eousness.

is not exerted in them. Your prayers are insults, and he will answer them as such by terrible things in rightAnd do any of you hope to be saved by such a religion? I tell you from the God of truth, it will be so far from saving you, that it will certainly ruin you for ever: continue as you are to the last, and you will be as certainly damned to all eternity, as Judas, or Beelzebub, or any ghost in hell. But alas!

2. How common, how fashionable is this lukewarm religion! This is the prevailing, epidemical sin of our age and country; and it is well if it has not the same fatal effect upon us it had upon Laodicea; Laodicea lost its liberty, its religion, and its all. Therefore let Virginia hear and fear, and do no more so wickedly. We have thousands of Christians, such as they are; as many Christians as white men; but alas! they are generally of the Laodicean stamp; they are neither cold nor hot. But it is our first concern to know how it is with ourselves; therefore let this inquiry go round this congregation; are you not such lukewarm Christians? Is there any fire and life in your devotions? Or are not all your active powers engrossed by other pursuits?-Impartially make the inquiry, for infinitely more depends upon it than upon your temporal life.

3. If you have hitherto been possessed with this Laodicean spirit, I beseech you indulge it no longer. You have seen that it mars all your religion, and will end in your eternal ruin and I hope you are not so hardened as to be proof against the energy of this consideration. Why halt you so long between two opinions? I would you were cold or hot. Either make thorough work of religion, or do not pretend to it. Why should you profess a religion which is but an insipid indifferency with you? Such a religion is good for nothing. Therefore awake, arise, exert yourselves. Strive to enter in at the strait gate; strive earnestly, or you are shut out for ever. Infuse heart and spirit into your religion. "Whatever your hand findeth to do, do it with your might." Now, this moment, while my voice sounds in your ears, now begin the vigorous enterprise. Now collect all the vigor of your souls and breathe it out in such a prayer as this, "Lord, fire this heart with thy love." Prayer is a proper introduction: for let me remind you of what I

should never forget, that God is the only Author of this sacred fire; it is only he that can quicken you; therefore, ye poor careless creatures, fly to him in an agony of importunity, and never desist, never grow weary till you prevail.

4. And lastly: Let the best of us lament our lukewarmness, and earnestly seek more fervor of spirit. Some of you have a little life; you enjoy some warm and vigorous moments; and O! they are divinely sweet. But reflect how soon your spirits flag, your devotion cools, and your zeal languishes. Think of this, and be hum ble: think of this, and apply for more life. You know where to apply. Christ is your life: therefore cry to him for the communication of it. "Lord Jesus! a little more life, a little more vital heat to a languishing soul." Take this method, and " you shall run, and not be weary; you shall walk and not faint." Isaiah xl. 31.

SERMON XVI.

THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT THE JOY OF OUR WORLD.

PSALM XCVII. 1.-The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of the isles be glad thereof.

WISE and good rulers are justly accounted an extensive blessing to their subjects. In a government where wisdom sits at the helm; and justice, tempered with clemency, holds the balance of retribution, liberty and property are secured, encroaching ambition is checked, helpless innocence is protected, and universal order is established, and consequently peace and happiness diffuse their streams through the land. In such a situation every heart must rejoice, every countenance look cheerful, and every bosom glow with gratitude to the happy instruments of such extended beneficence.

But, on the other hand, "Wo to thee, O land, when thy king is a child," Eccles. x. 16; weak, injudicious, humorsome, and peevish. This is the denunciation of

Solomon, a sage philosopher, and an opulent king, whose station, capacity, and inclination, conspired to give him the deepest skill in politics: and this denunciation has been accomplished in every age. Empires have fallen, liberty has been fettered, property has been invaded, the lives of men have been arbitrarily taken away, and misery and desolation have broken in like a flood, when the government has been entrusted in the hands of tyranny, of luxury, or rashness; and the advantages of climate and soil, and all others which nature could bestow, have not been able to make the subjects happy under the baleful influence of such an administration.

