The people expect, at least they recommend virtue to their magistrates, and execrate injustice and impiety in their superiors; robes of office, say they, should never conceal wickedness; they do not adorn, but expose a man in power, who should be a guardian of virtue and not an example of vice. Parents recommend virtue to their children, and children expect their parents to be virtuous. "If the buyer saith, it is naught, it is naught," yet when he hath bought, and is become a seller," he boasteth :" that is to say, he expects a commodity truly and honestly when he buys, and would reproach the seller for attempting to defraud him, though when he becomes a seller himself, he changes his language with his condition. Even the most dull and stupid of mankind dictate laws of virtue to others, and the poor master of only one poor boy advises the boy to be a good boy, and do his duty. It should seem then, I am not alone in recommending religion to you, for you all recommend it to one another, and to the whole world except yourselves. I will suppose a case. Imagine yourselves assembled to-day, by desire of all your countrymen of every rank, to determine a question of consequence, whether they should all live by the rules of the Gospel, or by the maxims of the world. Suppose some child of the devil, some 66 enemy of all righteousness, full of all subtilty and all mischief," should stand up, and "seek to turn us away from the faith," by recommending murder, adultery, theft, lying, impiety, and all kinds of debauchery and wickedness, and should say, "All the glory of the world, riches, honours, pleasures, will you obtain by practising these profitable exercises." Would not every one of you say, "Get thee hence, Satan : away with such a fellow from the earth, for it is not fit that he should live." The father would say, "Away with such a fellow," he would introduce discord into my family, and teach one of my sons to become a Cain, and to kill his brother. The mother would cry, "Away with such a fellow," he would rob my daughter of her innocence and her character, and bring down my grey hairs and her father's grey hairs" with sorrow to the grave, seeing that his life is bound up in her life."

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Each child would say, " Away with such a fellow," what good would riches and honours do me, and what pleasure could I take in them, if I were so unhappy as to see "evil come upon my father." You would have no patience to see this bad man decoy one little boy out of the church into the world; you would say, "Away with such a fellow, we have a father, an old man, and this is a child of his old age, a little one, and his brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother, and his father loveth him, and it shall come to pass, that when he seeth that the lad is not with us, that he will die." All these are only the inconveniences of a moment, and there are yet stronger reasons for resisting such a tempter as this: there are all the agonies of guilt in the article of death, and throughout a boundless eternity. I am certain, you would all advise one another to pass a vote for all ranks and degrees of men to make this good book the rule of their action. You need not be ashamed to present it on your knees to a prince: you might safely recommend it to a judge one verse of it would turn your country into a paradise, a verse which it is a shame not to know by heart: "All things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them, for this is the law and the prophets." It is not this rule of action, it is the want of it that fills every parish, and every house, with so many complaints of injustice. It was the want of this, that made the wise man say, and hath made many a man since his time say, "I considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun, and beheld the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter, and on the side of their oppressors there was power to relieve their miseries, but they had no comforter. I saw the place of judgment that wickedness was there, and the place of righteousness that iniquity was there." Man, what hath man done by violating the law of his Creator? This was the question put by God to the first sinner: What is this that thou hast done ?" The history of all the crimes committed in the world is the long but proper answer to this question. What hath man obtained by sin? An ability to "cause his heart to despair, for all his days are sorrows, and his travel grief,

yea, his heart taketh not rest in the night." Let any man show such effects caused by a close attachment to the morality of the Gospel of Christ.

Is there any person in this assembly, who hath the face to recommend justice to others, and the heart to practise injustice himself? I hope not. This book is good for each of you in every possible condition of life. It is good by its laws of temperance and chastity, for the health of the body: it is "health to the countenance, and marrow to the bones." It is good by its laws of industry, frugality, and abstinence for lengthening out life, and procuring and blessing the enjoyments of it: "length of days is in the right hand of this wisdom, and in the left hand riches and honour. The ways are ways of pleasantness, and all the paths are peace." It is, by its laws of fidelity, gentleness, and goodness, the highest ornament of character: it is "life unto the soul, and grace to the neck, an ornament of grace, and a crown of glory to the head." The wisest and best advice therefore that can be given, is "Take fast hold of instruction, let her not go, keep her, for she is thy life."

