This question is not very difficult to decide. A state of trial must be a state of uncertainty. If every thing happened in order-if the battle was always to the strong, riches the reward of virtue, and poverty the punishment of vice, this world would be a state of retribution, not of trial. Uncertainty, therefore, is one mean of making it a state of trial: it throws out to us this grand leffon, in our paffage through life, that we muft depend on God-not on ourselves, nor on any thing which the world prefents to us. Befides, a ftate of uncertainty puts the whole world in motion. If every one was confined in his expectation, the life of man would stagnate. But the uncertainty of things fets all adventurers at work, calls up a variety of exertions, and opens a field for various virtues and vices, in which human nature is put to many a fevere trial.-Industry, prudence, and other virtues, are often encouraged; and are indeed the best means of infuring fuccefs: but they often fail, while the vices in opposition to them fucceed.So that the idea of uncertainty in all worldly affairs is still kept up; and of course this world is confidered not as a ftate of retribution, but as a ftate of trial.

V.

I keep under my body, and bring it into fubjection. 1 Cor. ix. 17.

THIS is a mode of expreffion very ufual in fpeaking of that compound being, called Man. It divides him naturally into two parts :-I keep under my body. I is fuppofed to be one part of the man; the body, the other. This mode of speaking plainly and properly points out the rational and the fenfitive parts, and gives the former the fuperiority. I, the rational part, keep under the body, which is the fenfitive.

Having thus fettled the dramatis perfonæ of the text, if I may fo fpeak, let us now confider its contents. The great reason, we fee, for keeping the body under, is to bring it into fubjection, that all its functions may co-operate with reason. The great mean of obtaining this fubjection, is felf-denial. If we make it our bufinefs to indulge ourselves in eating and drinking, in amusements, and other things pleafing to the fenfes,

VOL. IV.

A A

we

we plainly give the inferior part of our nature the fuperiority-we bring the man into subjection to the brute. God Almighty hath added a pleasure to the indulgence of all the appetites, neceffary for the preservation of life. If eating, for inftance, were attended with no pleasure, fafting might be dangerous. This ftimulus is common both to man and beast; only there is this difference: the beaft never goes beyond its allotted limit; the man turns all his pleasure, beyond the allotted limit, which fhould be the object of felf-denial, into mifchief and wicked. nefs. When that is the cafe, we, inftead of our bodies, are brought into subjection.

VI.

Be mindful of the words, which were spoken before by the holy prophets; and of the commandments of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour.2 Pet. iii. 2.

WE have here obedience to the gospel, enforced by the proof from prophecies; and there is not, I think, a more convincing proof. Cavils have been made against the miracles of the gofpel-against the purity of its precepts, and the mysteriousness of its doctrines; but. I fee not how any argument can well lie against prophecy. We have the strongest proof, that the books in which these prophecies are contained, existed many hundred years before the birth of Christ. We are well affured alfo, that they were afcribed to the Meffiah by the ancient Jews. We never heard of any perfon to whom they could be afcribed, but our Jefus; and with him they coincide as exactly as two parallel lines. I fpeak not of all the prophecies of the Old Testament; many

AA 2

1

many of which are obfcure, though easily reconcileable to the great events of the gospel; but I fpeak of thofe prophecies only, which are fo plain that no objection can reasonably be made to them. On the strength of these prophecies, therefore, St. Peter founds the obedience of his converts. His argument is, that if you believe the gospel on this evidence, it follows, that no farther cavil is admiffible: the precept, however harsh, must be obeyed; and the doctrine, however mysterious, must be believed.