then, my brethren, how miserable it must be for a being made after the image of God, thus to have his glory turned into shame. How dismal must the situation be for a subject of the divine government to consider himself as acting upon a plan to counteract the decrees of God, to defeat the designs of eternal Providence, to deface in himself the image and the lineaments of heaven, to maintain a state of ennity and war with his Creator, and to associate with the infernal spirits, whose abode is darkness, and whose portion is despair!

Reflections upon such a state will give its full measure to the cup of trembling. Was not Belshazzar, the impious king of Babylon, a striking instance of what I am. now saying? This monarch made a feast to a thousand of his lords, and assembled his prinees, his concubines and his wives. In order to increase the festivity, he sent for the consecrated vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple of Jerusalem; and, in these vessels, which were holy to the Lord, he made libations to his vain idols, and, in his heart, bade defiance to the God of Israel. But, whilst thus he defied the living God, forth came the fingers of a man's hand, and, on the wall, which had lately resounded with joy, wrote the sentence of his fate! In a moment his countenance was changed, his whole frame shook, and his knees smote one against another, whilst the prophet in awful accents denounced his doom: "O man, thy kingdom is departed from thee!" Although Providence should not now particularly interpose to punish thee, O guilty man! yet the sentence of thy doom is written in thy heart, and there is a prophet within, who, upon the commission of crimes, will tell thee, that for these the kingdom of heaven is departed from thee.

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II. As wickedness makes a man miserable in his reli gious character, so does it also in his social.

However corrupted men may be in their lives, their moral sentiments are just and right; that is, although from an immoderate self-love, we may excuse wickedness in ourselves, yet such is the force of conscience within, so deeply rooted in the mind is the eternal difference between good and evil, that, by the very frame of our natures, we abhor wickedness in others. When we are conversant in the world, or give our attention to a story, that is a faithful picture of human manners, from the impulse of natural

feeling, we attach ourselves to the side of innocence; we take part with the virtuous hero, and consider his enemies as our own. There is no vice, but what tends to make a man contemptible or odious to society. Against the greater and more atrocious crimes, the sword of the law is for ever drawn, and its stroke is death. Other vices, which come not under the cognizance of the laws, either have ways of punishing themselves, or are marked with public infamy. Pride makes every affront a torment, and puts a man's happiness in the power of every fool he meets. with. The envious man is literally his own tormentor, and preys upon his own bowels. The drunkard exposes bimself to the derision of mankind, and falls into follies, that cover him with shame in his sober hours. Does not a habit of intoxication deprive a man of all sense of decency, indispose him for the business of life, and render him a sorrow to all his friends? Will the atheist conciliate the love of men by shewing us that he possesses not the fear of God? Is not the miser pointed at with the finger of scorn, and doomed to the double curse of hoarding and guarding? Is not a liar universally odious, and does he not prepossess us against him even when he speaks truth? Do not fraud and dishonesty mar a man's fortune, ruin his reputation, and hinder his success in life?

In truth, my brethren, there is not a sin, but what one way or another is punished in this life. We often err egregiously by not attending to the distinction between happiness, and the means of happiness. Power, riches, and prosperity, those means of happiness and sources of enjoy ment, in the course of Providence, are sometimes conterred upon the worst of men. Such persons possess the good things of life, but they do not enjoy them. They have the means of happiness, but they have not happiness itself. A wicked man can never be happy. It is the firm decree of Heaven, eternal and unchangeable as JEHOVAH himself, that misery must ever attend on guilt; that, when sin enters, happiness takes its departure. There is no such thing in nature, my brethren,-there is no such thing in nature, as a vicious or unlawful pleasure. What we generally call such are pleasures in themselves lawful, procured by wrong means, or enjoyed in a wrong way; procured by injustice, or enjoyed with intemperance; and surely neither injustice nor intemperance have any charm for the mind and unless we are framed with a very un

common temper of mind and body, injustice will be burt-' ful to the one, and intemperance fatal to the other. Un ruly desires and bad passions, the gratification of which is sometimes called pleasure, are the source of almost all the miseries in human life. When once indulged, they rage for repeated gratification, and subject us, at all times, to their clamours and importunity. When they are gratifi ed, if they give any joy,it is the joy of fiends, the joy of the tormented, a joy which is purchased at the expence of a good conscience, which rises on the ruins of the public peace, and proceeds from the miseries of our fellowcrcatures. The forbidden fruit proves to be the apples of Sodom and the grapes of Gomorrah. One deed of shame is succeeded by years of penitence and pain. A single indulgence of wrath has raised a conflagration, which neither the force of friendship, nor length of time, nor the vehe mence of intercession, could mitigate or appease, and which could only be quenched by the effusion of human blood. One drop from the cup of this powerful sorceress has turned living streams of joy into waters of bitterness. "There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked."

