Confider, thou that dareft to despise the religion of thy father, the fhortness of thy life, thy weakness, and thy mifery; confider, and rejoice that religion opens a gleam of hope, a profpect of funfhine in the midst of the furrounding gloom. Let all thy best endeavours be directed to that most important of all objects, the fecuring of God Almighty's favour and protection; that haven in the ftorm, when the waters fhall go over our foul. Whatever doubts and cavils little witlings and minute philofophers may raise, no man can deny our abfolute dependence on fome Superior Power; and no man can prove, that an attempt to render ourselves acceptable in the fight of this Superior Power, is unreasonable, or attended with any kind of injury to ourselves, or to the rest of the human race. Let us then fall down before him, with the deepest sense of our own unworthinefs, and of love and veneration for his power and wisdom in the creation, and for his mercy in the redemption, of us by our Lord Jefus Chrift.

God grant that what I have advanced may lead you to walk in the ways of piety and peace, in which your fathers walked who now fleep; and that as you follow, with all humility, their footsteps to the grave, you may alfo

follow

follow them, when they shall emerge in glory, and when the happiness of heaven itself shall be increased by a joyful meeting of parents and children, who loved each other in life, and who, in the refurrection, shall not be divided.

C 3

SERMON II.

HOPE in GOD.

PSALM xlii. 5.

Why art thou caft down, O my foul, and why art thou fo difquieted within me? Hope thou in God, for I fhall yet praise him for the light of his countenance.

THE 'HE beautifully pathetic strains of this

Pfalm are supposed to have been occafioned by the unnatural rebellion of Abfalom against the royal writer of it. And indeed, unhappy parent, tho hadft reafon to be caft down, if ever man had, when thine own fon was in arms against thee, and had driven thee from Jerufalem, which thy foul loved. A child wielding a sword against his father! The reflection is fharper than the fword, and pierces more deeply, and cuts more keenly, than the barbed arrow from the bow, And bitterly

doft

doft thou lament thy misfortune. Thou feelest as a man, though at the fame time, like a good man, thou deriveft confolation from the only fource of it in fevere affliction, HOPE in God.

The example which David exhibits, in seeking comfort under distress from God, is worthy univerfal imitation; and the words of the text are doubtlefs recorded, not only as a memorial of David's behaviour under his distress, but as a guidance for all the fons and daughters of affliction.

And let me afk, What mortal is there who is not of this family? Man is born to woe, Many drink more deeply of the bitter cup than others, but all, at fome time of their lives, have a portion of it. Man fell from his obedience, and evil entered into the world; the natural confequence and punishment of rebellion. Human misery is indeed productive of improvement; and God Almighty decreed in his wisdom, that the confequence of man's fall should operate as one cause in producing his re-elevation, by caufing his repentance and amendment.

The leffons of virtue are best taught in the school of adverfity; but it is a fevere school,

and man, in the courfe of his trials, frequently faints. The burthen of his evils becomes intolerable: He falls down proftrate to the earth, and would rejoice if it would fwallow him up, and fnatch him from the ills of life, even by configning him for everlasting to nonentity.

It must indeed be confeffed, that if religion did not open cheerful profpects to the view, human nature might have reason to complain of the injustice of the Divine government. What can be more unjuft, than that a man should be unconsciously born, forced into exiftence without his own confent, merely to fuffer evil without the hope of a compenfation? Such an idea cuts off all hope in God, and therefore tends immediately to produce infanity and fuicide, both which prevail deplorably in the present age, in consequence of unfettled principles of religion, or of downright infidelity; a circumftance which, I hope you will agree with me, renders the subject I have chosen particularly seasonable. Infanity and fuicide!-thefe are the glorious trophies of that falfe philofophy which seems to bę aiming at nothing less than the extermination of Christianity.

Great,