nothing. I have spoken of the gratification of all Nature's hungerings and thirstings after truth, knowledge, goodness, and happiness. But this is nothing, these distresses, these desires pertain to a weak and fallen creature.

It behoves to speak of the enjoyments and desires of angels-of their fervours, their loves, their communions. But who can speak of them?

Yet if emblems can assist you, then do you join in your imagination the emblems and pictures of heaven. What is the conditions of its people? That of crowned kings. What is their enjoyment? That of conquerors triumphant, with palms of victory in their hands. What their haunts? The green pastures by the living waters. What their employment? Losing their spirits in the ecstasies of melody, making music upon their harps to the Lord God Almighty, and to the Lamb for ever and ever. For guidance, the Lamb that is in the midst of them, shall lead them by rivers of living waters, and wipe away all tears from their eyes. For knowledge, they shall be like unto God, for they shall know even as they are known, For vision and understanding, they shall see face to face, needing no intervention of language or of sign. For ordinances through which the soul makes imperfect way to her Maker, there is no temple in the city of their habitation, for the Lord' God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple thereof. There shall be no night there, and they need no candle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them light, and they shall reign for ever and ever, nay, the very sense hath its gratifications in the city of God. The building of the wall is of jasper, the city of pure gold like unto clear glass; the foundation of the wall garnished with all manner of precious stones. Every one of the twelve gates a pearl. Now what means this wealth of imagery drawn from every storehouse of nature, if it be not that the choicest of all which the eye beholds or the head is ravished with—that all which makes matter beautiful and the spirit happy-that all which wealth values itself on and beauty delights in, with all the scenery which charms the taste and all the employments which can engage the affections, every thing, in short, shall lend its influence to consummate the felicity of the saints in light.

Oh, what untried forms of happy being, what cycles of revolving bliss, await the just! Conception cannot reach it, nor experience present materials for the picture of its similitude; and, though thus figured out by the choicest emblems,

they do no more represent it, than the name of Shepherd does the guardianship of Christ, or the name of Father the love of Almighty God.

Then, Brethren, let me persuade you to make much of the volume which contains the password to the city of God, and without which it is hid both from your knowledge and your search. And if in this volume there be one truth more prizeworthy than another, it is this, that Christ hath set open to you the gates of the city, and that he alone is the way by which it is to be reached. He hath gone before to prepare its mansions for your reception, and he will come again to those who look for his appearing. For his sake be ye reconciled to God, that ye may have a right to the tree of life, and enter by the gate into the city.

Thus, by the combined considerations which have been set before you in succession-by the awfulness of God's presence in his word-by the necessity of listening to it-by the terrific issues of disobeying it-and now by these, the present and eternal gains of obedience-have we pleaded at length for the oracles of God, being convinced, that, until they be taken up and perused and obeyed, under the solemn impression of such feelings, they will never have their proper place in the minds of men, but continue, as they are to most, a book purchased, but little read; esteemed, but little acted on. It is shameful to men of talents and power, that they should allow themselves such indecision upon the subject of religion, which, by its effects upon the world, is more entitled to preference in their consideration, than science or literature, or policy or arms. It proves the grossness rather than the refinement, the bondage rather than the liberty, of their minds, that they should be so engrossed with fame, and wealth, and power, and the other rewards which wait on eminence in any profession, as to have no thoughts to spare upon revelation and futurity, but go to their graves as ignorant, and undecided, and uninfluenced, in these matters, as if they were living in the ages before the birth of Christ. I have more respect infinitely for one who having dealt with the subject of the Scriptures finds a verdict against them, than I have for those who have not soul enough to see in the subject aught worthy of their thoughts, although they take up with the merest novelties in fashion and politics, and arts and science, pluming themselves upon the high walk of human interest which they are taking. Would they know, would they think, would they come to a conclusion, would they justify their neglect of God's great commandments, by a manifesto

of reason, or feeling, or interest, showing that it is silly, ig noble, or useless, to give heed to the Almighty, then they would acquit themselves like men; but it doth bespeak in them a frivolity of mind and a lightness of heart, of which the age and country may well feel ashamed, that they see no good in that heartfelt vital godliness, which hath written its blessed fruits in every characteristic page of our history, and in almost every article in the charter of English rights. No wonder that venality and factious self-interest should come to play in public affairs such leading parts, and that the names of principle and virtue should be smiled on with sceptical scorn by public men, when thus are cast away the fear of God and the expectation of heaven-the fulcrum upon which magnanimity and disinterestedness in former times did rest, when they poised up rooted corruption and arbitrary power from their ancient seats.

