with the Scriptures, for not giving us the preci- | sion of civil laws; and we may blame the laws, for not being content with the conciseness and simplicity of Scripture; and our censure in both cases be unfounded and undeserved.

The observation of the text is exactly of the nature I have been alluding to. It supplies a principle. It furnishes us with a view of our duty, and of the relations in which we are placed, which, if attended to, (and no instruction can be of use without that,) will produce in our minds just determinations, and, what are of more value, because more wanted, efficacious motives.

None of us liveth to himself." We ought to regard our lives, (including under that name our faculties, our opportunities, our advantages of every kind,) not as mere instruments of personal gratification, but as due to the service of God; and as given us to be employed in promoting the purpose of his will in the happiness of our fellowcreatures. I am not able to imagine a turn of thought which is better than this. It encounters the antagonist, the check, the destroyer of all virtue, selfishness. It is intelligible to all; to all different degrees applicable. It incessantly prompts to exertion, to activity, to beneficence.

and excluded, it is the present. If ever there was a time to make the public feel the benefit of public institutions, it is this.

But I shall add nothing more concerning the obligation which the text, and the lesson it conveys, imposes upon public men, because I think that the principle is too apt to be considered as appertaining to them alone. It will therefore be more useful to show, how what are called private stations are affected by the same principle. I say, what are called private stations; for such they are, only as contradistinguished from public trusts publicly and formally confided. In themselves, and accurately estimated, there are few such; I mean, that there are few so destined to the private emolument of the possessor, as that they are innocently occupied by him, when they are occupied with no other attention but to his own enjoyment. Civil government is constituted for the happiness of the governed, and not for the gratification of those who administer it. Not only so, but the gradations of rank in society are supported, not for the advantage or pleasure of those who possess the highest places in it, but for the common good; for the security, the repose, the protection, the encouragement, of all. They may be In order to recommend it, and in order to ren- very satisfactorily defended upon this principle; der it as useful as it is capable of being made, it but then this principle casts upon them duties. may be proper to point out, how the force and In particular, it teaches every man who possesses truth of the apostle's assertion bears upon the dif- a fortune, to regard himself as in some measure ferent classes of civil society. And in this view, occupying a public station; as obliged to make it the description of men which first, undoubtedly, a channel of beneficence, an instrument of good offers itself to our notice, is that of men of public to others, and not merely a supply to himself of characters; who possess offices of importance, the materials of luxury, ostentation, or avarice. power, influence, and authority. If the rule and There is a share of power and influence necessaprinciple which I am exhibiting to your observa- rily attendant upon property; upon the right or tion, can be said to be made for one class of man- the wrong use of which, the exertion or the negkind more than another, it is for them. They, lect, depends no little part of the virtue or vice, certainly, "live not to themselves." The design, the happiness or misery, of the community. It is the tenure, the condition of their offices; the pub-in the choice of every man of rank and property lic expectation, the public claim; consign their to become the benefactor or the scourge, the guarlives and labours, their cares, and thoughts, and dian or the tyrant, the example or the corrupter, talents, to the public happiness, whereinsoever it of the virtue of his servants, his tenants, his neighis connected with the duties of their stations, or bourhood; to be the author to them of peace or can be advanced by the fidelity of their services. contention, of sobriety or dissoluteness, of comfort There may be occasions and emergencies when or distress. This power, whencesoever it promen are called upon to take part in the public ceeds, whether expressly conferred or silently acservice, out of the line of their professions, or the quired, (for I see no difference in the two cases,) ordinary limits of their vocation. But these emer- brings along with it obligation and responsibility. gencies occur, I think, seldom. The necessity It is to be lamented when this consideration is should be manifest, before we yield to it. A too not known, or not attended to. Two causes apgreat readiness to start out of our separate pre- pear to me to obstruct, to men of this description, cincts of duty, in order to rush into provinces the view of their moral situation. One is, that which belong to others, is a dangerous excess of they do not perceive any call upon them at all; zeal. In general the public interest is best upheld, the other, that, if there be one, they do not see to the public quiet always best preserved, by each what they are called. To the first point I would one attending closely to the proper and distinct answer in the words of an excellent moralist,* duties of his station. In seasons of peril or con- "The delivery of the talent is the call;" it is the sternation, this attention ought to be doubled. call of Providence, the call of Heaven. The supDangers are not best opposed by tumultuous or ply of the means is the requisition of the duty. disorderly exertions; but by a sedate, firm, and When we find ourselves in possession of faculties calm resistance, especially by that regular and si- and opportunities, whether arising from the enlent strength, which is the collected result of each dowments and qualities of our minds, or from the man's vigilance and industry in his separate sta-advantages of fortune and station, we need ask tion. For public men, therefore, to be active in the stations assigned to them, is demanded by their country in the hour of her fear or danger. If ever there was a time, when they that rule "should rule with diligence;" when supineness, negligence, and remissness in office, when a ti midity or love of ease, which might in other circumstances be tolerated, ought to be proscribed

