and he who grows better by reading the fcriptures, may expect God's bleffing upon his reading; and that God will vouchfafe him more and more light. He will understand the fcriptures more: he will feel, their true meaning is to improve the heart. The wicked man cannot feel them: they can only be understood in that spirit in which they were written. The last help I fhall mention to you, is that of prayer. Without God's affiftance we can do nothing; and that affiftance can only be obtained by prayer, and the strenuous use of our own endeavours. To make God's word effectual in our hearts, must be the work of the fpirit of God. Lighten our darkness-our spiritual as well as natural darkness-is a prayer we have all occafion to ufe; and may the Holy Spirit of God affift us in seeing clearly the things which make for our everlasting peace-that we may know what is the perfect will of God—that we may feel the words of eternal life, which is the only way to understand them-the only way to make them the foundation of all our happiness here, and all our hopes hereafter. END OF THE SERMONS. Z 2 I. There shall be weeping, and gnashing of teeth, when ye fhall fee Abraham, and Ifaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourfelves thruft out.-Luke, xiii. 28. HERE is an argument for a holy life perhaps not much attended to, but drawn from the moft acute feelings of the human heart. If you lead a bad life, you may not only have your own pofitive mifery to bear, but the additional diftrefs of seeing yourself for ever excluded from thofe you most valued, who are entering into a state of happiness. Here is a punishment arifing, as perhaps most of our future punishments do, immediately from our vices. Envy is a vile paflion, and here probably it becomes a fource of endless punishment. This feems to be the meaning of our Saviour's obfervation. What an exagerated punishment muft it be, (if there were no other punishment provided,) for parents to be shut out from children-children from parents; wives |