proves its faith by righteous obedience; thews itself by its works in a good life and converfation. It is without partiality: it draws no needlefs or unwarrantable diftinctions between man and man; it renders equal juftice to all, and diftributes kindness in proportion to the united claims of neceffity and defert. It is without hypocrify: it affumes no delufive exterior; it is a ftedfaft obferver of truth; it will fubmit to any lofs, any scorn, rather than escape them by having recourfe to the crooked management which is the policy and the pride of the children of this world. Such are the characters by which the Holy Ghost has diftinguished heavenly wifdom; that wif dom which comes down from heaven; that wisdom which points to heaven; that wifdom which makes wife unto falvation through faith in Chrift Jefus; that wifdom for want of which the fool dieth even death eternal. Have you this wif dom? If you have it not, you have nothing. Had you all the abilities, all the learning, all the riches, all the grandeur, which mortality can attain, and had not this wisdom; you would have nothing. Wisdom, faith our Lord, is justified of her children. Are you the children of wisdom?

Do you prize her above all things? Do you walk by her rules? Do you fhew forth her fruits? Do you labour for her rewards? Do you maintain her caufe? Do you invite others to her leffons? Give me underStanding, exclaims David, and I shall keep thy law; yea, I shall obferve it with my whole heart. Under whatever points of view you confider the fubject, the refult is uniformly this: that to fear God and to keep his commandments is the whole wifdom as well as the whole duty of man. Let us labour then, my brethren, by fervent fupplication, to draw down upon ourselves this bleffing from above. Let us befeech the only wife God to renew a right fpirit within us, that we may forfake the foolish and live; that we may go in the ways understanding, and find it a well-fpring of life. While we perceive that wisdom and true religion are the fame, let us pray that He may grant us understanding to difcern that among thousands of profeffed Christians there is a religion which, whatever fair pearances it may affume, is not wisdom, but folly a religion of form, and decorum; a religion of felf-juftifying morality; a religion of the head, not of the heart. Let us intreat him to teach us fe to number our

of

ap

days,

days, that we may apply our hearts unto wifdom; to enforce upon us not only the inexpreffible importance of working out our falvation through the grace of his Son Jefus, but the fhortness of the time during which we have to work. May He inftruct us habitually to bear in mind how fpeedily the longeft life will have paffed away and how uncertain it is, not merely whether we fhall be preferved unto length of days, but whether another year, another month, or even another hour, may not have ended our existence upon earth. May He caufe us to be roused to ferious and deep reflection by the frequent examples which He difplays of the precarioufnels of life. May He caufe thofe who are in the vigour of health ever to remember that strength rears not even a momentary bulwark against death and thofe who are of a feeble frame, daily to confider how flight a barrier is interpofed between them and diffolution. O that men were wife; that they underflood this; that they would confider their latter end!

SERMON XV.

Folly illuftrated by the Character of Saul.'

I SAM. xiii. 13.

And Samuel faid to Saul; "Thou haft done

foolishly: thou hast not kept the com"mandment of the Lord."

CHEN the children of Ifrael, diffatif

WHEN

fied with their fituation under the immediate fovereignty of the Moft High, perfifted in requiring to be governed, like the neighbouring nations, by a king; Saul, a young man of the tribe of Benjamin, was the person whom God placed upon the throne. We perhaps, had we poffeffed no ulterior information, might have been difpofed to expect that, when the Searcher of hearts caft his eye over the twelve tribes in quest of a man whom he might appoint to be ruler over his people; He would felect

one

one confpicuous for piety, and prepared by stedfast faith to meet the trials with which his exaltation would be attended. Yet why should we have expected fuch a choice? Is it the established order of Providence that piety fhould be recompenfed by elevation to dignity and power? Are the rulers of the earth, whether in Pagan or in Chriftian lands, whether God raises them to empire by the fettled course of fucceffion, or by the ftorms of warfare and revolutions, ufually eminent for religion beyond the mass of their fubjects? Was it to be prefumed that when He gave to his people a king in His anger (a), in His anger at their rebellious rejection of His own regal fway, the individual fingled out should be one whofe excellence might lull them into forgetfulness of their crime; rather than one who through misconduct flowing from wilful perverfeness of character might be the inftrument of convincing them of their guilt, and of the worth of the pre-eminent diftinction and peculiar happiness which they had renounced? The thoughts of the Most High are not as our thoughts. He knows by what governor,

(a) Hofea, xiii. 11,