unbounded love; the compassionate warning of a tender Father. Permit me, then, once more to say, that the forsaking of the Fountain of Living Waters is an evil, a great evil; and that the hewing out of broken cisterns for ourselves is also a great evil. God views these evils in all their malignity: the angels also that are around the throne, view them with deep solicitude, anxiously desiring to see us escape from them, and waiting in readiness to rejoice over our return to God. O that we might no longer indulge a fatal security! no longer "say, Peace, peace, lest sudden destruction come upon us without any way to escape!" If God were a hard master, and his service irksome, there would be some shadow of exeuse for such conduct. But who ever sought after God in vain, provided he sought in sincerity and truth? and, who ever found him, without finding in him all that could comfort and enrich the soul? God himself puts the question; "What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are be.

come vain ?" "Have I been a wilderness to Israel? a land of darkness? Wherefore say my people, We are Lords; we will come no more unto thee ?"

Shall we plead, as an excuse, that religion is a source of melancholy? Surely they who harbour such an opinion, have never known what religion is. That a neglect of religion will make us melancholy, is clear enough, as well from the dissatisfaction which, notwithstanding our diversified enjoyments, generally prevails, as from the disquietude which men feel in the prospect of death and judgment. But religion, true religion, brings peace into the soul: it leads us to the Fountain of Living Water, where we can at all times quench our thirst, and taste beforehand the felicity of heaven. Our blessed Lord invites us to him in this view : “If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink;" and "the water that I will give him shall be in him a well of water, springing up unto everlasting life." Listen, then, to that expostulation of the prophet; "Wherefore do ye spend your money

for that which is not bread, and

your

labour

for that which satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness." Return to the Fountain, and make the experiment at least: See whether there be not more happiness in turning from vanity, than in embracing it; in seeking after God, than in forsaking him; in the holy exercises of prayer and praise, than in a brutish neglect of these duties; in applying to your souls the promises of Christ, than in a profane contempt of them; and, lastly, in obtaining sweet foretastes of heavenly bliss, than in reluctant approaches towards an unknown eternity. O that I might not commend this Fountain to you in vain! All ranks and orders amongst you are beginning to shew a laudable attention to the theory of religion: O that you might begin to shew it to the practice also! You are not backward to manifest your approbation of that zeal which directs you to the evidences of religion: be ye not therefore offended with that, which solicits your attention to its effects.

Evangelical and Pharisaic Righteousness

compared.

A

SERMON

PREACHED BEFORE

THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE,

ON SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1809.

BY THE

REV. CHARLES SIMEON, M. A.

FELLOW OF KING'S COLLEGE.

THIRD EDITION.