ludicrous conversation, all of them harmless, and some of them useful, while they are regulated by religious prudence, may yet become pernicious, when they pass their bounds, and usurp too much of that time which is given us, that we may work out our salvation.

And, surely, whatever may diminish the fear of God, or abate the tenderness of conscience, must be diligently avoided by those who remember what is to be explained

Fourthly, The consequence of hardness of heart. "He that hardeneth his heart shall fall into mischief." Whether mischief be considered as immediately signifying wickedness, or misery, the sense is eventually the same. Misery is the effect of wickedness, and wickedness is the cause of misery; and he that hardeneth his heart shall be both wicked and miserable. Wicked he will doubtless

be; for he that has lost the fear of God, has nothing by which he can oppose temptation: he has a breast open and exposed, of which interest or voluptuousness take easy possession; he is the slave of his own desires, and the sport of his own passions; he acts without a rule of action, and he determines without any true principle of judgment. If he who fears always, who preserves in his mind a constant sense of the danger of sin, is yet often assaulted, and sometimes overpowered by temptation; what can be hoped for him, that has the same temptation, without the same defence? He who hardens his heart will certainly be wicked, and it necessarily follows, that he will certainly be miserable. The doom of the obstinate and impenitent sinner is plainly declared; "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

Let us all, therefore, watch our thoughts and actions; and that we may not, by hardness of heart, fall into mischief, let us endeavour and pray, that we may be among them that feared always, and by that fear may be prepared for everlasting happiness.

45

SERMON IV.

ISAIAH, CHAP. LVIII. VERSE 7, 8.

Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him, and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?

Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily; and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy rere-ward.

If the necessity of every duty is to be estimated by the frequency with which it is inculcated, and the sanctions by which it is enforced; if the great Lawgiver of the universe, whose will is immutable, and whose decrees are established for ever, may be supposed to regard, in a particular manner, the observation of those commands, which seem to be repeated only that they may be strongly impressed, and secured, by an habitual submission, from violation and neglect; there is scarcely any virtue that we ought more diligently to exercise, than that of compassion to the needy and distressed.

If we look into the state of mankind, and endeavour to deduce the will of God from the visible disposition of things, we find no duty more necessary to the support of order and the happiness of society, nor any of which we are more often reminded, by

opportunities of practising it, or which is more strongly urged upon us, by importunate solicitations and affecting objects.

If we inquire into the opinions of those men, on whom God conferred superior wisdom, in the heathen world, all their suffrages will be found united in this great point. Amidst all their wild opinions and chimerical systems, the sallies of unguided imagination and the errors of bewildered reason; they have all endeavoured to evince the necessity of beneficence, and agreed to assign the first rank of excellence to him, who most contributes to improve the happiness, and to soften the miseries of life.

But we, who are blessed with clearer light, and taught to know the will of our Maker, not from long deductions from variable appearances, or intricate disquisitions of fallible reason, but by messengers inspired by himself, and enabled to prove their mission by works above the power of created beings, may spare ourselves the labour. of tedious inquiries. The holy Scriptures are in our hands, the Scriptures which are able to make us wise unto salvation; and by them we may be sufficiently informed of the extent and importance of this great duty; a duty, enjoined, explained, and enforced, by Moses and the prophets, by the evangelists and apostles, by the precepts of Solomon and the example of Christ.

From those, to whom large possessions have been transmitted by their ancestors, or whose industry has been blessed with success, God always requires the tribute of charity: he commands that what he has given be enjoyed in imitating his bounty, in dispensing happiness, and cheering poverty, in