and loud lamentations of our fathers over the evil character of their times, with the self-sufficient commendation and garrulous boasting of the enlightened character of these above all former times; and you will at once discover how boastfulness, as well as covetousness, hath grown upon us of this generation, beyond all former example or precedent in a Christian land.

Now, touching this characteristic of the church in these times, which is boasting, we have very much to say in every application of it. First, as it beareth upon your worldly estate, it is the natural consequence of covetousness. For if in acquiring we have been covetous, then in possessing we will be boastful; but if in procuring we have been pious and dutiful towards God, then in possessing we will be humble and considerate of his ends in bestowing. Envy is the parent of boasting; envious till we reach the goal of our wishes, boastful over those who have not yet attained unto the same mark. The just remedy of boasting, therefore, is to pursue with patience the race set before us, as being called to it of God, and not with headlong violence to precipitate ourselves along it, as if it were chalked out by ourselves. It is the disbelief of God's providence, in our particular lot, which draweth down upon us the judgment of these evil passions and affections of the mind. Be temperate therefore, in your pursuit of riches, and be considerate in your use of them: remembering

the word of the Lord, "that we should make friends unto ourselves of the mammon of unrighteousness, who when we fail may receive us into everlasting habitations." In the other respects which boasting hath,-as, for example, that the condition of our age of the church is so much better than those which are past,-I can do nothing but lift up my hands at the delusion which the enemy hath brought us under. This will come to be more thoroughly considered under the eighth particular, of the "unholiness" of these times. But I may now entreat you, for the remedy of this evil, to consider your own hearts, and see whether they attain to that region of holiness to which the saints of old attained, to consider your brethren, to consider the ministers of the church, to consider the books which they write, and the many muchtrumpeted works of charity which they do. Every one's right hand knoweth what his left hand doeth. Our charities are written down and published with our names and sirnames: our acts are set forth in public reports and proclaimed at market crosses. And, in short, there wanteth nothing to complete the parallel between us and the ancient Pharisees: yet are we boastful of the age. Oh! my brethren, as you value the truth of Jesus, and would receive his meek and lowly person, I pray you to testify against the evil spirit of boastfulness which hath so transported the church into the region of folly and absurdity. But, granting we were

so highly advanced above all comparison, what have we that we have not received; and who made us to differ? And I warn you, above all, against boasting of the enlightened age, which is nothing short of advancing Satan's glory, as the bright archangel of liberality, above Christ the bright and the morning star. For any one to say that we are more enlightened than our fathers in divine, moral, and political truth, is to say that the age of infidelity is more bright and glorious than the age of religion. And the more be ye upon your guard against all these the forms of boasting, as everywhere it is held out in the Holy Scriptures as a characteristic of the last times. (Psalm x. 3.) "For the wicked boasteth of his heart's desire, and blesseth the covetous, whom the Lord abhorreth." In which Psalm, the destruction of the last anti-Christ is the subject; and in Psalm xlix. 6, wherein the end of the dispensation immediately preceding the morning of the resurrection is the subject, they are described as "trusting in their wealth, and boasting themselves in the multitude of their riches." And, in the xith chapter of the Romans, where the casting out of the Gentiles is foretold, it is shrewdly signified, that it was to come from boasting. "Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee......Thou standest by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear." And, in the second chapter of Peter's Second Epistle, already re

ferred to, this vain-boasting is represented as one of Satan's chief snares in the latter times: "For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from those who live in error." On all accounts, therefore, dear brethren, I do greatly discourage you from taking any part in this spirit of boasting, and carnal security which is gone abroad, and rather to exercise yourselves in honesty, and intercession, and supplication; and let this year continue and end, as it was begun amongst us, in lowliness of mind, in sorrow, in affliction, and in fasting, for the forlorn estate of Christ's church. Oh how glad were I that God would yield to us among the churches the distinction of being continually girded with sackcloth and covered with ashes!

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SERMON III.

PROUD, BLASPHEMERS.

2 TIM. iii. 1, 2.

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come: for men shall be..........proud, blasphemers.

THIS is another fruit of self-love, consisting in the conceit of those distinctions which God hath bestowed on us, and the use of them to our own and not unto his glory, and whether this, also, be not a character of the times in which we live, I refer to your own observation and honest judgment. Cast your eyes backward, and remember the character of the various ranks and distinctions of life: how much more condescension there was of the higher to the lower; how much more obligation was felt from the rich to the poor; how much more devotedness unto God shewn forth in the charitable foundations, for the advancement of education, for the bringing forward of the gifted youth in humble life, for lectureships in churches, and for the erection of churches themselves! To men who are not acquainted with this field of observation it may seem that