the faith of Abraham; heirs of the promises of God! Be ye stedfast, be vigilant, and fear not. You ferve a Mafter, who will never forfake his people. You ferve an unchangeable Father, who will abundantly perform his covenant. You ferve Him who liveth for ever and ever, King of kings and Lord of lords; Him who has all power in earth and in heaven, in time and in eternity; Him in whose hand is mercy, and glory, and blessednefs, and everlafting falvation. What shall prove capable of fhaking your love to God. and your Redeemer? Are you tempted by the riches of this world? Shall the poor and perishable and unfatisfactory treasures of the present life induce you to renounce an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, that fadeth not away, laid up in heaven for the righteous? Are you folicited by finful pleasures? Will you renounce, for the guilty indulgences of a moment, that fulness of joy which is at the right hand of the Omnipotent for evermore? Are you moved by corrupt cuftoms, or by the fcoffs and ridicule of the wicked? Will you feek honour from man rather than from God? Will you not confefs Chrift upon earth, that he may confefs you before his Father, and the holy angels, at the day of judgement? Children of the Moft High!

keep

keep yourselves from idols (b). Stand faft in

the Lord, and in the power of his might. Senfible of your own utter weakness, take unto yourselves the whole armour of God. Of yourselves you can do nothing: but through the all-sufficient grace of Chrift you can become more than conquerors. Set your faces as a rock against fin, which encompasses you every inftant. You have made your choice: you have taken the side of the Lord: cleave with fimplicity and fingleness of heart unto Him. Be not deterred, be not enticed, from your holy refolution by a world, whofe friendship is enmity against the sovereign to whom you have vowed your allegiance. The world cannot love you, because you are not of the world. Will you temporife in your conduct? Will you compromise your principles? Come out from among them, and be ye Separate, faith the Lord; and touch'not the unclean thing. And I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you: : and ye fhall be my fons and daughters, faith the Lord Almighty (i).

(b) 1 John, v. 21. (i) 2 Cor. vi. 17, 18.

SERMON VIII.

On the Sin of diffembling with God.

JEREMIAH, xlii. 20.

Ye diffembled in your hearts, when ye fent me unto the Lord your God, faying; Pray for us unto the Lord our God: and according unto all that the Lord our God fhall fay, fo declare unto us, and we will do it.

THE

HE wifdom of the fupreme Intelligence, fo confpicuous in his works, fhines equally in the ftructure of the writings which he infpired. Scripture is not a dry code of laws, a barren fyftem of prohibitions and commandments. Its ordinances and injunctions are continually enlivened, illuftrated, and enforced, by examples. Search throughout the old Teftament and the New. Examine the historical, the prophetical, the epistolary compofitions.

I

tions. Carry on your fcrutiny to thofe portions of the facred records, which are avowedly the most preceptive. You will perceive almost

in

every page the bleffings which flow from righteousness, and the miferies attendant on guilt, delineated and impreffed in defcriptions derived from real perfons and actual events. The word of God,like his book of nature, teems with life. Every part is animated by incident and character. Paft generations return from the dead, ages unborn prefs forward before their time into being, to admonish the exifting inhabitants of the earth. In the Son of God become man we behold an all-perfect model of univerfal holinefs. In the proceedings of numberless other individuals, who ftand pourtrayed in the living colours of truth; we ; we behold patterns to imitate, or beacons to fhun. On the one hand, faith, holiness, charity, truth, ftedfaftnefs, patience, meeknefs, purity, compaffion, and the reft of the train of heavenly. graces, are exhibited; each diftinct and prominent, yet with greater or lefs ftrength of representation in different characters. On the other, unbelief, unrighteoufnefs, felfifhnefs, deceit, irrefolution, fretfulness, arrogance, uncleanness, cruelty, with other criminal paffions, difplay their dominion, more or lefs limited,

over multitudes held in bondage. That the. interesting picture of human nature may be in every point complete, the affemblage of good and evil blended in the same bosom; and even the grievous tranfgreffions, fources of bitter remorfe, into which patriarchs and prophets and apoftles were occasionally betrayed; are painted with unfailing impartiality and precision. Man is taught to know. what he is, that he may the more easily and the more willingly learn what he ought to become.

The portion of facred hiftory which I am about to propose to your view unfolds a scene of disobedience characterised not by fudden error and unforeseen timidity, but by bold and hypocritical premeditation. When Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had entirely fubdued the Jews, whom God, on account of their obftinate impiety, had at length. delivered into his hand; he destroyed Jerufalem by fire, and carried away captive into a distant quarter of his dominions the principal part of the nation. A confiderable number however of the pooreft clafs of the people he permitted to continue in their native land. He diftributed among them fields and vineyards and appointed Gedaliah, one of their

own