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propriety of conduct which has been manifested by all who have attended this meeting. I am no sectarian, but hope that the spirit of God may abide with each one of you present. Let us keep our minds solemn when we depart, and in the feeling of that love which is stronger than death, I bid you all Farewell!

SERMON III.

DELIVERED BY EDWARD HICKS IN THE FRIENDS' MEETING-HOUSE IN ROSE-STREET, NEW-YORK, FIRST DAY MORNING, THE 15TH OF 5TH мONTH, 1825.

"Wo unto you Scribes and Pharisees! because ye build the tomb of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous,

"And say if we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets,

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Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. "Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell ?"

THIS testimony of our blessed Saviour has been brought to my mind at this meeting in a very impressive manner, and has led me, my friends, to the conclusion that we sustain a great loss in not sufficiently knowing ourselves.

"Know then thyself, enough for man to know."

If men and women had a sufficient knowledge of themselves, they would be more guarded and

watchful in their thoughts and actions. These Scribes and Pharisees no doubt believed that had they lived in the days of their fathers they would have acted differently. They abhorred the idea of being guilty of killing the prophets. They felt as Hazael did when he was told of the evil which he would do unto the children of Israel. Is thy servant a dog, he asked, that I should do this great thing? And yet we find that notwithstanding the reprobation with which he viewed the conduct that was ascribed to him, he fell into the snare and committed the same iniquities which had been predicted by the prophet of the Lord. Hence we see, my friends, that we stand in slippery places, that we are in a state of continual jeopardy, and need prayer and watchfulness to guard against it, every hour and every minute of our lives. God protects the meek, and if we are watchful and humble we may hope for his aid to turn us unto righteousness. The Scribes and Pharisees were persons of learning and eminence, and hence they were introduced into the highest and most respectable stations in the church. But ambition grew up, and they were gradually seduced by the temptations of the world. Their declension was imperceptible-for men grow bad, as well as good, gradually. They said if

we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. But they knew not their own hearts; for when the blessed Saviour came and opened to them his divine mission, accompanied with the clearest evidence of its heavenly character, their minds were darkened. They could not comprehend it, nor yield to it their belief. When they could not gainsay the manifestations of his light, nor controvert his miracles, they reasoned upon them and said that he casteth out devils by Belzebub the prince of devils. Notwithstanding the fulness of the law of God, which shone forth in him in so marvellous a manner, and notwithstanding the example of patience and long suffering by which he bore testimony to the truth and divinity of his mission, instead of producing a change in that people for the better, it made them worse. And such is always the result of instruction and preaching; if it does not produce the good ef fect intended, it is sure to produce the opposite. And how bitter and malignant was the spirit in which the Scribes and Pharisees opposed the manifestations of the divine mission of our blessed Saviour! And what was the cause of that Spirit? They were afraid of their popularity. They were apprehensive of the consequences of attempting to destroy our Saviour lest the

people should come forth in his favour. Not on the feast day, said they, lest there be a tumult among the people; for they feared the people. It was the people only, and it is always the people that have kept them at bay. Mankind are the same now that they were formerly. We are constituted in the same manner. We are endowed with the same gifts, and possessed of the same propensities and passions. We are subject now as formerly, to one of two spirits; for if we are not under the influence of the humbling power of God, we shall be under the influence of a

spirit of evil. The same principle of action will govern us that influenced the Scribes and Pharisees and so it will be to the end of the world. It requires the same divine power in these as in former days to bring about a change in the heart, and to enable a rational soul to glorify his Creator. Man was created in the image of God, and he is possessed of the capacity to know, and of the power to perform the divine will. It is to the soul that God imparts his influence, and not to the outward man. The immortal soul and not the body, is destined to that eternal life or death, which is incapable of change. Fixed as the eternal purposes of Heaven, it will go on in the path prescribed, and advance continually in its progress, through the

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