Israel was surrounded with temptations, to seduce the people from their allegiance to the Lord of Hosts: they were encompassed with heathen enemies, who seemed to be prosperous, and wealthy and strong, while they were oppressed, and poor and weak. And thus they were led, in their impatience and unfaithfulness, and their hankering after wordly enjoyments, to cast in their lot with the heathen; to form confederacies with them; to call them in, as it were, to the assistance of the God of armies; and thus, as the prophet denounced, their cause was ruined, and their doom was sealed.

We are not at present under any such temptation; but there are others equally seducing and equally fatal. The Christian is commanded to place his whole trust in the same Redeemer; and he too has enemies in the world, to lead him astray, to loosen and divide his allegiance. Many objects, indeed, there are around us, candidates for our affection; seductive in their nature, and engrossing in their operation.

many pursuits of business and pleasure, of ambition and honour, of learning and knowledge, which are apt to absorb our minds, and beguile them from "the one thing needful" many objects and many persons, which would tempt us to build, partly, if not exclusively, upon the crea ture; to the neglect or forgetfulness of the Creator. It is hard to have riches, and not to trust in them; to have a crowd of earthly occupations, and not be too much engaged or wrapt in them; to mix much with earthly pleasures, and not to find our spiritual desires cooled, and vitiated, and despoiled: hard to live in the bo som of an affectionate friend or family, and not to feel our life too much bound up in their life. And yet it is often found, that there is no confidence to be placed in such things, even for this world's happiness: "riches often make to themselves wings and fly away;" and, if not, they fail to bring the expected blessing; are often found to be good, neither for earth nor hea ven: pleasures either disappoint, or vanish

in the very act of pleasing; and they are seldom without a thorn. And all earthly ties, I need not say, are extremely liable to be broken: the frame soon shattered, the breath soon gone; and the departed blessing leaves a fearful void, in the heart that was too full of it.

And if such refuges and dependencies are insufficient even for earth, what are they in regard to more substantial blessings, to our deliverance from the curse and thraldom of sin, to the securing of God's favour, to the promotion of our everlasting interest in heaven? How utterly unavailing! nay more; how apt are they to unfit the soul for the reception of spiritual benefit, and to draw it aside from God! We are not to proscribe and forbid any innocent enjoyments, which a kind Providence may place within our reach; they are all to be gratefully used; but it does require a constant watchfulness, a spirit of self-denial, a frame of heavenly-mindedness, to prevent our affections from being entangled in a net of earthly fabric; from

reposing upon any of those frail and delusive comforts, which the flesh or the world are so prodigally spreading before

us.

And am I not speaking to those, who have had considerable experience of the truth of these declarations? Have we not all been painfully convinced of the dangerous ascendancy, which human possessions and endearments of every kind are apt to exercise over the heart? of their withering influence upon the unsuspecting soul? have not all of us seen and found a snare, lurking within the premises of every created good? have not many of us been captivated, and led into unholy bondage? Have we not provoked the Lord to forsake us for a season, to leave us in the hand of the enemy; covered with shame, and eating the bread of bitterness and sorrow? Few there are, who have not felt the pain of such moments, the treachery of such broken reeds. It was a merciful forsaking of the Lord, a visitation of faithfulness and love; to wean us from all such objects, as

would undermine our allegiance to the Lord of Hosts, and loosen our hold upon heaven: we have been shewn the vanity of all things under the sun, that we may be induced to look above and beyond it; to make us watch and pray for the settlement of our affections upon the Sun of Righteousness; our only true light in time, our only hope of glory in eternity.

And how have these, our heavenly Father's warnings, and how have all this knowledge and experience, been improved? Answer to your conscience; it is now speaking to you: are your minds so weaned on the one hand, so settled on the other? Have you really renounced, in heart and soul, the weakness of the creature, and cast yourself, with an entire and unbroken dependence, upon the saving arm of your Creator? Say thou, who perceivest the disorder and danger of thy soul, which the world, as thou knowest, can do nothing to cure, hast thou gone to the great Physician, and rested in Him for a remedy? Say thou, who wast once

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