Let them afk themselves whether they have not fouls, as well as their fuperiors in rank? Is not our God their God? Did not Chrift die for them, as well as for their mafters or employers? Let them think of these things, nor suffer the fabbathday, intended to promote their falvation, contribute, more than any other day, to their deftruction. Would they have it a day of pleafure? So would we, their fuperiors in civil rank; but in order to be fuch, it must be a day of innocence, a day of devotion, a day of rational, fober, and difcreet recreation.

Let not the fprightlieft age imagine that religion will deftroy its cheerfulnefs. No; it will promote it. Nothing gives so fine spirits as a clear confcience; a bofom that feels the fatisfaction of having discharged its duties to God and man. Then recreation and harmless pleasure are truly delightful. The fweet, in fuch circumstances, is without bitter; the rose without a thorn; the honey without a fting. I have ever recommended a cheerful religion; because all religion was certainly intended to make men happy; and becaufe gloominefs, morofenefs, and feverity, which fome perfons require, without difcrimination, in all religious offices, originate in weakness and error, and lead to folly, misery, and madness; to all that is defpicable or deplorable. As religion is the comfort; fo fuperftition, fanaticism, and consequent dejection of mind, are the bane and curfe of human nature. Let us ever beware of EXCESS, even in good and laudable pursuits; for wisdom, and vir tue, and happiness, all dwell with the golden mediocrity. Our profeffional, or paternal exhortations to religion must indeed be warm and animated; because the greater part of men err, rather in not reaching the defirable point, than by going

beyond

beyond it. Yet cautions are alfo neceffary, left the willing, the zealous, the tender-hearted, fhould be urged, by their own ardour and by perfuafion, to dangerous and unhappy extremes, to melancholy and defpair.

It appears, I think, from what has been already faid, that the lively and animating fummons contained in the words," AWAKE, THOU THAT "SLEEPEST," is neceffary to a great part of mankind, whofe feelings are become callous; and who (to repeat the emphatic words of fcripture) have a HEART of STONE, instead of a HEART of FLESH; neceffary to many, who are, upon the whole, commendable for the general decency and propriety of their conduct in the world, as the world is now circumftanced. Even good kind of people, as they are called, and appear to men, are often not fufficiently awakened to the calls of religious duty. They acquiefce in decencies, decorums, plaufibilities, and the cold formal morality which may be practifed on the most selfish motives, for worldly intereft, for health, and for pleasure. They are not fufficiently fenfible of the gospel truths, its great promifes, and its dreadful denun. ciations of vengeance. They are virtuous heathens; followers of the religion of nature, not that of Christ. The world approves them, and therefore they approve themselves; but can the world fave them? Can they fave themselves? No; affuredly, if Chriftianity be not a fable, they must come to Chrift, and to Chrift only, for falvation.

Perfons who live in pleasure, that is, who make vain and fenfual pleasure the SOLE bufinefs of their lives, are expressly faid, in fcripture, to be DEAD while they live. They appear with fmiles of perpetual gaiety; are often furnished with riches and honours; but yet, in the fcripture fenfe, they are

dead,

dead, if they are not alive to Chrift. What avail worldly poffeffions and ornaments to a spirit dead in trefpaffes and fins? The SOUL, in its beft ftate, takes no real delight in them, because it naturally afpires to higher things. So have I feen a nofegay of tulips, and pinks, and roses, put into the cold hand of a corpfe, in a coffin, though the poor image of what once was man, could neither fee the gaudy tints, nor smell the fragrance.

Shall we then not cry aloud, as we are commanded, in the hope of awakening such unthinking perfons to a sense of their own miferable condition, and the hopes afforded by the gofpel? Happy for ourselves and our fellow-creatures, if we could addrefs a flumbering world with the trump of an archangel, uttering these enlivening words, "Awake, thou that fleepeft, and arife from the "dead; and Chrift fhall give thee light."

All perfons whatever, however decent and moral that are in an unregenerated ftate, are reprefented, in the ftrong metaphorical language of fcripture, as DEAD; but happily it is a death from which we may raise ourselves by PRAYER; and returning life will be cherished by heavenly influence.

For what fays the friendly call?" Chrift fhall "give thee light." The fun of righteoufnefs fhall fhine into the dark chambers of thy bofom, dispel the shades of ignorance, and disperse the phantoms of folly and vanity that sported in the funless region. Think, poor darkling mortal, what is promised thee! "Chrift fhall give thee light." As the fun in the morning breaks into thy chamber windows, and thou arifeft from thy bed to feel his genial beams, and fee all nature re-affuming her beautiful colours; fo the light of Chrift, the light of grace, fhall beam upon the foul, by the opera

tion of the Holy Ghoft, and thou fhalt arife, and fee the truth as it is in Jefus fee the beauty of holinefs-the day-fpring from on high-feel new vital warmth glowing in thy bofom; and "though

you have lien among the pots," (in the mire and rubbish of worldly vanity,) " yet fhall you be as 66 a dove, which hath filver wings, and her fea"thers like gold."

After living the few days of our pilgrimage thus awake to God, awake to Chrift, awake to the bleffed influences of the Holy Ghoft, your body, indeed, fhall lie down, and pay that debt to nature which we must all pay; yet your foul fhall feparate from it (though not without a pang, yet) FULL OF HOPE. Old age, or difeafe, or accidents, will indeed bring your poor, frail, perishing flesh (for fuch is that of the strongest, the youngest, the most beautiful of us all) to the grave; your bones must lie down in the duft, from which they were taken, and the mourners shall go about the streets; but let them not mourn without hope. Thy fleth fhall reft in hope; peaceful fhalt thou sleep till the morning of the refurrection; when the trumpet fhall found, and a voice shall be heard, sweeter than the sweetest music to the reviving ear: "Awake! awake! thou that sleepest, and arise from "the dead, and I will give thee light, life, glory, and "immortality. Sleep no more!-Arife, put on "thy beautiful garments!-My glory is rifing "upon thee. Go-bleffed Spirit, and, in the "vesture of a new and glorified body, fhine among "the fpirits of just men made perfect-thyself a "Spirit, an immortal Spirit. Sleep no more in "the arms of death; for death is fubdued; and, "as, like a faithful foldier, you watched with

* Pfalm lxviii. 13.

"me

"me in the militant ftate, you fhall now join "" me in the triumphal. Sleep no more the "fleep of death; but rife, and exult in light in"effable!"

SECTION LVII.

On the PEACE OF GOD, that calm and compofed State which is produced by the CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY, and is unknown to the Epicurean, Stoic, and all other Philofophy, antient and modern.

A of of which the troubled GENERAL profpect of human life presents a

ocean is an emblem. But there is a fweet, a peaceable, a tranquil ftate of felf-poffeffion, whether external circumftances are profperous or adverfe, which conftitutes the moft folid happiness of which human nature is capable. This enjoyment, arifing from moderate defires, a regulated imagination, lively hopes, and full confidence in the Deity, is that chief good, which philofophers have vainly fought in the schools, by the strongest efforts of unaffifted reafon. What then can point it out, if reafon, improved by fcience to the highest degree, has not been able to find it? The answer is obvious. The religion of Jefus Chrift offers to its fincere votaries the PEACE OF GOD, which passeth all understanding; a kind and degree of happiness, which no language can clearly exprefs; which the understanding cannot adequately conceive, though the heart can feel it with the most delightful experience.

"The