curse and ban pronounced upon primeval disobedience; show me, ye minions of prosperity, ye lovers of the world, your naked hearts, and see if they too are not characterized by lines of fear and melancholy; too well, alas! doth " every heart know its own bitterness," which it requires the aid of patience and of heaven to bear. Next to a good conscience our principal support under afflictions must be derived from a conviction that there is a power in nature both able and willing to assist us; that however miserable may be our present situation, however gloomy our prospects, it is still within the means and scope of the Lord of the universe to make our "last condition better than our first." And here, My Brethren, to convince yourselves of the power of the Deity, I need only require you to cast one glance on the face of his creation; I need only ask you to turn from the face of this goodly earth, all wonderful as it is in itself, to the contemplation of those thousand worlds that roll beyond it: if there you fail to read the record of his omnipotence, your's is a blindness of intellect which no logic can illume. Let us then assume that the power of the Almighty is too manifest to be overlooked, and we must proceed to convince ourselves of his other attribute, his Providence, or, in other words, his will to provide for the happiness of his creatures. Here too we shall soon find a clue for our direction: the structure of every living thing, so adapted to its obvious destiny; the formation of man himself, ample provision for his support and comfort; nay, the very circumstances which seem most hurtful often proving ultimately the most beneficial, are enough to evidence the " divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we may." Yet I will grant you, that the fates and fortunes of men are so different and frequently so little decided by their apparent deserts, that he, whose views are bounded by this world, must pronounce the presiding Deity to be unjust or impotent. He must perceive that misfortune, and seeming misery are often the portion of the good, and pleasure and prosperity the lot of the wicked. He will see vice sometimes inheriting the estates of virtue, and idleness and profligacy wasting the acquisitions of industry and honour. He will remark occasionally the religious and the moral consuming a wretched existence in penury and disease; and the infidel and the voluptuary bringing the zest and stimulant of health to the enjoyment of their rich possessions. Such is the prospect which the Deist must inevitably take of life, and the utmost that his wisdom can teach him, is to endure with hopeless patience the ills which he can neither remove nor mitigate. But "there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in his philosophy." To the Christian eye some of these are revealed, and some are withheld; but enough has been exhibited to guide him to a lasting sanctuary, a sacred and unfailing refuge. The breath of prosperity may fan, or the blast of adversity may wither his worldly hopes, he cares not for them,-his confidence is above. In the extremity of suffering, like the Patriarch of our history, he knows that his Redeemer liveth." What to him is the worm that destroys this body? In his flesh he shall see God. What to him is the corruption of the grave? What to him the mortality of his frame? He knows that the corruptible shall put on incorruption, that the mortal shall put on immortality; he knows that his latter end will be more blessed than his beginning; that he goes from a kingdom which passeth away, to one eternal as its founder, and that come what may in this life, that saying shall be ultimately accomplished, “ death is swallowed up in victory." These, My Brethren, are the glorious promises which our Saviour holds out to his followers, and I may unhesitatingly pronounce, that no person who firmly confides in them can be wholly miserable, whatever may be the malevolence of what men call fortune, whatever the perfidy of friends, whatever the pangs which strike deepest into the heart of man, he has in these promises a consolation to apply to every possible calamity. The apprehension of proximate evils, the infliction of present pain, is doubtless a great trial, and too often, even in the minds of the virtuous, predominates over the more distant remunerations of eternity. But the very way to give eternity that ascendancy which is so necessary even for our temporal happiness, is to keep God at all times in our remembrance, to reflect, in our most prosperous days, on the instability of all human possessions, and to embue our minds with that tincture of immortality which devotion, meditation, and the perusal of the Scriptures, will not fail to effect. May you, my hearers, apply yourselves seriously and assiduously to these duties, may you be timely convinced of their importance, and finally enjoy their efficacy; and may the impression which this brief and feeble lecture leaves upon your minds, by the blessing of God, be such, as may give caution to the happy, and consolation to the afflicted! SERMON XIII. ON THE POWER OF HABIT. JEREM. XIII. 23. Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil. THERE is not a more melancholy delusion whe- |