act of debauchery, may snatch away your life. Think, though you should run your course, you will never have such flexible organs, so retentive a memory, so ready a conception, as you have to-day; and consequently, you will never have such a facility for forming habits of holiness. Think how you will one day lament to have lost so precious an opportunity. Consecrate your early life to duty, dispose your heart, at this period, to ensure salvation. Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, in which thou shall say, I have no pleasure in them. Eccles. xii. 1.

3. After having considered the period of youth, we proceed to maturer age. A new stage, fresh snares, more temptations. What profession can you choose, which the spirit of the world has not infected with its venom; and which has not, so to speak, its peculiar morality?

The peculiar morality of a soldier, whose duty is to defend society, to maintain religion, to repress licentiousness, to oppose rapine by force; and to deduce, from so many dangers, which open the way of death, motives to render the account which Heaven will require: but it is a profession in which a man thinks himself authorized to insult society, to despise religion, to foment licentiousness, to raise his arm to sacrifice life; to sell his person for the most ambitious designs, the most iniquitous conquests, and sanguinary enterprizes of sovereigns.

The peculiar morality of the statesman and magistrate, whose profession is to preserve the oppressed, to weigh with calmness a long detail of causes and consequences, to avail himself of the dignity to

which he is elevated, to afford examples of virtue : but it is a profession in which he thinks himself entitled to become inaccessible to the injured, to weary them out with mortifying reserves, with insupportable delays, and to dispense with labour and application, abandoning himself to dissipation and vice.

The peculiar morality of the lawyer, whose duty is to restrict his ministry to truth and justice, never to plead for a cause which has not the appearance of equity, and to be the advocate of those who are inadequate to reward his services: but it is a profession in which a man thinks himself authorized to maintain both falsehood and truth, to support iniquity and falsehood, and to direct his efforts to the celebrity he may acquire, or the remuneration he may receive.

The peculiar morality of the merchant, whose duty is to detest short weights and false measures, to pay the revenue, and to be satisfied with a moderate profit: but a profession in which he thinks himself authorized to indulge those very vices, he ought in particular to avoid.

The peculiar morality of the minister. What is the vocation of a minister? Is it not to devote himself entirely to virtue? Is it not to set a pattern to all the church? Is it not to visit the hospitals, and houses of affliction, and to alleviate, as far as he can, the pressure of their calamities? Is it not to direct his studies, not to subjects by which he may acquire celebrity for learning and eloquence, but to those which may render him most useful? Is it not to determine on the choice of a text, not by the caprice

of the people, which on this point is often weak, and mostly partial, but by the immediate wants of the flock? Is it not to pay the same attention to a poor man's dying child, stretched on a couch of grass, and unknown to the rest of the world, as to his, who possesses a distinguished name, who abounds in wealth, who provides the most splendid coffin and magnificent funeral? Is it not to cry aloud, to lift up his voice like a trumpet, to shew the people their transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sins; to know no man after the flesh; and when he ascends this pulpit, to reprove vice with firmness, however exalted may be the situation of the offender? But what is the morality of a pastor? Enter not into judgment with thy servants, O Lord; for we cannot answer thee one of a thousand. Caution yourselves

against this class of temptations. The world is neither your legislator, nor your judge: Jesus Christ, and not the world, is the sovereign arbitrator. It is the morality of Jesus Christ, and not the maxims of men, which you should follow.

4. Having reviewed human life in infancy, youth and manhood, I proceed to consider it in old age; in that old age which seems so distant, but which is, in fact, within a few years; in that old age which seems, in some sort, at the distance of eternity, but which advances with astonishing rapidity. A new stage, fresh spares, more temptations occur: infirmities, troubles, and cares, arrive with age. The less there remains on earth to defend, the more men are resolved not to let it go. The love of life having predominated for fifty or sixty years, sometimes unites

and attaches itself, so to speak, yet more closely to the short period, which they think is still promised. It is so rooted and entrenched in the heart, as to be immoveable by all our sermons on eternity. They look on all who witness the calamities they suffer, as though they were the cause: it seems as though they were reproached for having lived so long, and they make them atone for this imaginary fault, as though they were really guilty. The thoughts of death they put away with the greater care, as it approaches nearer, it being impossible to avoid the idea, without these efforts to remove it. They call to their aid amusements, which would scarcely be excusable in the age of infancy: thus they lose the precious remains of life,-granted by the long-suffering of God, -as they have lost the long course of years, of which nothing now remains but the recollection.

Be on your guard, aged men, against this class of temptations, and against this class of snares, which will easily beset you, unless the whole of your strength be collected for precaution and defence. Let prayer be joined to vigilance: let those trembling hands, weakened with the weight of years, be raised to heaven: let that voice, scarcely capable of articulating accents, be addressed to God: entreat him, who succoured you in the weakness of infancy, in the vigour of youth, in the bustle of riper age, still to sustain you, when the hand of time is heavy upon your head.

Hitherto, my dear brethren, I have addressed you, merely concerning the dangers peculiar to each age. What would you not say now, if we should enter

into a detail of those which occur in every situation of life? We find, in every age, the temptations of adversity, the temptations of prosperity, the temptations of health, the temptations of sickness, the temptions of company, and the temptations of solitude: and who is able fully to enumerate all the sins which so easily beset us in the various ages of life? How to be rich without pride, and poor without complaint? How to fill the middle rank of fortune, without the disgust naturally conséquent on a station, which has nothing emulous and animating; which can be endured by those only, who discover the evils from which they are sheltered, and the dangers from which they are freed? How to enjoy health without indulging in the dissipations of life, without immersion into its cares, or indulging in its pleasures? How to be sick, without admitting complaint against that gracious Providence, which distributes both good and evil? How to be in solitude, without being captivated with reveries and corrupt propensities? How to be in company, without receiving the poison which is there respired, without receiving a conformity to every surrounding object? How to see one's self obscure in the world, and unknown to our fellow-creatures, without indulging that anxiety, which is less exercised in the world for the love of virtue, than to avoid the odium consequent on an open violation of its laws? How to enjoy reputation without ostentation, and blending some grains of incense with what we have received of others? Every where snares, every where dangers beset us.