pear in the beauty of holinefs before God in the heavenly Jerufalem; confidering this world and the next, only as different parts of the fame plan and constitution of things. Here he is travelling, there he will be at home, like a traveller, enjoying chearfully all the real fatisfactions he meets with on the road, and following the neceffary bufinefs of it with alacrity, having however his eye fixed on the end of his journey, fo as not to be prevented from arriving at his home nor impeded in his progrefs. Surely it is not poffible to form in our minds a character more exalted and full of dignity than this? any lefs troubled and discompofed by adverfe accidents and disappointments? or any which enjoys the most common gratifications of human nature with greater relish, or has a more exquifite fenfe of the more refined?-Such a character ought every chriftian to be; fuch a character, as you have seen, the christian love of God

God will produce. Do any of you confider this chriftian love of God as unattainable?It is only becaufe you have not fincerely and earneftly endeavoured to attain it. If you would accuftom yourselves to think upon God as what he is, and truly endeavour to qualify yourselves for thinking of him with pleasure, to love him would follow of courfe. It is not a new fentiment to which your hearts are ftrangers: you are acquainted with both the affection and the object of it. The love of goodness is natural to the human foul, and, however overpowered by the corruption of our nature, experienced in fome degree by every

one.

Ir is only neceffary therefore to abftract the mind a little from the influence of external objects, and to encourage our higher and more refined fenfibilities; it is only to raife in our hearts the fame affections,

which we frequently experience to be raised in them by the amiable qualities and the kindness of our fellow creatures, by the contemplation of perfection itfelf, of abfolute goodnefs.

SUFFER no day to pass over your heads without recollecting the wifdom, power, and goodness of your heavenly father; without recollecting that this being of perfect wifdom, power, and goodness, not only fees you, but is ever moft intimately prefent with you, fo that in him you literally live, move, and have your being; without recollecting what you have received from him both by nature and by grace, the bleffings and mercies you now experience, and those you hope for from him hereafter. Sincerely endeavor to correct whatever is amifs in your lives or difpofitions, and uniformly to do what appears to be your duty; imprint the fense you have of these things

on

on your minds, confirm your resolutions and animate your endeavours; by habitual and earnest private prayer, by the attentive reading of God's holy word, (applying what you read to yourselves) and by devout attendance upon the public offices of the church, and (with the affiftance of the divine grace which you thus will certainly receive) you will find the use of these means producing in your hearts continually a greater and a greater degree of the love of God.

SERMON VI.

PSALM, ciii. V. 2.

PRAISE THE LORD! O MY SOUL, AND
FORGET NOT ALL HIS BENEFITS."

THERE is no quality in the human

character, which we more efteem than gratitude; nor do we confine ourselves to esteem only, but are ftrongly difpofed to fhew, towards thofe in whom we find it, all poffible attention and kindness: on the contrary, ingratitude raises general abhorrence, and effectually prevents any fresh marks of our favor.