escape from some threatening danger, or your recovery from some acute disease, you experience a seriousness, hitherto unknown, which soon spends its force, and leaves you gradually to relapse into your former habits of vice, and your former levity of disposition. You are exact, it may be, in observing all the stated seasons of public worship-you catch greedily at every novel doctrine-or you exult in hearing and learning some new form of devotion— but if you do not persist in serving God-if you do not throw a rein on the fury of your appetites -- if you do not bridle the impetuosity of your tongue, and correct the malignity of your hearts, then is your religion vain. Splendid it may appear to others-in your own estimation it may be highly meritorious; but in the sight of God it is imperfect, unsound, and unavailing. Righteousness therefore includes a constant and earnest regard in all our actions, in all situations, to the love of man as well as the love of God-to the rectitude of our habits as well as the purity of our principles. The haven of happiness is open before you; and it is to be reached not by sudden squalls, which may throw you out of your course- not by boisterous tempests, which may drive you on the quicksands of despair or temptation—but by a strong and steady gale, which leaves you at liberty to see and to shun every surrounding danger-which encourages you to go forward with extraordinary success — which enables you to advance without stubborn obstructions from without, or frivolous delays from within-without relaxation and without rashness. To conclude The completion of our Lord's blessing, that we shall be filled, is reserved to another life, and thus far it well justifies our endeavour to attain it. For he that sets his affections on things below, will find them perishable and unsatisfactory -often obtained when they are no longer desired, or desired where they cannot be obtained-seldom laudable in the pursuit, and yet more rarely permanent in the enjoyment. But the things which are above cannot be wrested from us by external causes, and they will present gratifications perfectly proportionate to our most refined and elevated capacities of happiness. Whatever good we may have renounced-whatever evil we may have undergone to attain them, will be remembered with triumph; and all the painful sensations of our hunger and thirst after righteousness will, when we are filled, be experienced no more. But there is another sense of the words, in which we shall be blessed even upon earth, for the reality of which we may appeal, not only to the promise of our Redeemer, but to the dictates of our own experience. I mean this—in a virtuous course of actions, the desire itself will be a part of our enjoyment. Know you not, that in pursuing any worldly aim, that is not absolutely criminal, you find a great pleasure in contemplating the object-in observing the approaches you make to it-in calculating the means that are requisite to gain it - and in anticipating the fuller satisfaction you are to enjoy, when it is gained? From the same principle of the human mind, the love of virtue itself, when it is sincere when it is fervent-when it is active, will be a perpetual source of self-approbation to those who cultivate it. Every new conquest gained over your passions-every new habit acquired of religion -every new resolution you form and prosecute to promote your eternal happiness, will add to your peace, and stimulate those holy desires which sudden and temporary gratification is unable to satisfy. And here it is, that the superiority of our religious affections appears in its brightest colours. They resemble indeed habits, which, like others, are strengthened by time; for, surely, if vice clings to us more closely from repeated use, it is no less the property of virtue to become more easy, and more delightful from the same cause; and even to be desired more eagerly, as it is longer practised. The intemperate and sensual man perseveres in his ungodly course of excess and of lewdness more and more deeply, even when they have ceased to please him, and when the keenness of his appetites is blunted. The penurious and insatiable miser amasses treasures, which he cannot use; and though he finds an increase of pain rather than pleasure from his ruling passion, he persists in gratifying them, and in seeking new occasions of disquietude and vexation. But the religious man finds a repast yet more and more delicious. His desires are quickened by the recurrence of enjoyments which are more exquisite, as they are more frequent. Time cannot weaken them; disappointment cannot embitter them. They attend him when he goeth out and cometh in-in solitude-in society-in the 678 ON HUNGER AND THIRST AFTER RIGHTEOUSNESS. business of the day and in the stillness of the night. They sweeten the cheerful hours of his youth, -they soften the pains of increasing age — they will not desert him in the hour of death, and in the day of judgment they will be renewed, confirmed, and invigorated. 679 SERMON XLVII. * LIVE PEACEABLY WITH ALL MEN. ROMANS xii. 18. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you live peaceably with all men. BENEVOLENCE is the great principle on which Christianity is founded; and it tends equally to the honour of religion, and the advantage of society, that Christ exacts from his disciples in their conduct towards each other the same illustrious quality that was displayed on the part of God in the redemption of mankind. The impetuosity of wrath, the bitterness of evil-speaking, and the cruelty of revenge, are peremptorily forbidden in every page of the Gospel. That man is there pointed out by the Sacred writers as the most acceptable servant of Christ, who cultivates a large and generous love towards his fellow-creatures-who seeks for opportunities of doing them good-who diligently retreats from every temptation to injure them-and who, by a happy union of prudence with good-nature, lives peaceably with all men. The advice contained in my text was doubtless peculiarly proper for St. Paul to give, and for the Romans to follow. For about the time, in which * 1778. |