1. Meditate on your meanness. Contrast yourselves with God, who gives himself to you to-day in such a tender manner. How soon is the capacity of man absorbed in the works and attributes of God! Conceive, if thou be capable, the grandeur of a Being, who made the heavens by his word, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. Think, if thou be capable of thinking, of the glory of a Being, who existed from all eternity, whole understanding is infinite, whose power is irresistible, whose will is above controul. Behold him filling the whole universe with his presence. Behold him in the palace of his glory, inhabiting the praises of the blessed, Psal. xxii. 3. surrounded by thousand thousands, and by ten thousand times ten thousand angels, who excel in strength, and who delight to fly at the first signal of his will. Thou human soul! contemplate this object, and recover thy reason. What art thou? What was thine origin? What is thine end? Thou diminutive atom! great only in thine own eyes; behold thyself in thy true point of view. Dust! Ashes! Putrefaction! glorious only at the tribunal of thine own pride; divest thyself of the tawdry grandeur in which thou lovest, to array thyself. Thou vapour! Thou dream! Thou exhalation of the earth! evaporating in the air, and having no other consistence than what thine own imagination gives thee; behold thy vanity and nothingness. Yet this dream, this exhalation, this vapour, this dust and ashes and putrefaction, this diminutive creature, is an object of the eternal care and love of its God. For thee, contemptible creature! the Lord stretched out the heavens: for thee he laid the foundation of the earth: let us say more: For thee, contemptible creature! God formed the plan of redemption. What could determine the great Jehovah to communicate himself, in such a tender and intimate manner, to so contemptible a creature as man? His goodness, his goodness alone.

Although a sense of our meanness should not terrify and confound us, yet it should exclude arrogance, and excite lowly sentiments: But what will our humility be, if we estimate the gifts of God's grace by an idea of our unworthiness? Let each recollect the mortifying history of his own life. Remember, thou! thy fiery youth, in which, forgetting all the principles that thy pious parents had taught thee, thou didst acknowledge no law but thine own passionate and capricious will. Remember, thou! that period, in which thy heart being infatuated with one object, and wholly em

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ployed about it, thou didst make it thine idol, and didst sacri fice to it thine honour, thy duty, thy God. Recollect, thou! the cruel use, that for many years, thou didst make of thy credit, thy riches, thy rank, when, being devoured with self-love, thou wast insensible to the voice of the widow and the orphan, and to a number of distressed people, who solicited relief. Remember, thou! that fatal hour, the recollection of which ought to make thy head waters, and thine eyes a fountain of tears, Jer. ix. 1. that fatal hour, in which, God having put thee into the fiery trial of persecution, thou couldst not abide the proof. Like Peter, thou didst not know a disgraced Redeemer; thou didst cowardly abandon a persecuted church, and wast just on the point of abjuring thy religion. Let each of us so consider himself as he seems in the eyes of a holy God. A criminal worthy of the most rigorous punishments! Let each of us say to himself, Notwithstanding all this, it is I, guilty I; I, whose sins are more in number than the hairs on my head; it is I, who have been admitted this morning into the house of God; it is I, who have been invited this morning to that mystical repast, which sovereign wisdom itself prepared; it is I, who have been encouraged against the just fears, which the remembrance of my sins had excited, and have heard the voice of God, proclaiming in my conscience, Fear not thou worm Jacob, Isa. xli. 14. It is I, who have been abundantly satisfied with the fatness of the house of God, and have drunk of the river of his pleasures, Psal. xxxvi. 8. What inclines God to indulge me in this manner? Goodness only surpassing and inconceivable goodness! thou shalt for ever be the object of my meditation and gratitude! How excellent is thy loving kindness, O God! ver. 7. These are sentiments that ought to animate our praise to-day. Such praise is comely for the upright.

