"therefore brethren by the mercies of God, "that ye present your bodies a living facri"fice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable fervice."-And what can be fo reasonable as to confecrate to God that being, those faculties, thofe poffeffions and enjoyments, which we derive from his bounty. If there is reasonableness in acknowledging our debts, and in being thankful for our benefits; if there is reafonableness in fubmitting to be guided by unerring wisdom, and to be difpofed of by infinite goodness; in a word, if there be any thing fuperior in reasonableness to any other that reafon requires, it is this, that we should yield ourselves to that God who made us, who preferves and hath redeemed us, and hath- pledged his faithfulness to conduct all thofe to happiness who put their confidence in him. And this leads me to the laft argument which I fhall use for enforcing this exhortation, which is the advan tage with which it will be attended. At the fame time that we yield ourselves to God, he gives himself to us in all the fulness of his grace: For this is the tenor of his well order

ed covenant; "shall be my people." And what an infinite portion is this? If all the treasures of grace were open to our choice, Would it be poffible for us to pitch on any bleffing fo rich and compendious as this, that God would accept of us as his property, and provide for us as he provides for his own? Surely, then, we cannot want any good thing. His wifdom can guide us through all the perplexing paths of life; his power can support us in every danger and difficulty; and his goodness is more than fufficient to beftow on us all things richly to enjoy.

I will be your God, and ye

I have only to add, that the exhortation in the text belongs in an especial manner to you who are as yet in early and vigorous years. Now your understandings are capable of the firmeft impreffions. Now your wills are moft pliable. Now your affections are most patient of difcipline. Now your bodies are moft ufeful to your minds. Now your minds are most unfettered, and your whole man most susceptible of good impreffions, and most capable of exerting them in action. Lofe not, therefore, your irrecoverable advantage.

Answer

Answer now when God calls you with most affection. Offer yourselves while you are moft worth the offering. Govern your appetites before the evil day come. Now you may gird them, and carry them whether you will; but if you neglect this precious season, they will hereafter gird you, and carry you whether you would not. An early virtue is the most worthy and valuable offering, honoured and bleft with the kindeft acceptancé of God. But when a man fhall look into himself, and find his faculties depraved and weakened, ftained with the pollution, wearied with the fervice, fick with the disappointments, and darkened with the impostures of fin, how comfortlefs a task must he have in preparing an offering to God from among fuch a lame and diseased herd. "Remember "therefore now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, ere the evil days. come, and the years draw nigh in which thou fhalt fay, I have no pleasure in them.' Amen.

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SERMON III.

LUKE, xviii. 19.

-He that humbleth himself fhall be exalted.

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S man fell by pride, it is reasonable to

conclude that he can only rife again by humility; and here we are taught that this is the exprefs ordination and appointment of God; for thus faith the faithful and true Witnefs, "Every one that exalteth himfelf fhall be "abafed; and he that humbleth himself fhall "be exalted." I cannot therefore employ your time to better purpose, especially upon fuch an occafion as this*, than in opening the nature of true humiliation, and endeavouring to illuftrate the neceffity and ufe of it, to prepare our hearts for those enriching communications both of mercy and grace which our Saviour, in this paffage, encourageth us to expect.

I begin with opening the nature of true

humi

* Preached on a day of humiliation, before celebrating the Lord's Supper.

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humiliation. This takes its rife from spiritual difcoveries of the evil of fin, as the tranfgreffion of a law which is holy, juft, and good; as an act of outrageous and unprovoked rebellion against the mildeft, as well as the most righteous administration; as the baseft ingratitude to our kindest Benefactor, the Author of our being, and of all that we poffefs; and efpecially as it renders us unlike to him who is not only the ftandard but the fource of perfection, and confequently incapable of any friendly correfpondence with the Father of our fpirits, the fountain of light, of life, and of joy.

These fpiritual discoveries of the evil of fin produce a fixed and folid apprehenfion of our own ill deferving because of it. We fee the juftice of the fentence which condemns us, and cannot help acknowledging that we are unworthy of the leaft of all God's mer cies, and liable to that tremendous wrath which is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men. Hence arise grief and shame, and all that inward diftrefs which neceffarily attend the consciousnefs of guilt, the prefent fenfe of forfeited

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