It has frequently been the unhappy fate of nations to be enslaved to such rulers; but such is the unavoidable imperfection of all human governments, that when, like our own, they are managed by the best hands, they are attended with many calamities, and cannot answer seve ral valuable ends; and from both these considerations we may infer the necessity of a divine government over the whole universe, and particularly over the earth, in which we are more especially concerned. Without this supreme universal Monarch, the affairs of this world would fall into confusion; and the concerns of the next could not be managed at all. The capacities of the wisest of men are scanty, and not equal to all the purposes of government; and hence many affairs of importance will be unavoidably misconducted; and dangerous plots and aggravated crimes may be undiscovered for want of knowledge, or pass unpunished for want of power. A wise and good ruler may be diffusing among his subjects all that happiness which can result from the imperfect administration of mortals, but he may be tumbled from his throne, and his government thrown into the greatest disorder by a more powerful invader; so that the best ruler could not make his subjects lastingly happy, unless he were universal monarch of the globe (a province too great for any mortal) and above the reach of the ambitious power of others. Further, human dominion cannot extend to the souls and consciences of men: civil rulers can neither know nor govern them; and yet these must be governed and brought into subjection to the eternal laws of reason, otherwise tranquillity cannot subsist on earth; and especially the great pur

poses of religion, which regard a future state, cannot be answered.

Men are placed here to be formed by a proper educa tion for another world, for another class, and other em ployments; but civil rulers cannot form them for these important ends, and therefore they must be under the government of one who has access to their spirits, and can manage them as he pleases.

Deeply impressed with these and other considerations, which shall be presently mentioned, the Psalmist is transported into this reflection, "The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice; let the multitudes of the isles be glad thereof."

The Psalmist seems to have the mediatorial empire of grace erected by Immanuel more immediately in view; and this indeed deserves our special notice; but no doubt he included the divine government in general, which is a just ground of universal joy; and in this latitude I shall consider the text.

Persons in a transport are apt to speak abruptly, and omit the particles of connection and inference usual in calm reasoning. Thus the Psalmist cries out, "The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of the isles be glad thereof!" but if we reduce the pas sage into an argumentative form, it will stand thus, "The Lord reigneth, therefore let the earth rejoice; and let the multitude of the isles be glad upon this account."

The earth may here signify, by an usual metonymy, the rational inhabitants of the earth, who are especially concerned in the divine government; or, by a beautiful poetical prosopopoeia, it may signify the inanimate globe of the earth, and then it intimates that the divine government is so important a blessing, that even the inanimate and senseless creation would rejoice in it, were it capable of such passions.* The isles may likewise be taken figuratively for their inhabitants, particularly the Gentiles, who resided in them; or literally for tracts of land surrounded with water.

My present design is,

By the same figure the inanimate parts of the creation are called upon to praise the Lord, Psalm cxlviii., and are said to travail and groan under the sin of man. Rom. viii. 22.

To illustrate this glorious truth, that Jehovah's su preme government is a just cause of universal joy.

For that end I shall consider the divine government n various views, as legislative, providential, mediatorial, -ind judicial; and show that in each of these views the livine government is matter of universal joy.

I. The Lord reigneth upon a throne of legislation. Let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of the isles be glad thereof."

He is the one supreme Lawgiver, James iv. 12, and is perfectly qualified for that important trust. Nothing tends more to the advantage of civil society than to have good laws established, according to which mankind. are to conduct themselves, and according to which their rulers will deal with them. Now the supreme and universal King has enacted and published the best laws for the government of the moral world, and of the human race in particular.

Let the earth then rejoice that God has clearly revealed his will to us, and not left us in inextricable perplexities about our duty to him and mankind.

Human

reason, or the light of nature, gives us some intimations of the duties of morality, even in our degenerate state, and for this information we should bless God; but alas! these discoveries are very imperfect, and we need supernatural revelation to make known to us the way of life. Accordingly, the Lord has favored us with the sacred oracles as a supplement to the feeble light of nature; and in them we are fully "taught what is good, and what the Lord requireth of us." And what cause of joy is this! How painful are the anxieties that attend uncertainty about matters of duty! How distressing a doubtful, fluctuating mind, in an affair of such tremendous importance! This, no doubt, some of you that are conscientious have had the experience of, in particular cases, when you were at a loss to apply to them the general directions in sacred Scripture.

Again, "let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of the isles be glad," that these laws are suitably enforced with proper sanctions. The sanctions are such as become a God of infinite wisdom, almighty power, inexorable justice, untainted holiness, and unbounded goodness and grace, and such as are agreeable to the nature of