guished, could we complain of this allotment, or could reason pretend that it was not according to the rules of strict justice?

3. Still I agree to make a further concession to the pride of Virtue. Let the moral qualities of some men be so excellent, and the tenour of their lives so pure, as to entitle them to a positive reward from the great searcher of hearts and inspector of human actions: would not the daily blessings of this life be a suitable recompense for such desert; would not health, and prosperity, and reputation, and peace of mind, be an adequate return for their best services? Or, if all this did not satisfy their claims, could they require more than such a portion of happiness in a future state, as should correspond to their merits, and make them full amends for all the sacrifices they here made to Conscience and to Virtue? And might not a small degree of such happiness, and for a short term, be an equivalent for such sacrifices? Could they dream of living for ever, and of living happily for ever in heaven; and call such a reward, as this, a debt, a claim of right, which could not justly be withheld from them? Could any man in his senses pretend, even to himself, that a Virtue of sixty or seventy years, though ever so perfect, ever

so constant, deserved immortal life in bliss and glory? Incredible: impossible: the merit and the recompense are too widely disjoined, the disproportion between them is too vast, to give the least colour of reason to such expectations. A Saint, or a Martyr, has no claim of right to so immense a reward, so transcendant a felicity.

K

'Tis true, Christianity gives us these hopes, which Reason forwardly assumes, and makes her own; forgetting at the same time, or unthankfully slighting, the only grounds on which they are founded. For, though eternal life be promised to favoured man in the Gospel, it is there promised to him, not as a debt, but as a free gift; and that, not in consideration of his good works, but of his faith in Jesus.

See then, to what the hopes of nature, the con clusions of reason and philosophy, amount, on this interesting subject. We are in the hands of an all-wise and all-righteous God, and are undone without his favour. Yet how that favour is to be obtained, we know not; or, if we do know, we are unable of ourselves to obtain it in the degree, we wish, and to the ends, for which we aspire to it. Our best speculations on the means of propitiating Heaven, are mixed with

uncertainty; and our best hopes dashed with mistrust and suspicion. For what man is so righteous as to have perfect confidence in his good works; or, so sanguine, as to think heaven the due reward of them? And yet will any thing, short of this, content our impatient desires? Should our virtues merit no more than some abatement of future misery, so justly due to our innumerable ill deserts, how sad a prospect have we before us? or, if they do but free us from punishment, what man is so abject as not to shudder at the thought of extinction or insensibility? or, lastly, if they supply some faint hope of future reward, what generous man but wishes more to himself, than a slight, a precarious, and short-lived happiness; beyond which, as we have seen, he has no right to extend his expectations

If the Gentiles, who had only the light of Nature to conduct them, had no way to get quit of these doubts and fears, their condition was certainly unhappy, but would bespeak the mercy of God: their disadvantages and distresses would be allowed for, and considered by him. But for those, who have now the light of Heaven shining about them, and yet chuse to walk in the dim, disastrous twilight of their own reason, what must be their folly, as

well as misery? I say, their misery. For this last is no secret to observing men, notwithstanding the airs of gaiety and satisfaction, they sometimes assume; and indeed deserves the tenderest pity, though their perverse folly be apt to excite a different passion.

But to conclude: It is enough to have shewn, in justification of the sacred text, that they who walk in the light of their own fire, and in the sparks which they have kindled, have this recompense of their choice, allotted to them by the hand of God, and the nature of things, That they do and must lie down in

sorrow.

To you, who have determined more wisely to govern yourselves by faith, and not by Reason only; who rejoice to walk in the clear sunshine of the blessed Gospel, and not in the malignant light of philosophical speculation,

know

Το you, I say, the reward of your better conduct, is, that ye know how to recommend yourselves to the favour of God; and and ye what to expect from that favour: Ye understand. that, by FAITH AND REPENTANCE, ye have peace' of mind in this transitory life, and assured hopes of immortal unspeakable felicity, reserved for you in the heavens.

SERMON XXXV.

PREACHED NOVEMBER 15, 1767.

2 Cor. iv. 3.

If our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost.

THE text implies, that the evidence, with which Christianity is attended, may fail of convincing the minds of some men. And indeed from the time that the Sun of righteousness rose upon the earth, there have always been those, who could not, or would not, be enlightened by Him.

Now it might be a question, whether this effect were owing to the nature of the evidence