so the Gospel of Christ is all mercy, and God is a God of bounty, and will not be displeased with us, who are the peace-makers, and peace-preservers of human society; the physicians of its diseases, and the defenders of its health.'-And for the third and highest class, who contemplate the intellectual and moral dignity of man in a wider sense than the sciences of nature and government will contain, they generally become gods unto themselves; and in their own exalted ideas they behold the heaven of which they are in pursuit. But of this class, as I have met with none, or hardly any, in the course of my pilgrimage, and have heard of very few extant in those times, I have no occasion to speak particularly. Suffice it to have shewn you in what way Satan steals the faith, the hope, and the desire of men, who are occupied with the cares of the world, away from the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

And thus having foreclosed their souls by a fictitious and false Gospel, he hath them wholly removed from the joyful sound of salvation by the Gospel of Christ; and their spirit within them being deprived of its proper food, yea, rather being under a continual ministry of poisonous error, dies gradually, and leaves the whole man, body and soul, to be ruled by Satan at his pleasure. The cravings of the spirit after immortality and righteousness and peace, being thus satisfied with the mimicry of truth, and laid asleep in the lap of error, he hath the whole field unto himself, and entereth his slave to the whole round of worldly cares; and there is no further hope of his redemption, unless it shall please the Lord, by some stroke of his providence, to shake those things upon which his faith

and hope repose. The very calls and occasions for religion are eaten out; and the deluded people go on as well without it as with it, until death comes and reveals at once the terrible fallacy of a present life, and the loss of a life to come, with an inheritance of shame and wretchedness for ever. Speak to them of the world to come, they shrug their shoulders and say, 'That will come time enough; the present world is burden sufficient.' Press them a little more, and they will add with a smile, 'Why do you sicken our enjoyment with such gloomy questions?' And entreat them, for their soul's sake, to take thought ere it be too late; and they will confess that this is a concern to which they have given too little thought. And open the matter to them at large, and reason it with them, and they will say, 'Thou almost persuadest me to be a Christian: I will hear thee again at some more convenient season.'

Oh but, dear brethren, I do pity from the bottom of my soul the careful busy world, and would fain do my little part to instruct and warn them; or, if I cannot save them from certain destruction, to instruct and warn you against the strong current and whirling eddies of the gulf in which, alas! the multitude are sweeping downwards to destruction. What think you, my dear friends? is there not a voice within you that says, 'I was not made to be the world's drudge, but to be the world's monarch? Else why this capacious understanding of all secrets of nature; this cunning hand that worketh it into infinite forms; this eye, which being armed with ingenious instruments, at once possesseth the amplest and the most minute of things? And why this heart, which is blank in the midst of riches, and

possessions, and honours, and power? Surely this soul of mine is not made to be the companion, much less the bondsman, of those creatures; for it is uncomforted in the midst of them. They cannot quiet the remorse of crime; they cannot heal the wounds of affection; they cannot extract the power of ingratitude, or fill up the tedium of disappointment. They bring me no peace; they do but increase my cares: one mountain climbed, another ariseth before me, and another, and there is no end of the labour. I do but get deeper into the bowels of this charmed land, and lose more and more my own liberty, my own innocency, my own being. I am hurried and hastened along with a multitude, who hurry and haste they know not whither. I could wish again for the ignorance and inexperience of my youth; for certainly I grow daily more hardened, and more cold, and more shrewd, and more artful. I am made familiar with deception, and trained to endure it, to conform to it. And what do I reap as the fruit of these earnest and laborious sowings? I reap a great increase of care, a heap of worldly ambitions, an intoxication of worldly pleasure. But where is conscience gone? Where are those ingenuous thoughts with which my life commenced, the blushings of shame, the ardours of enthusiasm, the artless simplicity, the free and delicate honour, the tender and romantic affections, the chivalrous purposes, the gay and glorious morning of my life? Where is the poetry and the romance, and the beauty, with which my early soul did invest all things. Ah! and have I reaped the loss of all these fascinations? have I resigned this attendant angel, whom I wooed in youth, for the worldly beldam who now sits heavy upon my

aged breast, and drinks the life-blood of my heart?' -There is hardly a wider difference between an angel and a demon, than there often is between a young man entering the world in all the rich exuberance of youthful spirit, fulness of a joyful heart, and pastime of a simple and innocent imagination; and the same being after he hath been well drudged in mammon's workshop; worn and wearied out with the chances of life's lottery, if not fretted and maddened at the great gaming table of ambition. Which difference you know, brethren, better than I can describe it; for mine has been as the inland lake, compared with that boisterous sea on which you have had to steer your course. And yet I am not ignorant, (as who can, who hath fairly grasped and wrestled with the world?) of the fearful havoc it maketh upon the fair person of a man. Which may well be likened to a brave and martial troop of soldiers riding into the field of battle, in all the freshness of morning strength, with military glee and brave banners, burnished steel and warlike minstrelsy; and the same troop returning, tattered and torn, wounded and slain, weary and sorrowful, covered with their own blood and the dust of the ground: and as such a troop, which hath been defeated and disgraced, routed and put to flight, so is every company of men whom you may fix upon, after having contended in this world's contest, to what they were when they entered into that conflict, more direful to the spirits of men than ever was any battle by sea or land to their bodies.-But into this theme, which may be thought to breathe the sentimental, rather than the theological, I must not enter further, but return again to the exact matter of the text.

If the female part of my congregation, being

II. THE EFFECT. 563 cumbered with household and family cares, be hindered from consulting the oracles of the Lord, and impeded in listening to his ministers, and much marred and interrupted in their worship, how much more, ye busy and careful men, upon whose shoulders all these cares of the world's traffic, government, and well-being rest? It is not the positive consumption of time; it is not the positive consumption of strength, and the absorption of mind; but it is the effect of all these combined upon the spirit. Every act of worldly carefulness is an act of homage to Satan, as every act of faith and hope in God's good providence is an act of homage unto Christ. The former disqualifies for the latter; because we cannot serve two masters, or be the subjects of two kingdoms which are enemies, and at open war with each other. This is the seat and centre of the evil. As every kingdom hath its laws and principles, and governments, and history, and interests, and hopes, which form the subject of discourse and debate unto its people, so have these two kingdoms of Satan and of Christ their separate and opposite objects of interest and discourse, wherein their subjects take pleasure. The former, that is, Satan's subjects, delighting above all things to discourse of traffic, and gain, and vanity, and fashion, of ambition and power, of routs, and revels, of riots and confusions, which are not embodied in any one book, because his kingdom is ever changing, but which are thrown off daily and weekly, and monthly and yearly, and served up by thousands, and tens of thousands, for the information and entertainment of his numerous and faithful subjects. The latter, that is, the sub