vexation. What thou hast set thy heart upon from thy youth; what has been the aim of all thy labours; what has been the object of thy whole life,-accident, artifice, ignorance, villany, caprice, may give to another whom thou knowest not. When thy ambition is all on fire; in the utmost ardour of expectation, in the very moment when thou stretchest out thy hand to grasp the prize, fortune may snatch it from thy reach for ever. Nay, thou mayest have the mortification to see others rise upon thy ruins, to see thyself made a step to the ambition of thy rival, and thy endeavours rendered the means of advancing him to the top of the wheel, while thou continuest low.

In the pursuits of ambition or avarice, you may be disappointed; but if by a progressive state of righteousness, you seek for glory, and honour, and immortality, I, in the name of God, assure you of success. Never was the gate of mercy shut against the true penitent; never was the prayer of the faithful rejected in the temple of heaven; never did the incense of a good life ascend without acceptance on high. Liberal and unrestricted is the Divine benignity; free to all the fountain flows. There is no angel with a flaming sword to keep you from the tree of life. At this moment of time there is a voice from Heaven calling to you," Come up hither." And if you are obedient to the call, God assists you with the aids of his Spirit; he lifts up the hands that hang down; he strengthens the feeble knees, and perfects his strength in your weakness. You are not left alone to climb the arduous ascent. God is with you, who never suffers the spirit which rests on him to fail; nor the man who seeks his favour, to seek it in vain. Your success in the path of the just will not only be pleasing to yourselves, but also to all around you. In the struggles of human ambition, the triumph of one arises upon the sorrows of another; many are disappointed when one obtains the prize. But in the path of the just, there is emulation without envy, triumph without disappointment. The success of one increases the happiness of all. The influence of such an event is not confined to the earth it is communicated to all good beings; it adds to the harmony of the Heavens; and is the occasion of new hosannahs among the innumerable company of angels and spirits of just men made perfect, who rejoice over the sinner that repenteth.

Thirdly, Let me exhort you to make advances in tha

path of righteousness, from the beauty and the pleasantness of such a progress. Whatever difficulties may have attended your first entrance upon the path of the just, they will vanish by degrees; the steepness of the mountain will lessen as you ascend; the path in which you have been accustomed to walk, will grow more and more beautiful; and the celestial mansions, to which you tend, will brighten with new splendour, the nearer that you approach them. In 'other affairs, continued exertion may occasion lassitude and fatigue. Labour may be carried to such an. excess as to debilitate the body. The pursuits of knowledge may be carried so far as to impair the mind; but neither the organs of the body, nor the faculties of the soul can be endangered by the practice of religion. On the contrary, this practice strengthens the powers of action. Adding virtue to virtue is adding strengh to strength: and the greater acquisitions we make, we are enabled to make still greater. How pleasant will it be to mark the soul thus moving forward in the brightness of its course! In the spring, who does not love to mark the progress of nature; the flower unfolding into beauty, the fruit coming forward to maturity, the fields advancing to the pride of harvest, and the months revolving into the perfect year? Who does not love, in the human species, to observe the progress to maturity; the infant by degrees growing upto man; the young idea beginning to shoot, and the embryo character beginning to unfold? But if these things affect us with delight; if the prospect of external nature in its progress; if the flower, unfolding into beauty; if the fruit coming forward to maturity; if the infant by degrees growing up to man, and the embryo character beginning to unfold, affect us with pleasurable sensations,-how much greater delight will it afford to observe the progress of this new creation, the growth of the soul in the graces of the divine life, good resolutions ripening into good actions, good actions leading to confirmed habits of virtue, and the new nature advancing from the first lineaments of virtue to the full beauty of holiness! These are pleasures that time will not take away. While the animal spirits fail, and the joys, which depend upon the liveliness of the passions, decline with years, the solid comforts of a holy life, the delights of virtue and a good conscience, will be a new source of happiness in old age, and have a charm for the end of life. As the stream flows pleasantest when

it approaches the ocean; as the flowers send up their sweetest odours at the close of the day; as the sun appears with greatest beauty in his going down ;-so at the end of his career, the virtues and graces of a good man's life come before him with the most blessed remembrance, and impart a joy which he never felt before. Over all the moments of life religon scatters her favours, but reserves her best, her choicest, her divinest blessings for the last hour.

