dition, if we be found wanting at the day of account. But, alas! how few among the children of light act according to these genuine dictates of justice, which, nevertheless, are able to fubftantiate their hopes of heaven! For justice is, equally with mercy, an attribute of the Deity. Juftice is the foundation of all morality. Without it, charity, or the giving of alms, becomes oftentation,

and religion a mockery of God. But when we are affured that we have done justly, that we have loved mercy, and that we have walked humbly with our Maker, then may we expect his abundant bleffing upon us or upon our children in this life, and a joyful refurrection in the life that is to come. Which that we may all obtain, may God grant; to whom with the Son and the Holy Ghoft, be afcribed, as is moft due, all might, majesty, and dominion, both now and for ever. Amen.

SER

SERMON VI.

THE UNJUST STEWAR D.

PART II.

LUKE xvi. 8.

And the Lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wifely; for the children of this world are, in their generation, wifer than the children of light.

TH

HE pofitive affertion in the text, that "the children of this world are, in their generation, wiser than the children of light," is fo very evident, that we need but to look upon the characters of mankind as they appear before us, and we shall perceive the demonstration. Worldly policy, with

an

an hundred eyes and with an hundred arms, fees its object in every poffible direction, and reaches at it with wonderful agility and force; but, unhappily, like a forlorn lunatic, it argues right upon a wrong principle, and, therefore, it only takes the best means of pursuing a delusion.

Behold the bad man inflamed with ambition! With the eye of an eagle he defcries objects that are far beyond the vifion of ordinary men. Probabilities inftantly give way to the mere poffibility of fuccefs; with perfevering ardour he strains every power of body and foul in the purfuit. No danger can affright, no moral turpitude can deter him. Meanly pliant to the vulgar of his own party, arrogant and calumnious towards the nobleft characters of the oppofite, his knowledge, his learning, his friendships, are all fubordinate to his ambition; poverty, fcorn, oppofition, difappointment, do not quench, but rather quicken the raging fire of his mind. By his ftratagems, by wiles, by fomenting foreign feuds and domeftic difcord, it is plain that his oftentatious love of his country is a grofs deception; that it is only a mark for his own aggrandizement and fuccefs; for he

is ever striving to perplex her government, to wound her peace, knowing well, that amid distractions only he can mount aloft, and rule the raging ftorm. But if he do fucceed, he hath only laboured for the wind, which bloweth where it lifteth, and he may hear indeed the found thereof, but he cannot tell whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth.

Obferve the wily enfnarer, the infidious fpoiler: look attentively at the fupple, adulating fiend. Mark well his obfervant eye, but shrouded mind; his fpecious referve, or guarded frankness; his masterly art of avoiding his deftined prey; his never enough to be detefted refinements of converfation, by which virtue and vice are blended into one mafs, by which the worfe fhall appear the better reafon." His mouth is full of curfing, deceit, and fraud; under his tongue is ungodliness and vanity. He fitteth lurking in the thievifh corners of the streets: and privily in his lurking den doth he murder the innocent; his eyes are fet against the poor. For he lieth waiting fecretly; even as a lion lurketh he in his den, that he may ravish the poor. He doth ravish the poor,

when he getteth them into his net. He falleth down and humbleth himself; that the congregation of the poor may fall into the hands of his captains," Pfalm x. 7—11. What shame, what difgrace, what complicated and infurmountable miferies will he endure, rather than give up the object of his purfuit? Circumfpect and fagacious in forefeeing, artful and indefatigable in furmounting every obftacle, he, with malignant pleafure, anticipates his wishes, and thereby encourages in himself a fuccefsful perfeverance. True and fterling honour, founded on humanity and justice, he regards only as a popular phantom. He defpifes, as of contemptible intellects, the man of fimple manners and plain dealing, who walks on in the straight and open road of life. He believes that the best wisdom is to follow the bias of his own corrupt inclinations, and thereby he doth, in his own life and conduct, most clearly prove the certainty of an exifting evil spirit in the world; for if the Deity permit him, who is thus full of wickedness, to live and to torment mankind, furely the actual exiftence of the devil and his angels may likewife be permitted.

Obferve,