accomplishment of them, and withont consulting him. They resolve with themselves where they will go, what they will do, how much they will accomplish, just as if they had life in themselves, and were independent in wisdom and power. They tell us what they intend to do, what they mean to be; nor do they throw in any such parenthesis as, “if the Lord will," or, "God helping me ;" nor do such thoughts enter into their minds. Yet we are commanded to acknowledge God in all our ways; and it is promised that he will direct our paths, for "the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." With what severity and solemnity does James rebuke this infatuated conduct:"Go to now, ye that say, to-day, or to-morrow, we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy, and sell, and get gain; whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow, for what is your life; for that ye ought to say, if the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that.

5. The conduct of many, in seasons of affliction, evinces that they are without God in the world. Though man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward, yet affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground. The rod of affliction is held in the hand of God. Nevertheless, how many regard it not as the work of the Lord, neither consider in it the operation of his hands, and, consequently, make no inquiry into its meaning and object, and feel no anxiety that it should answer the purpose for which it was sent. They philosophically submit to it, or impiously complain of

it, or, whatever they do, they overlook its meaning and they defeat its intent. Oh! how frequently is this painful means of grace entirely ineffectual ! Sinner, how much thou hast suffered, and suffered from thy God, too, in vain. It has awakened no serious reflections in thy mind; it has drawn thee no nearer to thy Maker. Thou lovest life as well as though thou hadst never tasted its bitterness, and art as strongly attached to the world, as if its vanity had never been made to pass before thee. Thou hast been desolate and in darkness; and thou hast felt the insufficiency of human consolation and inadequacy of earthly resource, but it has not put thee upon inquiring after God. Thou hast not said, "where is God, my Maker, who giveth songs in the night;" thou hast not submissively asked him what he meant in troubling you, and what he would have you to do. You have not bemoaned and forsaken the sins for which you might have presumed he was chastising you; you have not kissed the rod; you have not gone to him to heal your wound, and to bind up your bleeding heart; you have applied to philosophy to stanch it; you have waited for time to cicatrize it, or you have suffered the world to charm you into a forgetfulness of your sorrows; and some have undertaken to drink up their griefs in a cup whose dregs are death and hell. Is this childlike? Doth not a suffering son or daughter fly for refuge and relief to the parent's bosom? And God's ample bosom has ever been open to you; ah! you have been living without God in the world.

6. Finally, mankind, in their pursuit of happiness,

evince their practical atheism. Whither should a creature in quest of joy go to obtain it, but straight to him, who made, and who sustains both that which enjoys and that which is enjoyed, his maker and preserver, and the world's. Yet men fly from God for happiness. Oh! could they fly to the dominions and the creatures of another equal God, it might do; but they fly to his creatures for it; they look to his world for it, as if God could not make us infinitely more happy than his world can; as if he would not imbitter its every stream, and poison all its fountains; as if his creatures could make us happy any longer than he permits. Oh what awful infatuation !-and yet is not this what many of you are doing? You are seeking and finding your happiness in the violation of his laws, and in the enjoyment of his creatures! What do you get? How long will it last? Can such a state of things be long permitted to exist? Will God be able to endure it forever? Oh, no; the end draweth nigh, when all the sources of your present happiness will be dried up, and the fountain of living waters, which you like not, will alone remain. Whence have you your joys and comforts now ?—from your family?-it shall be broken up; from your business? -it shall be discontinued, and you shall leave the world, and the world itself shall be consumed, and nothing will be left but the soul and God. You cannot be happy in any thing else; and, if you love him not, you cannot be happy in him. Eternity will be but a blank without God; and yet you that are without him in this world, will be without him in that to come. Now you are contented, though

without God, because you are not, in every sense of the expression, without him. You are not without some tokens of his favor; you are not without many fruits of his beneficence. He is mindful of you, though you are not of him; he is kind, though you are unkind; but it will not be so when the period of probation is closed, and the offer of mercy withdrawn forever. You will be, in every sense, without God, without his favor, his fellowship, one token of good, or word of comfort, or ray of hope from him, forsaken of him, and, but that he remembers your sins, forgotten of him forever.

Oh! live not any longer without God in the world; recognize him; return to him, and attach thyself to him; "acquaint thyself now with God and be at peace thereby good shall come unto thee." When shall it be said of you, "but now in Christ Jesus, ye who sometime were far off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ ?" Shall it ever be said of you?

Will you be an orphan, a voluntary, guilty, unpitied orphan forever; fatherless, friendless, helpless, hopeless, wicked, wretched, hateful, and hating, through a tedious and tiresome eternity? You are in danger of it. The probability is strong that you will be all this; and yet you need not be. Christ can save you. "He is able to save unto the uttermost." He is able, willing, ready, waiting, anxious, What more do you want?

SERMON II.

God is Love.-1 JOHN iv. 8.

It is a fact, and one worthy of very particular observation, that those truths, which are most certain, and most easily and generally received, are, at the same time, the most mysterious, and hard to be understood. Those doctrines, in support of which there exists the most complete and irrefragable evidence, in demonstration of which there can be adduced arguments of unanswerable and irresistible cogency, are the very doctrines which are attended with the greatest difficulties, and most exposed to cavil and objection. The evidence in favor of truth seems to be clear and satisfactory just in proportion as the truth itself is dark and incomprehensible. Some men say they do not and cannot believe mysteries. They do believe them. If they do not, they do not believe anything, and it is unreasonable that they should believe anything, for in refusing to believe certain mysteries, they reject clearer and better evidence than is presented in favor of any other class of truths. Now, the only ground on which it is reasonable to refuse assent to any proposition, is defect of evidence in support of it. If these propositions, expressive of mysterious truths, are sustained by the