Finally, The gratitude of an upright man is noble and magnanimous. The praise of God well becomes the mouth of an upright man, because he takes the love of God to him for a pattern of his behaviour to his fellow creatures. St. Paul hath very emphatically expressed the happy change which the gospel produceth in true christians. We all with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord, 2 Cor. iii. 18. Some commentators, instead of reading we all beholding as in a glass, as the expression is rendered in our translation, render the words, we all becoming mirrors. I will not undertake to

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prove that this is the meaning of the term: it is certainly the sense of the apostle*. He means to inform us, that the impression, which the evangelical display of the perfections of God makes on the souls of believers, engraves them on their minds, and renders them like mirrors, that reflect the rays, and the objects which are placed opposite to them, and represent their images. They behold the glory of the Lord with open face. They are changed from glory to glory into the same image, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. I wish, my brethren, that the impression, which was made on you by the generosity and magnanimity of God, who loaded you this morning with his gracious benefits, may transform you to-day into the same image from glory to glory. I would animate you with this, the most noble, the most sublime, the most comfortable, way of praising God.

What gave you so much peace and pleasure this morning, in what God did for you? Was it the pardon of your sins? Imitate it; pardon your brethren. Was it his past forbearance with you? Imitate it; moderate that impatience which, the ingratitude of your brethren excites in your minds. Was it that spirit of communication, which disposed a God, who is all-sufficient to his own happiness, to go out of himself, as it were, and to communicate his felicity to creatures? Imitate it; ;_go out of those intrenchments of prosperity in which VOL. I.

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* The idea of reflecting, while one contemplates, the attri butes of God, is a very fine thought, and fully expressive of the. benevolent effects which christianity produceth in its disciples; but Mr. Saurin, whose business as a christian minister was not with the fine, but the true, only meant, by what he said above, that it was agreeable to the general design of the apostle. Erasmus was the first who translated St. Paul's term xalkova in speculo repræsentantes. Beza renders it in speculo intuentes; and the French bibles have it, nous contemplons comme en un miroir.' Our author was delighted with the ingenuity of Erasmus, however he could not accede to his translation, because, 1. He could meet with no Greek author, cotemporary with St. Paul, who had used the term in the sense of Erasmus. 2. Because he could not perceive any connection between that signification and the phrase with open face. He abode therefore by the usual reading. See Serm. Tom. ix. S. viii. My idea of an object pleases me, therefore it is a true idea of it, is contemptible logic; yet how many pretended articles of religion have arisen from this way of reasoning!

lodge, and impart your benefits to your brethren. Was it the continual watchfulness of God for the salvation of your souls? Imitate it; exert yourselves for the salvation of the souls of your brethren; suffer not those, who are united to you by all the ties of nature, society, and religion, to perish through your lukewarmness and negligence. While you triumphantly exclaim, on this solemn festival, Let us make a joyful noise to the Rock of our salvation! Psal. xcv. 1. Remember your persecuted brethren, to whom God refuseth this pleasure; remember the ways of Zion, that mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts, Lam. i. 4.

My brethren, how pleasing is a christian festival! How comfortable the institution, to which we were this morning called! But I remember here a saying of Jesus Christ to his apostles, I have other sheep which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd, John x. 16. Alas! we also have sheep in another fold. When shall we have the comfort of bringing them into this? Ye divided families! who are present in this assembly, when will you be united? Ye children of the reformation! whom the misfortunes of the times have torn

from us; ye dear parts of ourselves! when will you come to us? When will you be re-gathered to the flock of the great shepherd and bishop of our souls? When will ye shed in our assemblies tears of repentance, for having lived so long without a church, without sacraments, without public worship? When will ye shed tears of joy for having recovered these advantages?

Great God! Thou great God who hidest thyself! is it to extinguish, or to enflame our zeal, that thou delayest the happy period? Are our hopes suspended or confounded? God grant, my dear brethren, that the praise, which we render to the Lord for all his benefits, may obtain their continuance and increase! And God grant, while he giveth us our lives for a prey, Jer. xxi. 9. that those of our brethren be given us also! to him be honour and glory for ever! Amen.

may

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.