To be more particular. There are four conditions of life, in which nothing but the good morality of the Gospel can give us satisfaction. Consider prosperity. May the God of providence make you all as prosperous as you wish to be, as far as is consistent with his noble design in creating you! May you thrive, and succeed, and attain all your just wishes, and long may you live in the enjoyment of them! But what is prosperity without morality? It is a most deplorable sight to see an immoral man prosper: not that we envy his prosperity, but that it is shocking to see his wickedness increase as his reasons for being righteous multiply. Such a man only steps forward out of his cottage into a good house, to be pointed at as a wretch ungrateful to his Benefactor, unjust to his fellow-creatures, unmerciful to his family, and cruel to himself. The more he prospers, the more cups of deadly poison does he drink, and at length dies, in the opinion of all good men, a vessel of wrath fitted to destruction." At his funeral no

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widow weeps, no orphan sheds a tear; the poor have got rid of a tyrant, and the parish of a scourge, and his little history, told by many a tongue round many a fire, amounts to this; "I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree, yet he passed away, and lo, he was not. I have seen the foolish taking root; but suddenly I cursed his habitation. Even as I have seen, they that plough iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same. This is the certain condition of every wicked prosperous man: but it is not so with a good man, when he prospers. The language of his good heart is, What shall I do to glorify God? How shall I best express my gratitude to my benefactor? He goes with all advantages into his closet, consults the Prophets and Apostles, and asks each, What would you do in my condition? He does more, he kneels before the throne of God, and saith, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" What wilt thou have me to do with my wealth? What with my reputation and credit in the world? How beautiful is such a man! Remember it is not his prospesity, but the noble use he makes of it, that constitutes his beauty. It is that, which wins the hearts of all around him while he lives, and bedews his name with tears of affection as long after his death as his name is remembered. When we pray for your prosperity, then, we do so with this caution, that you may have grace to make a religious use of it: otherwise it would be equal to praying God to bestow on you a sword to stab yourself, and perhaps your wife, and your children, and your dearest friends.

What can men do in adversity without morality? Adversity alone is pitiable: adversity in company with virtue is respectable: but when adversity and wickedness unite, they make a man resemble a lion in chains, miserable himself, and a terror to others. A good man under afflictions retains the affections of his fellow Christians, and excites the compassion of his fellow-creatures; and on this account David said, “I have been young, and now am old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread." No, the righteous rich will relieve the righteous poor: the rich who have

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business will employ the good man's poor children, who have nothing to do. No, they shall not be forsaken, but found out and comforted: they shall not beg their bread, but their petitions shall be prevented. The church always hád, and always will have liberal men devising liberal things: not vile persons called liberal, nor churls said to be bountiful; but men, who like their great Master, will be in their little sphere "an hiding-place from the wind, a covert from the tempest, as rivers of waters in a dry place, as a shadow of a great rock in a weary land." Poor afflicted people, who are wicked, are miserable indeed, despised by others, and distressed in themselves; in this world poverty and pain, in the world to come punishment everlasting; to use the language of a prophet, they are "destroyed with double destruction."

Consider yourselves in a state of guilt, arising from reflection, sharpened by the Scripture, and meeting you like 66 a flaming sword turning every way" when you would approach the throne of God. It is very true, that the relief of a sinner comes by believing the record which God hath given of his Son, by apprehending and laying hold of the mercy set before him in the Gospel; but it is equally true that this faith cannot maintain its character, and prevent suspicion, unless it be accompa-* nied with fruits. The heart doth not, cannot hope without holiness. Watch the frames of Christians, and you will find doubts are nothing but effects, and every doubt hath a sin for its cause. Adam in innocence was free from suspicion; it was after he had sinned that he said, "I heard thy voice and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself." Every attempt to procure peace of conscience without holiness is a mad and wicked project: mad, because it cannot succeed, and wicked, because it is in direct opposition to the law of nature, and the language of Scripture. Would you avoid the smart? Avoid the wound. Would you enjoy peace? Seek it in conformity to God, who is therefore a happy God, because he is a holy God. One of the greatest misfortunes, that can befall a man in this world, is to bring himself to be content and easy without religion;