live and move and have our being in him." I labour to produce and establish this conviction on my own mind, because I am persuaded that it is most consistent with every thing that is taught us of God in true religion, because it is so conducive to that security which we wish to feel, as much as possible, in this changing world. And it is my earnest wish to assist you to establish this confidence in God, this constant reference to him, in regard to all that concerns you,-that the work of faith. may be established in your hearts; that you may enjoy the advantages of the religion you are invited to accept and obey; and that you may have that peace which passeth all understanding, which the world can neither give nor take away.

Strive, then, to regard each day as given you by God, all its circumstances of joy or sorrow as subservient to his will, and the morrow with all times to come as his, to give or to withhold them as may seem to him best. And encompass yourselves with the assurance, that whether they are given or never come, whether they are bright or stormy, whether they abound in blessings or are full of trouble, all is for the best under the guidance and direction which cannot err. If this state of mind be acquired, and feel that what concerns you is in his hands who rules the universe, and without whose "will not a sparrow falleth to the ground," you will divest yourselves of much useless and painful anxiety

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and care; you will confine your attention much to the day which requires and demands it, with all its duties, or its pleasures, or its pains; you will feel that what is calculated to disturb your present peace, is inconsistent with your present duty; and, trying to obey, you will learn to be happy with that permanent tranquillity which nothing but the steady performance of duty, including in that the proper government of the affections, can secure.

DISCOURSE IV.

CHRISTIANS THE KINDRED OF CHRIST.

LUKE viii. 21.

AND HE ANSWERED AND SAID TO THIEM, MY MOTHER AND MY BRETHREN ARE THOSE WHO HEAR THE WORD OF GOD AND DO IT.

THE ties of consanguinity are strong and grateful. They form at the same time the source of our most permanent pleasures, and are the ground of our most direct obligations. In the most rude and barbarous state of society alone they scarcely exist, and are but weakly regarded, giving way to the influence of caprice or of any bad passions, and leaving the wretched beings lawless and unprotected, cheerless and insecure. These bonds disregarded, all others are weak and ineffectual. All nations, civilized and refined, make these bonds sacred, allow under circumstances of the most distressing necessity alone a dissolution of them, and they receive a more awful sanction in the revealed will of God, where their indissoluble nature is clearly set forth, and where their incumbent

duties are frequently enjoined. We are more inclined to think of them in the light of our pleasures than of our duties. They are the circle in which our best affections are enlisted and exercised; they are the source of those cares which, if successful, are grateful, for the mutual good of those who are parts of ourselves, and there is nothing which the guide of our duty in all the relations of life can prompt which, in this relation, love will not spontaneously lead us to regard. They refine and sanctify selfishness; they multiply and increase our pleasures and gratifications; and if you would seek for that which can most interest the amiable mind, you will find it in the relations of husband and wife, parent and children, a father or a mother, a sister and brother. This is the home of the affections, and they no where shine so much and do so much good as here, where they are daily and hourly exercised and enjoyed.

Though there are imperfections in men and in society which break in upon this sacred ground, and at times debase the sweet intercourse of domestic life, yet this is the purest source of all the mind and affections can covet; it is the foundation in which, as far as we can safely rest on any thing of this earth, we may most securely confide. The qualities that make the commerce of mankind grateful and profitable, are found, if any where, at home. There you will trace efforts to please, without which how dull are the social combinations of life! There you will find indulgence to faults, and unless love cover these,

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how painful.is the scrutiny under which we should live! There you will perceive efforts to avoid giving offence, open, generous conduct, mutual confidence, established upon the mutual, sacred and inviolable regard to truth; and society divested of these things is a scene of misery and disorder and distrust and wars and fightings, the perpetual hostility of the brotherhood of mankind.

The sacred writers aware of the deep interest of these connexions have seized them as the fit representations of that regard and love which infinite goodness entertains for the children of men, who are the offspring of heaven, and who are invited to call that ever-blessed and glorious being their Father in heaven. When God directed Moses to effect the liberation of the Jews from their bondage in Egypt, he thus instructed him: "And thou shalt say to Pharaoh, thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, my first-born," Exod. iv. 22. And nothing could so well express the determination of infinite power to revenge his wrongs, and to deliver his people from their oppressors. After the weary wanderings of the Israelites for forty years in the wilderness, their leader recounted the miraculous and benevolent providence which had upheld and protected them; and to give them such an idea of the Divine forbearance and goodness as no other language could express, he "and in the wilderness-thou hast seen how that the Lord thy God bare thee, as a man doth bear his son in all the way that ye went." Deut. i. 31.

says,