no bounds to your desire of riches, to your thirst of honour and power, to your appetite of pleasures? Do you not still go on, desiring more, and aiming at greater matters? Or do you hope still to persevere, labouring with so great anxiety to secure a greater interest in worldly things, and at the same time to be acceptable to God? Vain imagination! 'You cannot serve God and mammon.' The moment you cleave to the latter, that moment you cut yourself off from God, who places too high an esteem upon your affections to endure to be rivalled in them, especially by so infamous and odious a rival. Think not, because the love you bestow on, and the confidence you repose in, these enemies to God, are not called idolatry by the world, which never gives the right names to its own crimes, that they are therefore the less properly and truly idolatrous. I have given, I think, sufficient reasons to prove, that they really are; but what at least ought to convince you, is, that God, who cannot lie, hath in his word called them by that name.

This, I know, is a subject, on which you do not care for thinking closely, and therefore have formed but confused and unaffecting notions about it. But consider, that God is not a man that he should be deceived; and surely no sensible man, who had a right to your services or friendship, would be satisfied with a thousand professions, if he saw by your actions, that you had little or no regard for him. Now, God is wiser than man, and sees into your heart; and, as he hath the double right of a Maker and a Saviour to all the honour you can do him, and all the services you can pay him, you may take it for granted, that a cold or outward shew of worship will be far from satisfying him, especially when he sees you joining yourself to his enemies, and putting your chief trust in them. Consider with yourself, how odious in the sight of God these objects are, that make you so inattentive to his word, so deaf to the advice of his ministers, so forgetful of all his tender mercies, and alarming judgments. Reflect how often these rivals of God have withheld you from his house and table, those outward signs, by which you hope to shew you are his worshippers; and how often, when you are persuaded, or compelled to come in, they attend you to the place of worship, engage your thoughts even there, and intercept that application of the heart, in

which consists the very nature and being of adoration, and turn it downward from God to those vanities, which, as they engrossed your hearts on other occasions, cannot be kept at a distance on this.

The profits, and honours, and pleasures of this world, are but the inferior deities, through which the god of this world maintains his correspondence with your imagination, your mistaken notions, and lusts; and, by means of that deceitful intercourse, seduces you to the dishonourable worship and service of himself. When you consider, that he is a fallen angel, an enemy to God and your soul, shocking in his person and nature, and infinitely mischievous in his designs, you utterly abhor the least thought of worshipping him, or entering into any league or combination with him. It is for this reason, that he does not appear, and openly solicit your devotion; but keeps behind the curtain, and plays such engines on you, as are less apt to excite your suspicion or aversion. It is through these that he establishes his power over you; and it was by these, that, with infinite impudence, he attempted to seduce the human nature of Christ himself. He shewed him all the kingdoms of the earth and said unto him, All these things will I give unto thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me;' but he was answered by infinite wisdom, in the words of my text; 'Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.'

When he sets forward any of these tempting objects to ensnare us, let us consider, that it is only his image; that he lurks within it, and gives it by far the greater part of its bewitching allurements; kindles up the beauty of the lewd woman; teaches the wine to move itself aright in the glass, and exalts its spirits; gives the high seasoning of the luxurious dish, the proud splendour to the gay clothes, the tempting brightness to the gold, the pomp and grandeur to worldly power. These things have, in themselves, but feeble attractions for rational souls, before whose eyes religion hath placed the glories of heaven, and who, if they examine the best things this world can promise them, with but a small degree of care and fairness, can discover that they are all only outward shew, all vanity and vexation, the furniture only of an inn, where we cannot stay; the ornaments of

a country, through which we are forced, by an unhappy necessity of nature, to ride post. How comes it then that they find means to draw after them the hearts of almost all mankind? There is, there must be, some diabolical delusion at the bottom. Since nature does not fit them for so great an influence over us, and since reason and religion do sufficiently teach us the nature of things about us, as far as we are concerned to know them, these things, which work upon us, beyond the force of their own natural powers, and contrary to the dictates of our reason, lead us, as it were, with our eyes open, to our eternal ruin, must borrow the power by which they tyrannize over us from the god of this world, who hath blinded the eyes of them who believe not,' and greatly dimmed the sight of many, who do.