In the last place, Let me exhort you to this progressive state of virtue, from the pleasant consideration that it has no period. There are limits and boundaries set to all human affairs. There is an ultimate point in the progress, beyond which they never go, and from which they return in a contrary direction. The flower blossoms but to fade, and all terrestrial glory shines to disappear. Human life has its decline as well as its maturity. From a certain period the external senses begin to decay, and the faculties of the mind to be impaired, till dust returns unto dust.— Nations have their day. States and kingdoms are mortal like their founders. When they have arrived at the zenith of their glory, from that moment they begin to decline; the bright day is succeeded by a long night of darkness, ignorance, and barbarity. But in the progress of the mind to intellectual and moral perfection there is no period set. Beyond these heavens the perfection and happiness of the just is carrying on; is carrying on, but shall never come to a close. God shall behold his creation for ever beautifying in his eyes; for ever drawing nearer to himself, yet still infinitely distant from the fountain of all goodness. There is not in religion a more joyful and triumphant consideration than this perpetual progress which the soul makes to the perfection of its nature, without ever arriving at its ultimate period. Here truth has the advantage of fable. No fiction, however bold, presents to us a conception so elevating and astonishing, as this interminable line of heavenly excellence. To look upon the glorified spirit as going on from strength to strength; adding virtue to virtue, and knowledge to knowledge; making approaches to goodness which is infinite; for ever adorning the Heavens with new beauties; and brightening in the splendours of moral glory through all the ages of eternity,-has something in it so transcendant and ineffable, as to satisfy the most unbounded ambition of an immortal

spirit. Christian! does not thy beart glow at the thought, that there is a time marked out in the annals of Heaven, when thou shalt be what the angels now are; when thou shalt shine with that glory in which principalities and powers now appear; and when in the full communion of the Most High, thou shalt see him as he is?

The oak, whose top ascends unto the heavens, and which covers the mountains with its shade, was once an acorn, contemptible to the sight; the philosopher, whose views extend from one end of nature to the other, was once a speechless infant hanging at the breast; the glorified Spirits, who now stand nearest to the throne of God, were once like you. To you as to them the Heavens are open; the way is marked out; the reward is prepared.On what you do, on what you now do all depends.

1

SERMON X.

MATTHEW V. 5.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

THEY

HEY mistake the nature of the Christian religion very much, who consider it as separate and detached from the commerce of the world. Instead of forming a distinct profession, it is intimately connected with life; it respects men as acting in society, and contains regulations for their conduct and behaviour in such a state. It takes in the whole of human life, and is intended to influence us when we are in the house, and in the field, as well as when we are in the church or in the closet. It instructs men in their duty to their neighbours, as well as in their duty to God; it is our companion in the scenes of business as well as in the House of Prayer; and when it inculcates the weightier matters of the law, faith, judgment and mercy, it neglects not the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which in the sight of God is of great price. All that refinement which polishes the mind; all that gentleness of manners which sweetens

the intercourse of human society, which political philosophers consider as the effects of wise legislation and good government: all the virtues of domestic life, are lessons which are taught in the Christian school. The wisdom. that cometh from above is "gentle." The fruit of the Spirit is "meekness." As the sun, although he regulates the seasons, leads on the year, and dispenses light and life to all the planetary worlds, yet disdains not to raise and to beautify the flower which opens in his beam: so the Christian religion, though chiefly intended to teach us the knowledge of salvation, and be our guide to happiness on high, yet also regulates our conversation in the world, extends its benign influence to the circle of society, and diffuses its blessed fruits in the path of domestic life.

In farther treating upon this subject, I shall, in the first place, describe to you the character of meekness which is here recommended: and, in the second place, shew you the happiness with which it is attended.

I. I am to describe to you the character of meekness which is here recommended.

Every virtue, whether of natural or revealed religion, 15 situated between some vices or defects, which though essentially different, yet bear some resemblance to the virtue they counterfeit; on account of which resemblance they obtain its name, and impose upon those who labour under the want of discernment. This meekness, which is here recommended, is not at all the same with that courtesy of manners which is learned in the school of the world. That is but a superficial accomplishment, and often proceeds from a hollowness of heart. It is also quite different from constitutional facility, that undeciding state of the mind which easily bends to every proposal: that is a weakness, and not a virtue. Neither does it at all resemble that tame and passive temper which patiently bears insults and submits to injuries: that is a want of spirit, and argues a cowardly mind. This meekness is a Christian grace wrought in us by the Holy Spirit: it is a stream from the fountain of all excellence. A good temper, a good education, and just views of religion, must concur in forming this blessed state of the mind. It becomes a principle which influences the whole life. Though consistent in all its operations with boldness and with spirit, yet its chief characteristics are goodness, and gentleness, and longsuffering. It looks with candour upon all; often conde