Would mathematical science thrive, if Euclid and the Principia were to cease from the studies of our youth? Would the public watchfulness of the people over their rulers thrive, if they were to refrain from perusing the daily intelligence, and conversing of public affairs? Will religion thrive, if the word of God be not studied, and its topics conferred on? If, at that season when our youth of first family and ambition are preparing their minds for guiding affairs, by courses of early discipline in public schools, and those of second rank are entered to the various professions of life, if then no pains be taken to draw their attention to the sacred writings, and impress principles of piety and virtue upon their minds, how can it be expected that religion should even have a chance. One cannot always be learning: youth is for learning, manhood for acting, and old age for enjoying the fruits of both. I ask, why, when the future lawyer is studying Blackstone or Lyttleton; the future physician, Hippocrates and Sydenham; the future economist, Smith and Malthus; the future statesman, Locke and Sydney; each that he may prepare for filling a reputable station in the present world -why the future immortal is not at the same time studying the two testaments of God, in order to prepare for the world to come, in which every one of us hath a more valuable stake? If immortality be nothing but the conjuration of priests to cheat the world, then let it pass, and our books go to the winds like the Sibyls' leaves; but if immortality be neither the dream of fond enthusiasts, nor the trick of artful priests, but the revelation of the righteous God; then let us have the literature, and the science, and the practice, for the

long after-stage of our being, as well as for the present time which is but its porch. These pleadings are to men who believe immortality, (we may hereafter plead with those otherwise minded ;) therefore justify your belief, and show your gratitude by taking thought and pains about the great concerns of that immortality which you believe.

If a man is fed on unwholesome foods, his health and strength decay, and if he be greedy after such, it proves his whole constitution to be diseased; therefore it troubleth our mind to see what shoals of literary works circulate through the minds of this people day by day, week by week, month by month, quarter by quarter, eagerly longed for and as greedily devoured, in which there is not one christian sentiment for a thousand that are unchristian. Such virulence of party feeling and violence of personal abuse, and cruel anatomy of men's faults and failings, such inventions of wit and humour, to disguise truth and season falsehood, issue forth from the press amongst the people; that if the contrary influences of religion do not counteract the poison, and build up the noble and generous parts of nature, the public character of the nation for truth and sincerity must fall away, and the people come under the leading of those who write for fame or spite, or hire themselves for pay. This is not meant to bring a railing accusation against the circulating literature, but to hold up to all interested in religion, how they are called upon to labour in behalf of the oracles of God now more than ever, when the oracles of vanity and calumny and party rage are so borne abroad upon a thousand wings. The culture which these circulating works give to the faculty of thought, is all in our favour, for our religion stands by thought, and hath been always the mother of thought; but the culture given to bad passions and unholy feelings, is all against us, creating habits and likings which our religion must reverse in its progress over the mind. This, zeal alone will not effect; the character of the age calls for argument and deep feeling and eloquence. You may keep a few devotees together by the hereditary reverence of ecclesiastical canons, and influence of ecclesiastical persons; but the thinking and influential minds must be overcome by showing, that not only can we meet the adversary in the field by force of argument, but that the spirit of our system is ennobling and consoling to human nature-necessary to the right enjoyment of life, and conducive to every good and honourable work. Religion is not now to be propagated by rebuking the free scope of thought, and drafting as it were every weak one

that will abase his powers of mind before the zeal and unction of a preacher, and by schooling the host to keep close and apart from the rest of the world. This both begins wrong and ends wrong. It begins wrong, by converting only a part of the mind to the Lord, and holding the rest in superstitious bonds. It ends wrong, in not sending your man forth to combat in his courses with the unconverted. The reason of both errors is one and the same. Not having thoroughly furnished him to render a reason of the hope that is in him, you dare not trust him in the enemy's camp, lest they should bring him over again, or laugh at him, for cleaving to a side which he cannot thoroughly defend. I mean not in this and the many other allusions which I have made to the degeneracy of our times, to argue that every Christian should be trained in schools of learning or human wisdom, but that the spirit of our procedure in making and keeping proselytes should be enlightened and liberal, and the character of our preaching strong and manly as well as sound. That we should rejoice in the illumination of the age, and the cultivation of the public mind, as giving us a higher tribunal than hath perhaps ever existed, before which to plead the oracles of God-before which to come in all the strength and loveliness of our cause, asking a verdict not from their toleration of us its advocates, but upon their conscience, and from the demonstration of its truth.

In such a manner we have endeavoured to conduct the discourse, which we now bring to a close. Whether it may gain the conviction of those to whom it is addressed, we leave in the hands of God, who giveth the increase, possessing within ourselves the satisfaction of having designed and endeavoured the best; adding to all, this our solemn conviction: That until advocates of religion do arise to make unhallowed poets, and undevout dealers in science, and intemperate advocates of policy, and all other pleaders before the public mind, give place, and know the inferiority of their various provinces to this of ours-till this most fatal error, that our subject is second-rate, be dissipated by a first-rate advo cation of it-till we can shift these others into the background of the great theatre of thought, by clear superiority in the treatment of our subject, we shall never see the men of understanding in this nation brought back to the fountains of living water, from which their fathers drew the life of all their greatness.

Many will think it an unchristian thing to reason thus violently, and many will think it altogether unintelligible;