It would be happy for us if we could, while some part of life is yet left us, and a return to God would not be altogether unacceptable, open our eyes, and see through the painted ruin, the gilded destruction, into which we are betrayed. If we do it not now, when life is near a close, ere death has lifted the last fatal blow, we shall then too late perceive how miserably we have been imposed on, how foolishly we have laboured for the wind. Then we shall be forced to cry out, 'Vanity of vanities! all is vanity! What profit hath a man of all his labour, which he taketh under the sun? What hath pride profited us? Or what good hath riches, with our vaunting, brought us?' All these things, which seemed so substantial, are 'passing away like a shadow, and as a post that hasteth by; like a ship that leaves no trace of its keel in the waves. Our hope is like dust that is blown away by the wind; like a thin froth, that is driven away with a storm; like as the smoke, which is dispersed here and there with a tempest, and passeth away like the remembrance of a guest that tarrieth but a day. Surely we have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no profit. We have made unto ourselves gods, and they were no gods. Alas! that which we loved hath brought misery upon us, and that which we trusted in hath betrayed us.'

Let us, to conclude, turn from these vanities, in which we sometime walked, and whereof we ought now, in the light of the gospel, to be ashamed; and let us seek the true and only God. He is the fountain of all being, the absolute

ruler of all nature; to him therefore should all thinking beings turn their whole attention, and, fixing all their love and reverence on him, as on the centre of charity, as on the dispenser of happiness, and the source of glory, should make him the first object of all their affections, the first mover of all their thoughts, the end of all their designs, the utmost aim of all their wishes, the perfection and consummation of all their enjoyments. He is great, he is God alone. He only is to be feared, and what is there that we should desire in comparison of him?' What is there fit to come between God and the heart of man? Is any thing so beautiful, so excellent, so glorious, as he? Hath any other being done so much to engage our love as he? Can we hope for so kind a friend, for so powerful a protector, in any thing, as in him? Can the enjoyment of all his creatures raise our souls to pleasures so exquisite, to delights so lasting, as the enjoy ment of God? What is earth to heaven, or heaven itself to God? Shall then the riches, the honours, the pleasures, of this world, shall death or life, shall angels, or prin cipalities, or powers, or things present, or things to come, or height, or depth, or any other creature, be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord?

No: Let us therefore no longer give the honour of God to his enemies, to mere imaginary hopes, and vain desires, of that which is either impossible to be obtained, or, if obtained, would make us miserable; and 'let us ascribe unto the Lord the honour due unto his name; let us bring presents, and come into his courts.' But what present shall we bring to him, who made and possesses all things? The present of a heart entirely his; a heart, not shamefully divided between him and the world, but emptied of all worldly vanities, and filled with God.

But, O good God, as the soul of man, clogged with a load of flesh and blood, is unable to climb to thee, stretch out thy almighty hand, and draw us upward; purify our hearts, that they may become acceptable temples for thy Holy Spirit; then enter thou, and make us wholly thine for ever; through the merits and mediation of Christ Jesus our Saviour; to whom with thee, and the ever blessed Spirit, be all honour and glory, all worship and dignity, all might, majesty, and dominion, in earth, as in heaven, now, and for evermore. Amen.

DISCOURSE XXXIV.

SPIRITUAL LIGHT AND DARKNESS.

ROм. XIII. 11.

Now it is high time to awake out of sleep.

MAN comes into the world totally ignorant of all things, and afterward acquires knowledge, fancied or real, imperfect or useful, according to his capacity, his application, and his opportunities.

As to the knowledge of religion, and of morality, which depends absolutely on religion, the same is true of both. We know the principles of either, only so far as we have had the benefit of good instructions, and according to the talents and diligence we have brought with us to the inquiry. Hence it hath come to pass, that many nations, for want of proper teachers, have continued for a long succession of ages altogether ignorant of true religion, and that even in those countries, where the people have been best provided with instructors, a very few, through mere incapacity, have lived and died in a great measure ignorant of it; while an infinitely greater number, who had natural talents sufficient for the purpose, having turned them another way, passed their days in almost as gross ignorance of this most excellent kind of knowledge, as they could have done, had they been totally destitute of teachers.

The wisest heathen nations knew little or nothing of themselves, whence they came, or to what end they were destined. Whether they had any being before this life, or were to have any after it, they either did not inquire, or could by no means determine. They seemed to rise like the brutes, out of time and matter; and having little or no prospect of a future being, they lived a mere animal life, and were led by sin, like oxen, to the universal slaughter made by death.

Their deepest reasoners could never agree about the chief