for no further evidence of the intention of the donor: we ought to see in that intention a demand upon us for the use and application of what has been given. This is a principle of natural as

*The late Abraham Tucker, Esq. author of The Light of Nature, and of The Light of Nature and Revelation pursued, by Edward Search, Esq.

well as revealed religion: and it is universal. Then as to the second inquiry, the species of benevolence, the kind of duty to which we are bound, it is pointed out to us by the same indication. To whatever office of benevolence our faculties are best fitted, our talents turned; whatever our opportunities, our occasions, our fortune, our profession, our rank or station, or whatever our local circumstances, which are capable of no enumeration, put in our power to perform with the most advantage and effect, that is the office for us; that it is, which, upon our principle, we are designed, and, being designed, are obliged to discharge. I think that the judgment of mankind does not often fail them in the choice of the objects or species of their benevolence: but what fails them is the sense of the obligation, the consciousness of the connexion between duty and power, and springing from this consciousness, a disposition to seek opportunities, or to embrace those that occur, of rendering themselves useful to their generation.

which the private endeavours of an individual can produce upon the mass of social good, is so lost, and so unperceived, in the comparison, that it neither deserves, they think, nor rewards, the attention which it requires. The answer is, that the comparison, which thus discourages them, ought never to be made. The good which their efforts can produce, may be too minute to bear any sensible proportion to the sum of public happiness, yet may be their share, may be enough for them. The proper question is not, whether the good we aim at be great or little; still less, whether it be great or little in comparison with the whole; but whether it be the most which it is in、 our power to perform. A single action may be, as it were, nothing to the aggregate of moral good; so also may be the agent. It may still, therefore, be the proportion which is required of him. In all things nature works by numbers. Her greatest effects are achieved by the joint operation of multitudes of (separately considered) insignificant individuals. It is enough for each that it executes Another cause, which keeps out of the sight of its office. It is not its concern, because it does those who are concerned in them, the duties that not depend upon its will, what place that office belong to superior stations, is a language from holds in, or what proportion it bears to, the genetheir infancy familiar to them, namely, that they ral result. Let our only comparison therefore be, are placed above work. I have always considered between our opportunities and the use which we this as a most unfortunate phraseology. And, as make of them." When we would extend our habitual modes of speech have no small effect upon views, or stretch out our hand, to distant and public sentiment, it has a direct tendency to make general good, we are commonly lost and sunk in one portion of mankind envious, and the other the magnitude of the subject. Particular good, idle. The truth is, every man has his work. The and the particular good which lies within our kind of work varies, and that is all the difference reach, is all we are concerned to attempt, or to inthere is. A great deal of labour exists beside that quire about. Not the smallest effort will be forof the hands; many species of industry beside bo- gotten; not a particle of our virtue will fall to the dily operation, equally necessary, requiring equal ground. Whether successful or not, our endeaassiduity, more attention, more anxiety. It is not vours will be recorded; will be estimated, not actrue, therefore, that men of elevated stations are cording to the proportion which they bear to the exempted from work; it is only true, that there is universal interest, but according to the relation assigned to them work of a different kind: whe- which they hold to our means and opportunities; ther more easy, or more pleasant, may be ques- according to the disinterestedness, the sincerity, tioned; but certainly not less wanted, not less with which we undertook, the pains and perseve essential to the common good. Were this maxim rance with which we carried them on. It may be once properly received as a principle of conduct, it true, and I think it is the doctrine of Scripture, would put men of fortune and rank upon in- that the right use of great faculties or great opporquiring, what were the opportunities of doing tunities will be more highly rewarded, than the good, (for some, they may depend upon it, there right use of inferior faculties and less opportuniare,) which in a more especial manner belonged ties. He that with ten talents had made ten ta to their situation or condition; and were this lents more, was placed over ten cities. The negprinciple carried into any thing like its full effect, lected talent was also given to him. He who or even were this way of thinking sufficiently in- with five talents had made five more, though proculcated, it would completely remove the invidi-nounced to be a good and faithful servant, was ousness of elevated stations. Mankind would see placed only over five cities. This distinction in them this alternative: If such men discharged might, without any great harshness to our moral the duties which were attached to the advantages feelings, be resolved into the will of the Supreme they enjoyed, they deserved these advantages: if Benefactor: but we can see, perhaps, enough of they did not, they were, morally speaking, in the the subject to perceive that it was just. The merit situation of a poor man who neglected his business may reasonably be supposed to have been more in and his calling; and in no better. And the pro- one case than the other. The danger, the activity, per reflection in both cases is the same: the indi- the care, the solicitude, were greater. Still both vidual is in a high degree culpable, yet the busi-received rewards, abundant beyond measure when ness and the calling beneficial and expedient.

