in roving from one new way to another, and are so far from asking for the old paths, where is the good way, that when they are shown it, they say, we will not walk therein.

There is a much closer connexion between practice and speculation than is generally imagined. A man disquieted with scruples concerning any important article of religion, will, for the most part, find himself indifferent and cold, even to those duties which he practised before with the most active diligence and ardent satisfaction. Let him then ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and he shall find rest for his soul. His mind, once set at ease from perplexity and perpetual agitation, will return with more vigour to the exercises of piety. An uniform perseverance in these holy practices will produce a steady confidence in the divine favour, and that confidence will complete his happiness. To which that we may all attain, God of his infinite mercy grant, for the merits of Jesus Christ, our Saviour; to whom, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, be ascribed, as is most due, all honour, adoration, and praise, now and ever! Amen.

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SERMON VIII.

ROMANS XII. THE LATTER PART OF THE 16TH VERSE.

Be not wise in your own conceits.

IT has been observed by those who have employed themselves in considering the method of Providence, and the government of the world, that good and evil are distributed, through all states of life, if not in equal proportions, yet in such degrees as leave very little room for those murmurs and complaints which are frequently produced by superficial inquiries, negligent surveys, and impatient comparisons.

Every condition has, with regard to this life, its inconveniences, and every condition has, likewise, its advantages; though its position to the eye of the beholder, may be so varied, as that, at some times, the misery may be concealed, and, at other times, the happiness: but to judge only by the eye, is not the way to discover truth.

We may

pass by men, without being able to distinguish whether they are to be numbered among those whose felicities or whose sorrows preponderate; as we may walk over the ground, without knowing whether its entrails contain mines of gold, or beds of sand.

is

Nor is it less certain, that, with respect to the more important prospects of a future state, the same impartiality of distribution may be generally remarked; every condition of humanity being exposed on one side, and guarded on the other; so that every man is burdened, though none are overwhelmed; every man is obliged to vigilance, but none are harassed beyond their strength. The great business, therefore, of every man, to look diligently round him, that he may note the approaches of an enemy; and to bar the avenues of temptation, which the particular circumstances of his life are most likely to lay open; and to keep his heart in perpetual alarm against those sins which constantly besiege him. . If he be rich, let him beware, lest when he is "full, he deny God," and say, "Who is the Lord?" If he be poor, let him cautiously avoid to "steal," and "take the name" of his "God in vain."

There are some conditions of humanity, which are made particularly dangerous by an uncommon degree of seeming security; conditions, in which we appear so completely fortified, that we have little to dread, and therefore give ourselves up too readily to negligence and supineness; and are destroyed without precaution, because we flattered ourselves that destruction could not ap proach us. The fatal slumber of treacherous tranquillity may be produced and prolonged by many causes, by causes, as various as the situations of life. Our condition may be such, as may place us out of the reach of those general admonitions, by which the rest of mankind are reminded of their errors, and awakened to their duty; it may remove us to a great distance from the common incitements to common wick edness, and, therefore, may superinduce a forgetfulness of our natural frailties, and suppress all suspicions of the encroachments of sin. And the sin to which we are particularly tempted, may be of that insiduous and seductive kind, as that, without alarming us by the horrors of its appearance, and shocking us with the enormity of any single acts, may, by slow advances, possess the soul, and, in destroying us, differ only

from the atrociousness of more apparent wickedness, as a lingering poison differs from the sword; more difficultly avoided, and more certainly fatal.

To temptations of this subtle insinuating kind, the life of men of learning seems above all others to be exposed. As they are themselves appointed the teachers of others, they very rarely have the dangers of their own state set before them; as they are, by their abstraction and retirement, secluded from the gaities, the luxuries, and the pageantries of life, they are willingly persuaded to believe, that because they are at a great distance from the rocks on which conscience is most frequently wrecked, that therefore, they sail with safety, and may give themselves to the wind, without a compass. The crimes, from which they are in danger, are not those from which the mind has been taught to shrink away with horror, or against which the invectives of moral or theological writers have generally been directed; and therefore they are suffered to approach unregarded, to gain ground imperceptibly upon minds directed to different views, and to fix themselves at leisure in the heart, where, perhaps, they are scarcely discovered till they are past eradication.