If a wicked man could be happy, who might have been so happy as Haman,raised from an inferior station to great riches and power, exalted above his rivals, and above the princes of the empire, favourite and prime minister to the greatest monarch in the world? But with all these advantages on his side, and under all these smiles of for tune, his happiness was destroyed by the want of a bow, usual to those of his station, from one of the porters of the palace. Enraged with this neglect, this vain great man cried out in the pang of disappointment, "All this availeth me nothing, so long as I see Mordecai sitting at the king's gate." This seeming affront sat deep on his mind. He meditated revenge. A single victim could not satisfy his malice. He wanted to have a glutting vengeance. He resolved, for this purpose, to involve thousands in destruction, and to make a whole nation fall a sacrifice to the indulgence of his mean-spirited pride.→ But, as it generally happens, his wickedness proves his ruin, and he erected the gallows, on which he himself was doomed to be hanged!

III. If we consider man as an individual, we shall see a further confirmation of the truth contained in the text, That there is no peace to the wicked."

In order to strengthen the obligations to virtue, Almighty God hath rendered the practice of sin fatal to our peace as individuals, as well as pernicious to our interests as members of society. From the sinner God withdraws his favour and the light of his countenance. How dark will that mind be, which no beam from the Father of lights ever visits? How joyless that heart, which the spirit of life never animates! When sin entered into paradise, the angels of God forsook the place. So from the soul that is polluted with guilt, peace, and joy, and hope, those good angels vanish and depart. What succeeds to this family of heaven? Confusion, shame, remorse, despair. Cætera desunt.

SERMON XXIV.

PSALM lxxviii. 1.

Give ear, O my people, to my law.

THIS is the call which God addressed to his ancient

people, and which, at sundry times, and in divers manners, he addresses to the world. It is the voice of the Almighty to mankind in every age. His voice all nature hears, and his law all nature obeys. The sun moves in the path marked out for him by his Creator; the moon keeps her appointed course, and the host of heaven proceed from age to age in their original beauty. The seasons know their time, and the earth obeys the law impressed upon it at first. The elements confess their Lord; the tempest hears his voice, and the sea submits to the mandate which said, "Hitherto shalt thou come, and no farther; here shall thy waves be stayed." The orders of celestial spirits, the principalities and powers of heaven, obey the command of their King, minister to the purposes of his providence, and in acts of goodness, or on errands of mercy, perform his pleasure.

Throughout all nature, one being alone is deaf to the

voice and disobedient to the command of God, that is the sinner. He alone has departed from his sphere, has rebelled against the law of his nature, and rejected the universal dominion of the Deity in the universe. To recal him from this rebellious state, to replace him in his original station, and restore him again to the kingdom of God, is the end of true religion. For this purpose Moses aud the prophets were inspired, Jesus and the apostles were sent. For this purpose the heaven was opened, the Almighty appeared, and the voice uttered to the world, "Give ear, my people, to my law."

Your obligation to obey this law will appear, if you consider, that it is the law of your nature,—that it is the law of heaven,-that it is the law of society.-and the law of happiness.

I. It is the law of your nature.

When God created man, he did not leave him to act at random, or to live in a state of anarchy. He gave him a law, the emanation of eternal wisdom, and the transcript of Divine perfection. The same fingers that upon Mount Sinai, wrote the commandments upon tables of stone, had written them before hand upon the living tables of the human heart. The foundation of morality is laid deep in human nature; its principles result from the constitution of our frame; and its authority will be supreme, while there is a mind to discern, or a heart to feel, or a conscience to judge. Darkness is not more different from light, nor bitter from sweet, than good is from evil, and virtue from vice. You are no more masters of the emotions that rise in the mind, than of the sensations which rise in the body. You can no more give the law to internal nature, than to external nature. You may as well call the sun to come down from the firmament, as aim to extinguish the light of heaven which shines in the breast. Inferior animals are incapable of morality. They have no law but instinct; they are left to obey the call of appetite, and to follow blindly the prevailing impulse. But it is not so with man. Reason is his law; and the dictate of virtue is the dictate of nature. The question with him is not, what is the call of appetite? but, what is the voice of reason? Not, what is the prevailing impulse? but, what is the impulse which ought to prevail?

If, therefore, you disown the obligation of this law, you renounce your nature and unman yourself. If you claim