delivered to Timothy, that it might be the rule of his preaching: All Scripture is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for inftruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works (p). If you love not to hear the strict and holy morality of the New Testament preffed and enforced upon you by Christian principles: is it not a proof that you do not relish the ftrictness and holiness of that morality? Is it not a proof of a fecret consciousness that your morality is not of that strict and holy nature? If it is with reluctance that you lend your ear, whenever the terrors referved for the wicked are proclaimed: is it not a proof either that you presumptuously imagine yourself unconcerned in those denunciations of divine vengeance; or that

you

wish to smother and lay asleep your inward misgivings of guilt? Injudicious and dangerous is that spiritual physician, who administers little except opiates and cordials. Ignorant and deluded is that private Christian, who condemns and rejects every other mode of treatment. Let your wounds be searched to the bottom, if you are so

(p) 2 Tim. iii, 16, 17.

Z 2

licitous

licitous that they should be healed. Welcome every degree of difcipline neceffary to your everlasting health. Apply not to yourself the comforts of the Gospel farther than the predominant frame of pers, difpofitions, and defires, and the habitual courfe of your life and converfation, afford evidence on which you may be fcripturally authorised to hope that, at present, you belong to the people of God.

your tem

If you are not living unto Chrift through faith; if your conversation is not fuch as becometh the Gospel of Christ; if you walk not worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called; if you are not proved to be one of the peculiar people of Christ by being purified from the dominion of corrupt tempers, principles, and practices, and by having become zealous of good works: to prefume on the comforts of the Gospel is unwarranted and destructive.

But if, after deep and devout self-examination, you have folid reason to hope that faith in the Son of God has led you to delight in his commandments; if it be your prevailing defire that the renewing grace of the Holy Spirit fhould fanctify your heart unto obedience; if it be your habitual study and endeavour to bring every thought,

every temper, every action, into fubjection to the laws and conformity with the example of your Lord; to love God above all things, and man, in the next place, for the fake of God; and to manifest the ftedfastness and fervency of your love to God and man by uniform and unequivocal deeds, by living to the glory of your heavenly King and the good of your fellowCreatures: then may you humbly confide that you are at present one of the people of God; then may you regard yourself as entitled by the mercy of Chrift to apply to your own comfort the promises of the Gospel. Remember, however, the ground on which you stand. Remember that, if your obedience begins to flag; if a worldly fpirit gains strength in your bofom; exactly in the fame proportion your title to comfort is undermined. The righteoufnefs of the righteous fhall not deliver him in the day of his tranfgreffion. When the righteous turneth from his righteoufness and committeth iniquity; he shall even die thereby. Remember that when St. Paul befeeches God to comfort the hearts of the Theffalonians, that petition is connected with a second prayer indifpenfable to the fuccefs of the former; that he would eftablish them

in every good word and work. Blessed are they, faith our Saviour, by the mouth of St. John, almost as it were closing the volume of Scripture with the momentous warning; blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have a right to the tree of life (q). Brethren! remain through faith in our Lord Jefus Chrift ftedfast in evangelical obedience. So fhall the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghoft (r).

(9) Rev. xxii. 14.

(r) Rom. xv. 13.

SERMON XVII.

On religious Defpondence.

PSALM XXXviii. 6.

I am troubled; I am bowed down greatly; I go mourning all the day long.

I See men as trees walking; faid the blind perfon, when at the word of Chrift he first opened his eyes. The eyes of the mind, no less than thofe of the body, are unable to sustain, without being dazzled and bewildered, a fudden tranfition from darkness to light. The objects which float before them, new, dimly viewed, imperfectly comprehended, are divested of their proper shapes, their native colours, their genuine dimenfions, their wonted accompaniments, their obvious use and application; and not unfrequently present themfelves as gigantic phantoms, arrayed in imaginary terrors. It is only by collecting