His him, fince he has God for his protector and friend, and is conscious of the rectitude of his heart. moral corruption will daily decline, and every victory he gains over it gives him fresh cause to extof the grace of his redeemer, and to feel the value of his regained freedom. His ability to goodness is ever increafing, and the practice of it grows daily more easy and pleafant. He marches onward from one step of perfection to another; his aptitude in virtue is continually growing; and with his virtue, his pleasures and his hopes increase. Happy fituation! Ineftimable benefit! Who would not take all poffible pains to obtain it! Who would delay the way of repentance one moment to enter upon and converfion, which alone conducts us to the poffeffion of this felicity! May we all, my friends, put this refolve into immediate execution, and from this inftant walk the paths of virtue and piety with perfevering fidelity. How bleffed will the prefent day be to us! In what tranquil delight will the reft of our lives flow on! How fedately may we see our diffolution approaching! How confidently may we expect the glorious recompenfes that are prepared for the righteous in the heavens! Everything calls upon us to hearken to the voice of God, so affectionately inviting us to repentance and amendment. We yet live to hear that voice but how long it may be allowed us, none of us can tell. Woe to us if we put off from day to day, till it be too late to devote ourselves obediently to it! Only with him, only in his fervice and in compli ance with his commands, are light and life and joy and felicity to be found; remote from him, darkhefs and bondage, mifery and death are our only portion. Merciful father, into what perils has iniquity beguiled us! We hafte to escape from them, and to feek grace and help from thee who alone canft help and fave. Lo, we return to thee, unworthy to be called thy fons, but firmly refolved by a better conduct to render ourselves deferving of that glorious title. We are thine, o Lord, thine by creation, and thine by redemption. We will give ourselves up to thee as our only proprietor. Thee will we only and conftantly obey. In thee will we feek our whole felicity. Oh do thou fupply our weakness; keep us by thy mighty arm from relapfing into fin; grant us to advance in goodness, give us to overcome the world, and by thy support to persevere unto the end. Preached on a Faft-Day. SERMON XLI. The Blefedness of Beneficence. GOD, who art all benignity and love, who art always more ready to bless than to punish, and displayeft thy infinite greatness by infinite bounty; daily and hourly openeft thou thy liberal hand and filleft all things living with plenteoufnefs. Daily and hourly giveft thou to us fresh proofs that thy mercy is over all thy works; that thou lovest us with parental tenderness; that as a father thou provideft for us and our real welfare. Lord, with admiration and humility we adore the riches of thy multitude and grace and love; we rejoice in the the exceeding value of the unmerited gifts of thy bounty; we would fain to render thee the thanks for them which thou requirest of us. Thou requirest, as a proof of our acknowledgment, that we should be kind, compaffionate, beneficent, bountiful, like thee; that we should be followers of thee as dear children; that we should share as it were with thee, the bleffedness of difpenfing good. To obey thee, o pa. o parent of good, is our glory and our happiness. Thy commandments are life and peace to all that keep them. Ah let us ever confess it, and ever willingly be faithful to that confeffion. Do thou eradicate all feeds of avarice, of selfishness, of obduracy and cruelty from our hearts; and fill them with the gentle, compaffionate, affectionate, officious and difinterested difpofitions which alone can render us worthy to be called thy children and difciples of thy fon. Blefs in this view the leffons we are now to receive from thy word, and let the efficacy of them be manifest in abundant fruits of chriftian beneficence. Father of an infinite majefty, let these our supplications find acceptance with thee, for the fake of Jefus Chrift, thy honourable, true and only fon, our mediator and redeemer, in obedience to whose express command we address thee thus: Our father, &c. ACTS, XX. 35. It is more bleffed to give than to receive. THERE 'HERE are times and circumstances, my friends, when we, your minifters, afcend this place with heavy hearts, as having but little hope of the defired fuccefs in delivering to you the word of truth, and of reaping much fruit from our labour. This happens whenever our office, and a zeal for your true falvation, falvation, require us to lay before you your fins and failings, and among them fuch particularly as are the most rife amongst us, which are the leaft condemned by the world, and in behalf whereof felf-love, pride, custom, fashion, have invented the most excuses, and the most plausible palliations. It happens whenever we have to deliver to you fuch doctrines and precepts as are manifeftly at variance with the prejudices of the times in which we live, with the prevailing manner of thinking and acting; and of fuch doctrines and precepts chriftianity, which derives its origin from heaven, and is ordained to conduct us thither, comprises not a few. It happens especially whenever we labour to inspire you with the humble, the gentle, the compaffionate, the heavenly difpofitions, which are the diftinctive characteristics of the difciples of Jefus, and which yet are fo rarely found among those who call themfelves his disciples. In these and the like cafes, we are tempted at times to defpondency, as having but little hope of reaching the aim of our exertions. And whence does this proceed? Our own fad experience but too ftrikingly informs us, how much the corrupted heart and the unruly paffions of men, oppose these doctrines and precepts; and how foon the good impreffions, they may occafionally make upon us in the house of the Lord, are obliterated in the tumult of the world. But there are likewife other times, my beloved, when with confident and cheerful minds we appear before |