and temporal welfare, at the expense of our time, or our money, or at the hazard of our reputation; and to be diligent and eager in feeking out opportunities in practising these things; is a character fo extremely rare, as hardly, indeed, to afford us patterns for imitation; and yet this is only to be a chriftian.

How near then will the grofs body of the people come to chriftianity, if the fairer characters are thus deficient? And this alfo, like every other matter of fact, lies open to common obfervation. If you meet a mixed company upon any public occafion, more especially at an evening-entertainment, would you judge them to be disciples of the humble and mortified Jesus, and by a folemn act engaged to fight under his banner, against the world, the flesh and the devil? If you caft your eyes upon the ftreet of any town in this kingdom, how

many houfes do you discover publicly open

for intemperance? If you walk through them during any time of greater resort, what oaths and curfes, what lewd and licentious

expreffions do you hear? I fhall not mention our places of public or private enter

tainment,

But I fhall

tainment, fome of them licenced by law, and all of them connived at. draw the veil no further from these general enormities: they are most of them fufficiently known, and fome of them not fo fit to be expofed. All that I would infer from hence is, that we are most unholy followers of the holy Jefus, and the great reason I have to urge the very words of our apostle, "I, therefore, befeech you, to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called."

But it may be, that if we seldom or never read the scriptures, and only judge of chriftianity from its outward figure in the world, that we may be really ignorant of "the vocation wherewith we are called," and it is an inconteftible truth, that if any man is ignorant of the principles of his calling, he is not likely to come up to the practice of it. Let us, therefore, with the deepest humility, and the most affectionate thankfulness, take the new Testament into our hands, and examine it as we would any record or writing upon which our greatest interest depended. Let us examine what those works are that are required of us in the christian

vocation. For let public manners be what they will, chriftianity is the fame to-day that it was in the days of the apostles: the fame terms are proposed, the same practice is expected. The very heart is required to be dedicated to its maker. "Set your affections, fays the apoftle, on things above, and not on things on the earth; as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lufts, in your ignorance; but, as he who hath called you is. holy, fo be ye holy in all manner of converfation." And how univerfally this is to take place is fufficiently intimated in these words: "that whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do, we fhould do all to the glory of God." In fhort, our faviour hath told us the fum of our religion in thefe few words; "thou fhalt love the lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy foul, and with all thy ftrength. This is the firft, and great commandment, and the fecond is like unto it: thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." And the apostle John hath left us an admirable comment

upon

upon these words of his master, when he

tells us, by this we know that we love the children of God, when we keep his commandments: for this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments; and his commandments are not grievous." I will only add one obfervation more, because of its peculiar folemnity; and, because it points out to us in the clearest manner, that no habitual wilful finner can be accepted by God, even for the fake of Jesus Christ our lord. "Know ye not, faith the apostle Paul, that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themfelves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God."

I shall here close my extracts from the fcriptures; which I think the wisest of you cannot evade, and the meaneft of you cannot mistake. I must therefore defire you to apply them. You can easily tell, whether you confider yourselves as the servants of Jefus Chrift; and whether you obey from H 2

the

the heart the precepts of his gospel, or the maxims of the world. Our actions must be reducible to one or other of these principles, and perhaps the reflection how you spent yesterday may folve the inquiry. For in every profeffion there are certain criterions which diftinguish them, and by which those of their votaries, who are defirous of excelling, or even attentive to what they are about, invariably direct their course.

The first step towards any man's becoming a chriftian is to confider himself as devoted to God, alive to the interefts of his foul, and dead to those of this wicked world; and fo much

is his heart fet upon these great objects, that

he is cold even to the follies of the world, as well as dead to its vices: he shrinks from them with disguft, and turns his eye for relief to less trifling, lefs tumultuous amusements. Is this the course you follow? do you frequently confider how you may beft advance the glory of God, and the good of your own foul? would you be willing, and even defirous, to fink in your fortunes in the world, provided you was certain by it to promote religion, and further the defigns of

God?