compared with the services, equitable and proportioned when compared with one another.

The habit and the disposition which we wish to recommend, namely, that of casting about for That our obligation is commensurate with our opportunities of doing good, readily seizing those opportunity, and that the possession of the opporwhich accidentally present themselves, and faith-tunity is sufficient, without any further or more fully using those which naturally and regularly belong to our situations, appear to be sometimes checked by a notion, very natural to active spirits, and to flattered talents. They will not be content to do little things. They will either attempt mighty matters, or do nothing. The small effect

formal command, to create the obligation, is a principle of morality and of Scripture; and is alike true in all countries. But that power and property so far go together, as to constitute private fortunes

Matt. xxv. 20, et seq.

country, and who come amongst us, strangers to our contentions, if we have any, our parties, and our prejudices; strangers to every thing except the evidence which they hear. The effect corresponds with the wisdom of the design. Juries may err, and frequently do so; but there is no system of error incorporated with their constitu tion. Corruption, terror, influence are excluded by it; and prejudice, in a great degree, though not entirely. This danger, which consists in juries viewing one class of men, or one class of rights, in a more or less favourable light than another, is the only one to be feared, and to be guarded against. It is a disposition, which, whenever it rises up in the minds of jurors, ought to be repressed by their probity, their consciences, the sense of their duty, the remembrance of their oaths.

into public stations, as to cast upon large portions | of the community occasions which render the preceding principles more constantly applicable, is the effect of civil institutions, and is found in no country more than in ours; if in any so much. With us a great part of the public business of the country is transacted by the country itself: and upon the prudent and faithful management of it, depends, in a very considerable degree, the interior prosperity of the nation, and the satisfaction of great bodies of the people. Not only offices of magistracy, which affect and pervade every district, are delegated to the principal inhabitants of the neighbourhood, but there is erected in every county a high and venerable tribunal, to which owners of permanent property, down almost to their lowest classes, are indiscriminately called; and called to take part, not in the forms and ceremonies of the meeting, but in the most efficient and important of its functions. The wisdom of man hath not devised a happier institution than that of juries, or one founded in a juster knowledge of human life, or of the human capacity. In jurisprudence, as in every science, the points ultimately rest upon common sense. But to reduce a question to these points, and to propose them accurately, requires not only an understanding superior to that which is necessary to decide upon them when proposed, but oftentimes also a tech-by terms the most solemn and significant, how nical and peculiar erudition. Agreeably to this distinction, which runs perhaps through all sciences, what is preliminary and preparatory is left to the legal profession; what is final, to the plain understanding of plain men. But since it is necessary that the judgment of such men should be informed; and since it is of the utmost importance that advice which falls with so much weight, should be drawn from the purest sources; judges are sent down to us, who have spent their lives in the study and administration of the laws of their

And this institution is not more salutary, than it is grateful and honourable to those popular feelings of which all good governments are tender. Hear the language of the law. In the most momentous interests, in the last peril indeed of human life, the accused appeals to God and his country, "which country you are." What pomp of titles, what display of honours, can equal the real dignity which these few words confer upon those to whom they are addressed? They show,

highly the law deems of the functions and character of a jury; they show also, with what care of the safety of the subject it is, that the same law has provided for every one a recourse to the fair and indifferent arbitration of his neighbours. This is substantial equality; real freedom: equality of protection; freedom from injustice. May it never be invaded, never abused! May it be perpetual! And it will be so, if the affection of the country continue to be preserved to it, by the integrity of those who are charged with its office.

