through things temporal, employ the greater benevolence of Christians, in guiding them in hope to things eternal.

Nor ask for a reward of your labours. To be thus employed is itself happiness. It is to be fellow-workers with the Father of Nature, in the prosperity of his people. It is to give men to society,―citizens to your country,——and children to your God.

SERMON XI.

ON THE THANKSGIVING FOR THE VICTORY AT TRA

FALGAR.

ST. MATTHEW xvii. 4.

"Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord! it is good for us to be here."

WHEN Our Saviour carried his disciples up into the mount, and was transfigured before them, we read, in this chapter, that St. Peter, overpowered with the vision of glory which he was permitted to see, exclaimed, in holy rapture, "Lord, it is "good for us to be here!" It is good for us to be raised above the lower world, and to witness this manifestation of the majesty of Him by whom thou art sent; that we may return again into the world with deeper conviction of thy divinity, and that thou art the beloved Son, whose voice it is our duty to hear!

With such feelings of devout gratitude, I trust, we are now assembled in the House of God, and have joined in those accents of praise which on this day rise from every corner of our land. We

are assembled to commemorate one of those signal deliverances which reach to the foundation and stability of our empire.-We have seen the protracted anxiety of years, dispersed, as it were, by the breath of Heaven; and, accustomed as we are to the possession of national glory, we have seen it awaken, as if with accumulated lustre, and shed over the year which is about to close, a splendour unknown to any former age.

In such moments there is a command, superiour even to that of the sovereign or the legislature, which summons us into the temple of God, and leads us to join that multitude who, in receiving common blessings, are ardent to express their common praise. It is an instinct descriptive of our nature, and productive of sentiments that become us; it unites the concerns of earth with the laws of Heaven; it raises us from ordinary thought, to the conceptions of him in whose hand all the "nations of the earth are as the dust in the bal❝ance ;"—and, amid the miseries of nations, it leads us to the anticipation of that final state, when there shall be "war and tears no more."

If, indeed, it were only to swell the note of publick exultation, that assemblies of this kind were summoned,-if it were to cherish national vanity by the sanguinary record of achievement, or to inflame national malignity by an inhuman triumph over the chains of the captive, or the ashes of the fallen,—I know not that human impiety

could afford so dark a scene of profanation. In such assemblies no Christian spirit would breathe, and on such hearts no grace of Heaven could descend. It is for nobler ends, that, on days like these, the wise and the good follow the multitude into the House of God. It is to sanctify, with all the solemnity of religious impression, their love of their country. It is to recal to mind the blessings which the Providence of Heaven hath shed over their land. It is to weigh the obligations which these blessings create, and thus to prepare their minds for the discharge of those duties which their country may in future demand of them, whether in peace or in war.

There is a love of our country which is inherent in human nature, which is felt by the savage as well as the citizen, and which no artifice of sophistry can eradicate from the bosom of man. But, in the thoughts of a wise man, there are other circumstances to be weighed; he will be disposed to justify to himself these original anticipations of nature, and to consider well whether the character or the conduct of his nation sanctions that instinctive love which nature has taught him. In such an inquiry there will probably be three principal subjects of his examination,-Whether the land to which he belongs be distinguished by the purity of its religious faith? Whether it has accomplished the great ends of social union? And whether it has been instrumental to the happiness and welfare of

mankind? These three inquiries fulfil the widest investigation into the conduct and character of nations; and it is with a sense of thankfulness, which language would in vain attempt to express, that I am able, even from this place, to say, "That it is good for us to be here."

1. Our first subject of thankfulness to Heaven is, that we are the inhabitants of a land, over which the genuine light of the gospel has been long diffused. Of the importance of religion to the immortal concerns of man, it is the permanent duty of this place to speak. In the present moment, it is of another consideration I wish to remind you,of the importance of the purity of religious faith to the temporal happiness of man, and of the rank in which it stands in the enumeration of national blessings. On this great subject, I have no occasion to descend to reasoning. We stand upon an eminence from which we can descry the past and the present, and from which every aspect of mankind tells us, "that it is good for us to be here." If we look to the past, we may discover, in their various forms, those images of terrour which peopled the darkness in which men dwelt, until they were "visited by the Day-spring from on high." If we look to the present, we may see the nations around us still involved in gloom, and struggling with the chains which ignorance or artifice have imposed upon the minds of men ;-we may see the influence of a benevolent religion, wrested to the purposes

of