were quickly ended, and he hasted away to an abiding city. Disinherited of the earthly paradise, from a wilderness grown over with thorns, he departed to the unfading gardens of everlasting delights. And so the holy Jesus, that King of saints, and Prince of martyrs, made but a short stay amongst us, in the days of his flesh. The envy of his brethren pursued him even to death; and the fairest flower that ever bloomed on earth, overcharged with rain, and borne down by the stormy tempest, bowed it's head, and died. Set not your hearts then, O ye children of Adam, upon a long life; nor esteem it as necessarily a blessing. Had it indeed been so, Cain had never sur

vived his righteous brother, nor had the King of righteousness died under forty.

The employment of Abel was that of keeping sheep. An employment, we see, nearly as ancient as the world itself, nor esteemed beneath those who were the first favourites of heaven, and who are now exalted to the highest thrones in the kingdom of glory. And, indeed, where shall we find usefulness, innocence, and pleasure, so met together in any employment, as they are in this? "My life (said Constantine the Great, when at the height of human felicity,) is something more honourable than that of a shepherd, hut much

more troublesome." No one subject hath so frequently engaged the pens of poets, as the felicities of the pastoral life; nay, when they would describe the golden age, and picture to our imaginations a heaven upon earth, they have found no method of doing it to greater advantage, than by representing shepherds, in times of peace, plenty, and pros perity, feeding their flocks in verdant pastures, and leading them to ving fountains of waters. But by ve are to note the use which the walon of God hath made of this employment, in the holy Scriptures, by te ring the pleasing images, # affords, to the highest and most portant truths of religion; while

the best of our substance, the first fruits of our increase, should be dedicated and devoted to him, who makes us all we are, and gives us all we have. So shall the benedictions of heaven descend upon all things around us, and upon ourselves in the use of them; while, by thus presenting our souls and bodies to God, we not only imitate Abel, but become followers of Christ, who, by the obedience of his life, and by the sacrifice of his death, offered up himself, the first-born of every creature, the perfection of beauty, and the ex cellency of power.

This offering of Abel was made in faith. By FAITH, says the author

Cain *. The just

of the epistle to the Hebrews, Abel offered a more acceptable sacrifice than The just live by faith t. They conduct their lives, and regulate their actions, by the revealed principles of pardon, acceptance, and glory, promised, through the merits of a Redeemer upon the terms of repentance, faith, and obedience. Upon the strength of these, they live and act in opposition to the world, the flesh, and the devil; looking not at the things which are seen by the bodily eye, but at the things which are not so seen; of the existence and reality of which their faith in the revelations of God affords them a

Heb. xi. 4.

+ Hab. ii. 4.