SERMONS ON SEVERAL SUBJECTS.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The Author of these Sermons, by a codicil to his will, declares as follows:-" If my life had been. continued, it was my intention to have printed at Sunderland a Volume of Sermons-about 500 copies; to be distributed gratis in the parish; and I had proceeded so far in the design as to have transcribed several Sermons for that purpose, which are in a parcel by themselves. There is also a parcel from which I intended to make other transcripts; but the business is in an imperfect unfinished state; the arrangement not settled further than that I thought the Sermon on Seriousness in Religion should come first, and then the doctrinal Sermons: there are also many repetitions in them, and some that might be omitted or consolidated with others." The codicil then goes on to direct, that, after such disposition should have been made respecting the Manuscripts as might be deemed necessary, they should be printed by the Rev. Mr. Stephenson, at the expense of the testator's executors, and distributed in the neighbourhood, first to those who frequented church, then to farmers' families in the country, then to such as had a person in the family who could read, and were likely to read them: and, finally, it is added, "I would not have the said Sermons published for sale."

In compliance with this direction, the following Sermons were selected, printed, and distributed by the Rev. Mr. Stephenson, in and about the parish of Bishop Wearmouth, in the year 1806.

These Discourses were not originally composed for publication, but were written for, and, as appears by the Manuscripts, had most of them been preached at the parish Churches of which, in different parts of the Author's life, he had the care. It was undoubtedly the Author's intention that they should not be published, but the circulation of such a number as he had directed by his will to be distributed, rendered it impossible to adhere to that intention; and it was found necessary to publish them, as the only means of preventing a surreptitious sale.

SERMON I.

SERIOUSNESS IN RELIGION INDISPENSABLE ABOVE ALL OTHER DISPOSITIONS.

-Be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.—1 Pet. iv. 7

THE first requisite in religion is seriousness. No impression can be made without it. An orderly life, so far as others are able to observe us, is now and then produced by prudential motives, or by dint of habit; but without seriousness, there can be no religious principle at the bottom, no course of conduct flowing from religious motives: in a word, there can be no religion. This cannot exist without seriousness upon the subject. Perhaps a teacher of religion has more difficulty in producing seriousness amongst his hearers, than in any other part of his office. Until he succeed in this, he loses his labour: and when once, from any cause whatever, a spirit of levity has taken hold of a mind, it is next to impossible to plant serious considerations in that mind. It is seldom to be done, except by some great shock or alarm, sufficient to make a radical change in the disposition: and which is God's own way of bringing about the business.

One might have expected that events so awful and tremendous, as death and judgment; that a question so deeply interesting, as whether we shall go to heaven or to hell, could in no possible case, and in no constitution of mind whatever, fail of exciting the most serious apprehension and concern. But this is not so. In a thoughtless, a careless, a sensual world, many are always found who can resist, and who do resist, the force and importance of all these reflections, that is to say, they suffer nothing of the kind to enter into their thoughts. There are grown men and women, nay, even middle aged persons, who have not thought seriously about religion an hour, nor a quarter of an hour, in the whole course of their lives. This great object of human solicitude affects not them in any manner whatever.

It cannot be without its use to inquire into the causes of a levity of temper, which so effectually obstructs the admission of every religious

influence, and which I should almost call unnatural.

