fuccefsful, exprefs contentment and happinefs? The wrinkles in the brow, and the furrows in the cheek, fpeak another language. Yet the men who exhibit them, plead in excuse for neglecting religion, that they are happy already in their poffeffions, and cannot sacrifice their enjoyments to the doctrines of the melancholy religionist. Their heart is with their treasure; but they will one day find, that a mifer's cheft is like the broken ciftern in the text, incapable of affording comfort in the hour when riches shall appear of no more value than the duft out of which they were originally dug by the miner. One pious, one charitable action, will then be preferred, to all the wealth which the most fuccessful adventurer ever brought from Golconda or Peru.

But is merchandize to cease? Are amufements to be forbidden? Is philosophy to remain uncultivated? Are we to spend our time in useless indolence, in order to be pious? I have on a former occafion answered those questions. You are right, in pursuing the useful employments of civilized life, and in relaxing from your focial labours by innocent amusements; only let them not engross your whole attention. Seek not that in them

which you must ever seek in vain, your chief good. Acquiefce not in them; but look up to God, the giver of them, for the folid happiness which alone can fatisfy your craving heart, your aspiring nature.

And what is there that either he can bestow, or we expect, more than ease, abundance, health, and fame? Great bleffings as these are, he has fomething in ftore infinitely more defirable. It is the emanation of himself; his holy spirit, a heavenly influence, ftreaming like the electrical fluid, invisible, yet pervading the inmost receffes, exalting our nature, and affimilating it with the divine: a living water of efficacy, to purify and exalt our hearts above all that men of the world. are able to conceive. In poverty, it maketh rich indeed; and in riches it gives a fanctification, which renders riches the means of happiness to their poffeffor, and to all who are in the reach of his beneficence.

And what, you afk, is to be done, in order to fecure this ineftimable gift? I afk in return, Do you indeed defire it? are you as anxious, as earneft, as fincere in defiring it, as you were in the pursuit of worldly objects? If you are, fear not. The springs of the living water before you; even the rock in

fhall bubble

up

the wilderness fhall gufh with plenteous ftreams.

Y

My

My understanding, you fay, is convinced of the value of God's grace; but my affections are not yet warmed with a devout defire of obtaining it, and how fhall I catch the pious flame? I anfwer, in the fcriptural precept, Pray without ceafing. Never lie down on your pillow, nor rife from it, without a fervent prayer to him who has given you fafety by day, and repofe in the night season; to him in whom you live and move: nor go forth to your labour without a pious ejaculation.

You will thus, at fome favourable moment, feel the delight of devotion. Your heart will be warmed with that fervour, which will render prayer acceptable at the throne of mercy. All your thoughts and actions will be fanctified, the temple of the Holy Ghoft will be prepared for his reception; and doubt not, but he will come in bleffed influence from the Father, as light iffues from the fun.

Though we are not fufficient of ourselves to do any thing, yet our fufficiency from God will enable us to do all that is neceffary to falvation. No man, fays our Saviour, can come to me unless the Father draw him; and without me ye can do nothing.

'Tis

God,

God, fays St. Paul, that worketh in you to will and to do.

With all humility then, yet with firm faith and afpiring hope, let us approach the holy Trinity, the living fountain of all knowledge, comfort, and happiness, henceforth fully refolved to forfake the broken cifterns, hewn out by our vanity and pride, which can hold no water. Pour down upon us, O Father, Son, and Holy Ghoft, the refreshing ftreams of the waters of comfort; and grant that we may never forfake them to drink at our own. fcanty and fragile refervoirs! O give us the water and the bread of life, and grace to thirst and hunger after them, with more eagerness than after the food which perifheth! And grant that our fpiritual life may be nourished by this heavenly food, till it fhall have arrived at such a state of maturity, as shall induce thee to judge us worthy of being admitted. to thy presence.

The PRIDE of human LEARNING and falfe PHILOSOPHY, a great Obstacle to the Reception of CHRISTIANITY.

I CORINTHIANS, iii. 18, 19, 20. Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you feemeth to be wife in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wife.

For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, he taketh the wife in their own craftiness.

And again, the Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wife that they are vain.

THE purport of the passage which I have

juft recited, appears, on a fuperficial view, to militate against those profound acquifitions and polite accomplishments of human learning, at which the most generous and enlightened of the human race have esteemed

it