painful, or any sensible surrender of enjoyment at all, stand out to the eye of others in a blaze of moral reputation if the substantial citizen might not, on the convivialities of friendship, be indulging his own taste, and at the very time be securing from his pleased and satisfied guests, the attestations of their cordiality if the man of business might not be nobly generous to his friends in adversity, and at the same time be running one unvaried career of accumulation -if the man of society might not be charming every acquaintance by the truth and, the tenderness of his expressions, and at the same time instead of impairing, be heightening hare of that felicity, which the Author of our eng has annexed to human intercourse-if a thousand little acts of accommodation from one neighbour to another, might not swell the tide of praise and of popularity, and yet, as ample a remainder of pleasurable feeling be left to each as before. And even when the sacrifice is more painful, and the generosity more romantic, and man can appeal to some mighty reduction of alth as the measure of his beneficence to others, might it not be said of him, if the life be more than meat, and the body than raiment, that still there is left to him more than he can possibly surrender? that, though he strip himself of all his goods to feed the poor, there remains to him that, without which all is nothingness,-that, a breathing and a conscious man, he still treads on the face of our world, and bears his part in that universe of life, where the unfailing compassion of God still continues to uphold him,-that, instead of lying wrapt in the insensibility of an eternal grave,

he has all the images of a waking existence around him, and all the glories of immortality before him,— that, instead of being withered to a thing of nought, and gone to that dark and hidden land, where all is silence and deep annihilation, a thousand avenues of enjoyment are still open to him, and the promise of a daily provision is still made sure, and he is free to all the common blessings of nature, and he is freer still to all the consolations, and to all the privileges of the gospel.

Thus it appears that after I have fulfilled all the claims of men, and men are satisfied,—that after having gone, in the exercise of liberality, beyond these claims, and men are filled with delight and admiration, that after, on the footing of equal and independent rights, I have come into judgment with my fellows, and they have awarded to me the tribute of their most honourable testimony, the footing on which I stand with God still remains to be attended to, and his claims still remain to be adjusted,-and the mighty account still lies uncancelled between the creature and the Creator,-between the man who, in reference to his neighbours, can say, I give every one his own, and out of my own I expatiate in acts of tenderness and generosity amongst them, and the God who can say, You have nothing that you did not receive, and all you ever gave is out of the ability which I have conferred upon you, and this wealth is not your own, but his who bestowed it, and who now calls upon you to render an account of your stewardship,-between the man, who has purchased by a fraction of his property, the good will of his acquaint

ances, and the God who asserts his right to have every fraction of it turned into an expression of gratitude, and devoted to his glory,-between the man who holds up his head in society, because his justice, and the ministrations of his liberality, have distinguished him, and the God who demands the returns of duty and of acknowledgment, for giving him the fund of these ministrations, and for giving what no money can purchase,-for putting the priniple of life into his bosom,-for furnishing him with all his senses, and, through these inlets of communication, giving him a part, and a property, in all that s around him, for sustaining him in all the elements of his being, and conferring upon him all his capaciies, and all his joys.

Now, what we wish you to feel is, that the judg nent of men may be upon your side, and the judgnent of God be most righteously against you-that, while from the one nothing is heard but admiration and gratitude, from the other, there may be such a charge of sinfulness, as, when set in order before your eye, will convince you, that he by whom you consist, is defrauded of all his offerings,-that, while all the common honesties and humanities of social life, are acquitted to the entire satisfaction of others, and to the entire purity of your own reputation in the world, your whole heart and conduct may be utterly pervaded by the habit of ungodliness,-that, while not one claim which your neighbours can prefer, is not met most readily, and discharged most honourably, the great claims of the Creator, over those whom he has formed, may lie altogether unheeded; and he,

your constant benefactor, be not loved, and he, your constant preserver, be not depended on,-and he, your 'most legitimate sovereign, be not obeyed,—and he, the unseen Spirit, who pervades all, and upholds all, be neither worshipped in spirit and in truth, nor vested with the hold of a rightful supremacy over your rebellious affections.

God is not man: nor can we measure what is due to him, by what is due to our fellows in society. He made us, and he upholds us, and at his will the life which is in us, will, like the expiring vapour, pass away; and the tabernacle of the body, that curious frame-work which man thinks he can move at his own pleasure, when it is only in God that he moves, as well as lives, and has his being, will, when abandoned by its spirit, mix with the dust out of which it was formed, and enter again into the unconscious glebe from which it was taken. It was, indeed, a wondrous preferment for unshapen clay to be wrought into so fine an organic structure, but not more wondrous surely than that the soul which animates it should have been created out of nothing; and what shall we say, if the compound being so originated, and so sustained, and depending on the will of another for every moment of his continuance, is found to spurn the thought of God, in distaste and disaffection away from him? When the spirit returns to him who sitteth on the throne; when the question is put, Amid all the multitude of your doings in the world, what have you done unto me? When the rightful ascendency of his claims over every movement of the creature is made manifest by him who

judgeth righteously; when the high but just pretensions of all things being done to his glory; of the entire heart being consecrated in every one of its regards to his person and character; of the whole man being set apart to his service, and every compromise being done away, between the world on the one hand, and that Being on the other, who is jealous of his honour-when these high pretensions are set up and brought into comparison with the character and the conduct of any one of us, and it be inquired in how far we have rendered unto God the everbreathing gratitude that is due to him, and that obedience which we should feel at all times to be our task and our obligation; how shall we fare in that great day of examination, if it be found that this has not been the tendency of our nature at all? and when he who is not a man shall thus enter into judgment with us, how shall we be able to stand?

Amid all the praise we give and receive from each other, we may have no claims to that substantial praise which cometh from God only. Men may be satisfied, but it followeth not that God is satisfied. Under a ruinous delusion upon this subject, we may fancy ourselves to be rich, and have need of nothing, while, in fact, we are naked, and destitute, and blind, and miserable. And thus it is, that there is a morality of this world, which stands in direct opposition to the humbling representations of the Gospel ; which cannot comprehend what it means by the utter worthlessness and depravity of our nature; which passionately repels this statement, and that too on its own consciousness of attainments superior to those