acts without a reason for his conduct: and though the motives for that conduct are hidden from us, yet we may be certain that all his determinations are under the guidance of infinite wisdom, and adapted to answer the grand ends he has in view. This remark will apply to all the ways and works of the Almighty. We may therefore rest assured that the command for his children to unite with each other in marriage, will, whenever they are disposed to form the endearing connexion, facilitate that noble design in promoting their own happiness. Would it not appear unaccountably strange, and contrary to the divine procedure in other cases, were he to countenance their marriages with the world at large, when, at the same time, he is calling them by his grace -separating them from the rest of the wicked; and saying, to the wondering spectator, 'This people have I formed for myself; they shall show forth my praise-I have redeemed them -they shall sanctify my name, and fear the God of Israel!-For I the Lord am holy, and have severed them from other people, that they should be mine.'

The whole world, by nature, lieth in wickedness. It is said of men, without exception, 'That the fear of God is not before their eyes -that they are all gone aside, altogether become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one-yea, that the carnal mind is enmity against God.' Peremptory, however, and perspicuous as these divine declarations evidently are, there is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness.'

Self-love is connatural to man. We are not very prompt in crediting that which our interests require to be false: and he in whom this passion is so predominant as to produce habitual confidence in his own discernment, will be more likely to listen to the dictates of his own understanding than to the decisions of his Maker. The general corruption of mankind is nevertheless' so easily discoverable, that nothing but the desert or the cell can exclude it from notice. The knowledge of crimes intrudes uncalled and undesired. They whom their abstraction from common occurrences

hinders from seeing iniquity, will quickly have their attention awakened by feeling it. Even he who ventures not into the world, may learn its corruption in the closet. For what are treatises of morality, but persuasives to the practice of duties, for which no arguments would be necessary, but that we are continually tempted to violate or neglect them? What are all the records of history, but narratives of successive villanies, of treasons and usurpations, massacres and wars !'

There are, in fact, but two kingdoms in the world: the kingdom of Satan and the kingdom of Christ; and to one or the other of these kingdoms we belong. The subjects of the former are, in scripture language, denominated Sinners, and those of the latter, Saints. Satan is expressly called the god of this world; and is described as the spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience. He saith to one, Do this, and he doeth it: to another, Go, and he goeth. The soul is imperceptibly taken captive by him at his will: and though there be, in various respects, great dif

ference of character, as to moral worth, between the subjects over whom he reigns, yet the destruction of both soul and body, which is the end of his government, is as effectually secured in the comparatively good, as in those who are abandonedly wicked. It is therefore highly necessary that you should endeavour to distinguish between mere morality and real holiness: for though it is true that there can be no religion without integrity of heart, and rectitude of conduct as its fruit; there may nevertheless be an appearance of devotion, a conduct that is in many things exemplary, and yet no religion.

Accurately speaking, religion does not consist in' the reverence of bodily demeanour, nor in the exercise of shining gifts,' but in the devout disposition of the heart towards God. As a principle of action, it is of divine origin; and produces in the soul where it is predominant a deep sense of personál guilt, and of absolute unworthiness-an habitual reverence of the divine Majesty-unfeigned love of the divine Go vernment-entire confidence in divine Mercy

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revealed in Jesus Christ; and unreserved submission to the divine Will. Of the real existence of this heavenly principle in the heart, an uniformly pious life is unquestionably the best evidence; and yet this alone will not afford unequivocal testimony that the subject is influenced by its benign agency. Some men are so constituted as to feel, comparatively, no inclination to be vicious. They have, in a general view, no vice to gratify; or to speak with greater precision, God restrains the heart, as in the case of Abimelech, so as to suppress the desire of committing those sins to which it would otherwise be liable: and the efficacy of this restraint is sometimes so great, that there will be, apparently, but little difference between the real and the nominal christian. They may, as an excellent prelate remarks, both live outwardly without blame, and shine in a sphere above the ordinary sort of men, and yet the one be a star and the other but a meteor. The highway may be as dry and as fair in frosty weather, as in warm summer; but there is a great difference in the cause of it: in summer, the sun dries up the moisture; in winter, the frost binds it in.