Now there is a numerous class of mankind, who are wrought upon by nothing but what applies immediately to their senses; by what they see, or by what they feel; by pleasures or pains, or by the near prospect of pleasures and pains which they actually experience or actually observe. But it is the characteristic of religion to hold out to our consideration consequences which we do not perceive at the time. That is its very office and province. Therefore if men will restrict and confine all their regards and all their cares to things which they perceive with their outward senses; if they will yield up their understandings to their senses, both in what these senses are fitted to apprehend, and in what they are not fitted to apprehend, it is utterly impossible for religion to settle in their hearts, or for them to entertain any serious concern about the matter. But surely this conduct is completely irrational, and can lead to nothing but ruin. It proceeds upon the supposition, that there is nothing above us, about us, or future, by which we can be affected, but the things which we see with our eyes or feel by our touch. All which is untrue. "The invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are seen; even his eternal Power and Godhead;" which means, that the order, contrivance, and design, displayed in the creation, prove with certainty, that there is more in nature than what we really see; and that amongst the invisible things of the universe, there is a Being, the author and original of all this contrivance and design, and, by consequence, a being of stupendous power, and of wisdom and knowledge incomparably exalted above any wisdom or knowledge which we see in man; and that he stands in the same relation to us as the maker does to the thing made. The things which are seen are not made of the things which do appear. This is plain: and this argument is independent of Scripture and Revelation. What further moral or religious consequences properly follow from it, is another question; but the proposition itself shows, that they who cannot, and they who will not, raise their minds above the mere information of their senses, are in a state of gross error as to the real truth of things, and are also in a state to which the faculties of man ought not to be degraded. A person of this sort may, with respect to religion, remain a child all his life. A child naturally has no concern but about the things which directly meet its senses; and the person we describe is in the same condition. Again: there is a race of giddy thoughtless men and women, of young men and young women more especially, who look no further than the next day, the next week, the next month; seldom or ever so far as the next year. Present pleasure is every thing with them.-The sports of the day, the amusements of the evening, entertainments and diversions, occupy all their concern; and so long as these can be supplied in succession, so long as they can go from one diversion to another, their minds remain in a state of perfect indifference to every thing except their pleasures. Now what chance has religion with such dispositions as these? Yet these dispositions, begun in early life, and favoured by circumstances, that is, by affluence and health, cleave to a man's character much beyond the period of life in which they might

seem to be excusable. Excusable did I say? I ought rather to have said that they are contrary to reason and duty, in every condition and at every period of life. Even in youth they are built upon falsehood and folly. Young persons as well as old, find that things do actually come to pass. Evils and mischiefs, which they regarded as distant, as out of their view, as beyond the line and reach of their preparations or their concern, come, they find, to be actually felt. They find that nothing is done by slighting them beforehand; for, however neglected or despised, perhaps ridiculed and derided, they come not only to be things present, but the very things, and the only things, about which their anxiety is employed; become serious things indeed, as being the things which now make them wretched and miserable. Therefore a man must learn to be affected by events which appear to lie at some distance, before he will be seriously affected by religion.

Again: the general course of education is much against religious seriousness, even without those who conduct education foreseeing or intending any such effect. Many of us are brought up with this world set before us, and nothing else. Whatever promotes this world's prosperity is praised; whatever hurts and obstructs and prejudices this world's prosperity is blamed: and there all praise and censure end. We see mankind about us in motion and action, but all these motions and actions directed to worldly objects. We hear their conversation, but it is all the same way. And this is what we see and hear from the first. The views which are continually placed before our eyes, regard this life alone and its interests. Can it then be wondered at that an early worldlymindedness is bred in our hearts, so strong as to shut out heavenly-mindedness entirely? In the contest which is always carrying on between this world and the next, it is no difficult thing to see what advantage this world has. One of the greatest of these advantages is, that it pre-occupies the mind: it gets the first hold and the first possession. Childhood and youth, left to themselves, are necessarily guided by sense; and sense is all on the side of this world. Meditation brings us to look towards a future life; but then meditation comes afterwards: it only comes when the mind is already filled and engaged and occupied, nay, often crowded and surcharged with worldly ideas. It is not only, therefore, fair and right, but it is absolutely necessary, to give to religion all the advantage we can give it by dint of education; for all that can be done is too little to set religion upon an equality with its rival; which rival is the world. A creature which is to pass a small portion of its existence in one state, and that state to be preparatory to another, ought, no doubt, to have its attention constantly fixed upon its ulterior and permanent destination. And this would be so, if the question between them came fairly before the mind. We should listen to the Scriptures, we should embrace religion, we should enter into every thing which had relation to the subject, with a concern and impression, even far more than the pursuits of this world, eager and ardent as they are, excite. But the question between religion and the world does not come fairly before us. What surrounds us is this world; what addresses our senses and our passions is this world; what is at hand, what is in contact with us, what acts upon us, what we act upon, is this world.