nity; the rewards of wickednefs are too tranfitory, to be confidered, in any respect, as a compenfation for the important facrifices which must be made to attain them. Why, then, will we fweat, and toil, and vex ourfelves in vain? Why will we contend to the death for the acquifition of fuch perishable materials? Confider what it is you have placed your affections on; a few grains of duft, which an accidental breath of wind fhall blow for ever from you. Above all, why will we be wicked? Since life is fo frail and tranfitory, what madness is it to convert fo fhort an exiftence into a scene of turbulence and oppreffion? Ah, Chriftians! this is not the way to be happy. Youth and life fly on hafty wings. While we live, let there be peace among us. We are brethren, we have the fame enemies, and the fame common calamity will overtake and overwhelm us all. The ills of life are many of them unavoidable. Let us not increase them by our divifions; let us rather, while we are yet together, unite against the common enemies of our existence; let us bear one another's burdens; let us alleviate one another's pains; let us enter cordially into one another's fituations. What a fcene of happinefs might this world, its prefent ftate, be rendered, were men but willing to improve their opportunities? There is hardly a man fo low in life but he has fome of his fellow-creatures at his mercy, - fome perfon whom he has it in his power to be

even in

kind to Ah, my friends! how high is the enjoyment to contemplate the happiness which we have been the occafion of to others! Did you ever feel the pleasure of doing a generous action? Did you ever feel that exalted joy which overflows the great hearts of the benevolent, when they are furrounded with ́ thofe whom they have made- happy? There is not an enjoyment in this world equal to it; not the poffeffion of riches, not the pleafures of beauty, nor even the charm of friendship. The selfish act against their own principles when they afpire not after this. And, gracious God! what have those to answer for who have had it in their power to make multitudes of their fellow-creatures happy, and have neglected the glorious, but never-to-beretrieved, opportunity? What a heart muft that man have to whom Heaven gave wealth and influence, as much as his foul could defire, and who yet, on looking back from his death-bed upon his paft life, can recollect no one good action which he ever did with it ? If there is a power above who looks upon this life with equal eyes, muft not a wretch like this tremble to approach him? Will he not have fome dread, that thefe, or the like queftions will be put to him: What, Sir, have you done with your ample fortune? Where are the hungry whom you have fed? Where are the naked whom you have clothed? Where are the prifoners whom you have relieved? Have you ever comforted

the

the widow, while her lofs was ftill recent, and the tear was yet on her cheek? Have you

ever taken the orphan home, whom you have feen pafs by you in the moft forlorn diftrefs, and whofe condition was the more to be pitied, as he knew not yet the greatness of his own mifery? Have you ever raised the worthy man whom Adverfity feemed to take a pleafure in oppreffing, and who yet could not complain, nor tell his own ftory, in order to move compaflion? Where is the mouth that bleffes you? Where is the family that calls you their benefactor?

But, my brethren, let us never imitate fo worthless an example. Be it our business to be kind and ufeful. O God! our common parent! infpire us with generous and noble fentiments; banish every thing that is little, every thing that is felfifh and low, from our glowing bofoms. Let us refolve this moment, that, whatever we have been, from henceforth we will be good and benevolent. Come, my hearers come all, and let us fwear eternal friendship. Let us promife, in this virtuous moment, that we never will injure one another more. Lo! Death advances with gloomy speed. Already the heavens begin to lowr. Let us hafte, and do fome good action; left we be overtaken before we have put our virtuous refolutions in practice. Let us join in one strict embrace, that, when the bolt comes, it may ftrike us locked in one another's arms. Let us live like men, that we may die like Chriftians.

SER

SERMON XV.

The excellency of the spirit of Christianity.

By WILLIAM LEECHMAN, D. D.

Preached before the Society in Scotland for propagating Christian Knowledge, at Edinburgh, June 5. 1767.

2 TIM. i. 7.

For God hath not given us the Spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a found mind.

T is very probable, that the apostle wrote

this fecond epistle to Timothy in the time of the perfecution of the Chriftians in the reign of the Roman Emperor Nero, and when he was himself a prifoner at Rome, and had a near profpect of fuffering as a martyr for his religion. In this mournful and diftreffing fituation, he addreffes this epiftle to Timothy. He had converted Timothy to the Chriftian faith; he had appointed him to the

* See Dr Benfon's hiftory of the ftate of things when this epiftle was written, prefixed to his para phrafe and notes on the epile.

facred

facred office of an evangelift, and had imparted to him the gifts of the Holy Ghoft. The apoftle, therefore, may be confidered in this epiftle as giving his dying charge to his favourite difciple, and devolving upon him the work of the gofpel before he left the world.

In the verfe before the text, he exhorts him to ftir up the gift of God that is in him. The word in the original, which is tranflated fir up, fignifies properly, To blow up a fire to a more intenfe degree of heat: fo that the meaning and import of the exhortation is, Cultivate and improve, to the beft advantage, the fpiritual gifts with which you are endowed; and exert all your faculties and talents to the utmoft, in the faithful difcharge of the duties of that great office in which you are engaged. And, in the words of the text, he enforces the exhortation from a confideration taken from the nature and genius of Christianity itself: verfe 7. "For God hath "not given us the fpirit of fear; but of "power, and of love, and of a found mind." That is, God hath not given us Chriftians the fpirit of timidity and cowardice, of felfifhnefs and malignity, of levity and folly; but he hath given us the fpirit of firmness and courage, of benignity and love, of wifdom and fobriety of mind.

It appears from the verfe after the text, and from many other paffages in this epiftle, that the apoftle had full in his eye thofe labours, hardships,