O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me praise his holy name."

Learn also a lesson of caution. Of all the combinations in the universe, none is more fixed and certain than that of vice with misery, of virtue with felicity. There is no law of cause and effect more binding than what holds these together. Appearances, may tell a different tale, but when they do, appearances are false. If the wicked be not punished in outward circumstances, it follows not that he is not punished within; that the trappings of his guilt do not hide a heart on which is already preying the worm that dies not, a bosom in which is already burning the fire which is not quenched. Or if he be too hardened here for the gnawings of conscience, and the flame of remorse, he cannot escape hereafter. Suffering feeds on sin, and must live and feast till the nutriment is exhausted. The creature must cease to hear the Creator, before iniquity can unite with blessedness.

Finally, let our devotion be universal as the presence and influence of our God. Let it pervade our lives. It may be called forth by, but should never be restricted within, the boundaries of particular places, or particular hours. In the permanence of the feeling, and in its filial character, let it bear some relation to the constancy of his paternal love. To him who is always, and every where, doing good to all, the years of life, the ages of eternity, are not too long for grateful adoration.

PRAYER.

O God, the Maker, Sovereign, and Father of the universe, Thou art present with us in all thy works, and may we trace and adore Thee in all thy dispensations. All beings are of thy creation, and all events of thine appointment. Thy dominion is alike unbounded and benevolent. The mightiest are not above the control of thy Providence, nor are the meanest beneath its care. Thou reignest, and let us therein rejoice. The immutability of thy throne is blessedness to our hearts, for thy mercy endureth forever.

Dispose us so to study thy works and word, that we may know more and more of thy character, O Thou, whom to know is life eternal. By seeing Thee as Thou art, may we become increasingly like unto Thee, and be followers of God as dear children, and bear the moral image of our Father in heaven.

Gratefully may we acknowledge the goodness and mercy which have followed us all our days. Hitherto hath the Lord helped us; and Thou wilt never leave us nor forsake us. Faithfully may we strive to do thy will, and by the practice of righteousness fit ourselves for the enjoyment of happiness. Let us be continually praising Thee. May heaven and earth unite in the celebration of thy love. By all beings and through all ages may thy name be glorified. Amen.

SERMON XXV."

ON WATCHFULNESS.

1 Cor. x. 12.

"LET HIM WHO THINKETH HE STANDETH, TAKE HEED, LEST HE fall.”

THE Apostle Paul had in view, in this stern advice, the miscalculations of ambition, and the transitoriness of human prosperity. Both ancient and contemporaneous history would, if we needed them to demonstrate the wisdom and truth of our text, furnish us with examples, in which selection would be the only difficulty. The foolish ambition which blinds so many mortals, seems to raise their fortune high, only to render their ruin more striking; and the world scarcely recovers from the shock occasioned by the fall of a throne, before a similar crash staggers it again.

But it is not to the great ones of the world only that Paul addresses himself in the text; it is not the perilous carelessness of the powerful, that his voice seeks to alarm. He speaks with a reference to more solid interests, than those that are sought after in the world. To Christians, of all ranks, he speaks; presumption and security, in relation to salvation, is what he blames ;

and to watchfulness he would arouse all his disciples, in order to strengthen those who waver, and to maintain in the good path him who has entered on it.

Wavering Christians, faithful Christians, who compose this assembly, and all who have a greater or less inclination to that security, to that want of vigilance, which the Apostle threatens with a fall, to you I now address the exhortation that he addressed to the Corinthians; and to aid its sanctifying influence on your hearts, I propose to combat and refute the avowed or secret motives which nourish in your breasts this dangerous security.

Oh, that I could convince you that the Christian cannot make progress, nor even stand firm, in the noble career of excellence, in which his divine Master calls him to tread in his steps, without following a plan of sustained and well-directed efforts, without taking those powerful arms which the Gospel presses us all to put on for the fight of faith!-Merciful Lord! produce in them, by thy spirit of truth, this salutary conviction! Cause it to carry into the remainder of their lives fruits of humility and vigilance! Amen.

I may, I hope, suppose that you all regard the present life under the aspect familiar to the disciples of Jesus Christ, the only true aspect; yes, and the only one that can ennoble man; the only one that can comfort the unhappy—as a time, I mean, to be employed by each of us, in order to give all the increase possible to the germs placed in our soul by the Creator; as a kind of probation for a higher order of existence, in which our soul, emancipated from earthly thraldom,

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and united to a glorious body, shall incessantly approach to the eternal source of holiness and bliss.

I regard it as equally certain, that, arrived at that state of moderate wisdom, in which you have no longer to fight against habits purely criminal, you do not judge it necessary to subject yourselves to the yoke of a severe vigilance: that as probationers, confident and tranquil as to the issue of the trial, you think it superfluous, whether in reference to faith or morals, to bind yourselves down to those precautions of a scrupulous piety, to those sacrifices of an austere wisdom, to those habits of religious prudence, to that constant watching of the conscience and the heart, to all the virtuous requirements, which, you say, may be necessary at the entrance on life, but which, in your case, would be only useless restraints and childish precision. You undertake to justify both your security and the neglects which are its consequences: let us see what is the strength of the motives which inspire you, and consequently to what degree this security is reasonable.

You say, in the first place, that having consecrated a part of your youth to the study of religion, and having then strongly imbued your minds with the principles of Christianity, and the obligations of the Christian, you are authorised to think yourself sufficiently advanced, and to turn to other objects the attention and the solicitude which the work of your salvation obtained from you at that period of your life. In granting to you that your religious instruction, facilitated by good natural dispositions, superintended by watchful parents, has succeeded to the satisfaction of the Pastors who are charged with putting the seal on it, I am far from hav