is obvious. We are surprised, fatally surprised. Our eyes are only opened when they are ready to close for ever. Perhaps an instant of reflection to be made the most of: perhaps to be divided between the disposition of worldly affairs and the business of eternity! An instant of reflection, just God! to bewail an entire life of disorder! to inspire faith the most lively, hope the most firm, love the most pure! An instant of reflection, perhaps for a sinner whom vice may have infected to the very marrow of his bones, when reason is half eclipsed, and all the faculties palsied by the strong grasp of death! Oh, my brethren, terrible is the fate of those, who are only roused from a long and criminal security, by the sword of his divine justice already gleaming in their eyes. Remember, that if any truth in religion be more repeatedly pressed on us than another, it is this-that as we live, so shall we inevitably die. Few of us, I am sure, but live in the intention of throwing an interval of most serious reflection between the world and the grave. But let me warn you on that point; it is not given to man to bestow his heart and affection on the present scene, and recall them when he pleases. No; every hour will draw our chains closer. Those obstacles to better practice, which we find insuperable at this moment, will be more insuperable as we go on. It is the property of years to give wide and immoveable root to all passions. The deeper the bed of the torrent, the more impossible to change its course. The older and more inveterate a wound, the more painful the remedy, and more desperate the cure. There is no Peace to the Wicked. Kirwan. In truth, my brethren, there is not a sin, but what one way or another is punished in this life. We often err egregiously by not attending to the distinction between happiness, and the means of happiness. Power, riches, and prosperity, those means of happiness and sources of enjoyment, in the course of Providence, are sometimes conferred upon the worst of men. Such persons possess the good things of life, but they do not enjoy them. They have the means of happiness, but they have not happiness itself. A wicked man can never be happy. It is the firm decree of heaven, eternal and unchangeable as Jehovah himself, that misery must ever attend on guilt; that, when sin enters, happiness takes its departure. There is no such thing in nature, my brethren,-there is no such thing in nature,-as a vicious or unlawful pleasure. What we generally call such, are pleasures in themselves lawful, procured by wrong means, or enjoyed in a wrong way; procured by injustice, or enjoyed with intemperance; and surely neither injustice nor intemperance have any charm for the mind: and unless we are framed with a very uncommon temper of mind and body, injustice will be hurtful to the one, and intemperance fatal to the other. Unruly desires and bad passions, the gratification of which is sometimes called pleasure, are the source of almost all the miseries in human life. When once indulged, they rage for repeated gratification, and subject us, at all times, to their clamours and importunity. When they are gratified, if they give any joy,-it is the joy of fiends, the joy of the tormented, a joy which is purchased at the expense of a good conscience, which rises on the ruins of the public peace, and proceeds from the miseries of our fellow-creatures. The forbidden fruit proves to be the apples of Sodom and the grapes of Gomorrah. One deed of shame is succeeded by years of penitence and pain. A single indulgence of wrath has raised a conflagration, which neither the force of friendship, nor length of time, nor the vehe mence of intercession, could mitigate or appease; and which could only be quenched by the effusion of human blood. One drop from the cup of this powerful sorceress has turned living streams of joy into waters of bitterness. "There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." - If a wicked man could be happy, who might have been so happy as Haman,-raised from an inferior station to great riches and power, exalted above his rivals, and above the princes of the empire, favourite and prime minister to the greatest monarch in the world? But with all these advantages on his side, and under all these smiles of fortune, his happiness was destroyed by the want of a bow, usual to those of his station, from one of the porters of the palace. Enraged with this neglect, this vain great man cried out in the pang of disappointment, "All this availeth me nothing, so long as I see. Mordecai sitting at the king's gate." This seeming affront sat deep on his mind. He meditated revenge. A single victim could not satisfy his malice. He wanted to have a glutting vengeance. He resolved for this purpose, to involve thousands in destruction, and to make a whole nation fall a sacrifice to the indulgence of his mean-spirited pride. His wickedness proves his ruin, and he erected the gallows, on which he himself was doomed to be hanged! If we consider man as an individual, we shall see a further confirmation of the truth contained in the text, "That there is no peace to the wicked." In order to strengthen the obligations to virtue, Almighty God hath rendered the practice of sin fatal to our peace as individuals, as