tion? And is the crisis, which is to afford an earnest of a blissful eternity, to be marked as one which dooms the sufferer to everlasting perdition! What infatuation, O man, hath blinded thy mental vision, and steeled thy susceptible heart! Look up to the heavens, and view the sun shining, or the shower falling, upon the just and the unjust see how creation smiles with one general face, one genial glow, of beauty, fertility, and nourishment and shall the hand that sowed the seed, not gather the harvest?

Shall the good and penitent not reap, by God's blessing, and through Christ's mercies, the harvest of their lives of faith and of hope, in the world which is to come? He who thinks, and reasons, and acts on such thought and reason, differently, doth, in my poor estimation, act in a manner to add to the otherwise inevitable sufferings of the lot of humanity.

My brethren, I am anxious, in conclusion, that on this, among my first Addresses from this place and as a newly appointed Pastor among you there should be a distinct and unequivocal declaration, that the principles, which have been just described, will form no part of the doctrine delivered by me in this

place; nor, as you have already heard, does it at all fall within my conception of the words of the text now predicated upon. It is sufficient for us all, struggling more or less in this vale of sorrow and tears, to encounter with manliness those evils which we cannot avoid, without adding to their poignancy from the suggestions of a wild fancy, or the impulses of an impetuous judgment. We are all born for trouble, as the sparks fly upward; but the religion of Christ Jesus teaches us to soften those troubles by a well grounded hope of happiness hereafter, to bear up against them with a fortitude, which it is the exclusive province of his religion to impart.

-

Let this be the pillar of fire to illuminate us when we are tossed to and fro in darkness upon the stormy waves of this world. Let it not operate as a spectre to appal, but as a guardian angel to animate and to soothe: bearing in mind that God our Saviour (in the inspired language of the Apostle) will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth-for there is one God, and one Mediator between God and Menthe Man Christ Jesus who gave himself a

ransom for all.

To him therefore, with the Father, and Holy Ghost, be ascribed, as is most due, all might, majesty, power and dominion, now and for evermore.

E

SERMON IV. ·

Psalm i. 1st and 2nd verses.

Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful — but his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.*

THERE

HERE are few words in the book of Psalms more familiar to us than those just repeated. They stand in front of the Psalmist's congratulatory hymns to the Deity; because one would naturally suppose, the author of them was convinced that a right disposition, fit habits, and virtuous connexions, were absolutely essential for the proper understanding of the attributes of the Deity, and for a proper acknowledgment of the obligations which we are daily and hourly under to him.

One thing must forcibly strike us at the

* Preached at St. Mary's, Feb. 1 1824.

outset of our remarks. Here is an inspired writer, a monarch, too, of extraordinary splendor, and a human being who, from his merits, rose from the lowest to the highest station. — from a shepherd to a king: - here is an authority of this nature directly telling us, that without moral habits, and virtuous connections, and religious principles, we cannot possibly pros

per in this world, nor be in a fit state of mind to hold intercourse with our Maker. This inference is, I presume, justly deducible from the opening of the book of Psalms. I shall therefore direct your attention, and more particularly that of the YOUNGER part of my congregation, to the immense importance attendant on an early choice of virtuous friends, and a regular fulfilment of religious and moral duties. These form the basis of all that is beautiful and amiable in the human character; of all that is essential and most interesting in our relative situations with our parents and our friends, and our hopes of immortality beyond the grave. Without a strict and constant adherence to these great points, the human mind too frequently becomes absorbed in the lowest pursuits; and the seeds of that mental purity and characteristic energy, which God hath sowed in our hearts to en