well as pernicious to our interests as members of society. From the sinner God withdraws his favour and the light of his countenance. How dark will that mind be, which no beam from the Father of lights ever visits? How joyless that heart, which the spirit of life never animates! When sin entered into paradise, the angels of God forsook the place. So from the soul that is polluted with guilt, peace, and joy, and hope, those good angels, vanish and depart. What succeeds to this family of heaven? Confusion, shame, remorse, despair. Logan. On the Importance of an Interest in the Divine Favour. If God be the great ruler of the world, and governs it without interruption or control, of what infinite importance is his favour! If an earthly ruler be our friend, we reckon that all our civil interests are secure; but if God doth according to his pleasure, both in heaven and in earth, in this world and the next, his favour must be life, and his loving kindness must be even better than life. It must be of all things the most desirable, for it comprehends in it all things that are good. If his power could be controlled, if his will could be eluded, if his government could be interrupted, if any interest of ours lay without the reach of his sceptre or his influence; we might then occasionally hesitate concerning the importance of his favour, and deliberate whether, in this season or in that circumstance, we stood in need of it. But at all seasons, and in all circumstances, being absolutely in his hands; holding our lives and comforts at his pleasure; suffering only through his appointment, and prolonging our days in joy or in sorrow according to his will; capable, if he pleaseth, of immortal happiness, and liable, if he commands it, to everlasting destruction; unable to resist him, and unable to recommend ourselves to any who can maintain our interest against God; what is it that should be the first object of our anxiety-what is it that should be the constant subject of our concern, but that without which we must be wretched; possessed of which, no enmity can hurt us, and no evil overwhelm or injure us? Would you that your friends should love you?-make a friend of God. Would you that their neglect, if they do neglect you, should be better to you than their love?-make a friend of God. Would you that your enemies should be at peace with you?be ye reconciled to Heaven. Would you that their hatred should promote your interest?—take care to have an interest in God. Would you prosper in the world?—you cannot do it without God's help. Say not that your prosperity may be the result of the right and vigorous application of your own powers. Ask yourselves from whom those powers are derived, by whom those powers are continued to you, and who it is that forms the connections, and constitutes the conjunctures that are favourable to the right and successful application of your abilities. Whatever are your views in life, you cannot attain them without God; and though he should assist you to attain them, yet still you cannot improve your real interests, you you. cannot enjoy them in unalloyed comfort, without God. Would you that your souls should prosper ?-it must be through his blessing. Are you weary of affliction?-there is no aid but in the Divine compassion. Are you burdened with a load of guilt?-there is no hope for you but in the Divine mercy. Is your heart sad?-your comfort must come from God. Is your soul rejoicing?-God must prolong your joy, or, like the burning thorn, it will blaze and die. Does your inexperienced youth need to be directed?-God must be your guide. Does your declining age need to be supported?-God must be your strength. The vigour of your manly age will wither, if God does not nourish and defend it; and even prosperity is a curse, if God does not give a heart to relish and enjoy it. All hearts, all powers are God's. Seek ye then the Lord while he is to be found; seek his favour with your whole souls; it is a blessing that will well reward you for all that you can sacrifice to purchase it; it is a blessing without which nothing else can bless His pa tience may perhaps for a moment suffer you to triumph; but do not thence conclude that you enjoy his favour. If a good conscience do not tell you so, believe no other witness; for all the pleasures that you boast are but like the pleasures of a bright morning, and a gaudy equipage to the malefactor going to his execution. Every moment you are in jeopardy, and every moment may put an end to your jollity, and transform your hopes and joys into desperate and helpless misery. It is but for God to leave you, and you are left by every thing you delight in, and abandoned to every thing you fear. It is but for God to will it so, and this night your reason shall forsake you, your health shall fail you, your friends on whom you lean shall fall, and your comforts on which you are rejoicing shall distress you. It is but for God to will it so, and this moment shall begin a series of perplexities, and fears, and griefs, which in this world shall never end. It is but for God to will it so, and this night thy soul shall be ejected from its earthly tabernacle: this night thy last pulse shall beat, and thy last breath expire; and thine eyes, for ever closed on all |