1

Now

Examine the real value of the pleasures it pro-
mises-how fhort they are--what their nature
is; and what their circumstances? Examine
next, the price you are to pay-whether for the
pleasure of getting drunk, for inftance; or for
the pleasure of curfing and fwearing-or for any
other unlawful pleasure, you are not charged
more than the thing is really worth?
if you could only coolly, and deliberately pre-
vail with yourselves to do this, when you go to
purchase the pleasures of fin, one should hope,
the drunkard, the common fwearer, the whore-
monger, the adulterer, and all other finners,
would draw back a little, before they venture to
make so disadvantageous, fo deceitful, so ruinous
a bargain. Our bleffed Saviour, you may re-
member, takes notice of this miserable kind of
traffic: and let his words fink deep in your hearts.
What is a man profited, if he should gain the
whole world, and lofe his own foul? or, what
shall a man give in exchange for his foul?

LASTLY, to incline us ftill more to examine our ways, and turn our feet unto God's teftimonies, let us add fervent prayer to God. Before the great searcher of hearts, let us humby confefs thofe fins, which we cannot hide; and be

wail those corruptions which we cannot wholly overcome: praying always, that God will affift us by his holy fpirit-that he will fuccour us in the hour of temptation-that he will strengthen our refolutions; help us to gain a conqueft over fin-and finally pardon us through the atonement of a blessed Redeemer.

THUS, my brethren, let us all, by our own best endeavours, affifted by the grace of God, examine our accounts here, in order to fit ourselves for that great account, we must all render up to God hereafter. His will stand the clearest in that great day, whofe accounts with his own foul have here been kept the most exact.And may God, of his infinite mercy, grant, that we may all fo call our ways to remembrance, that we may turn our feet unto his teftimonies.

SERMON XX.

I CORINTHIANS, ix. 10.

HE THAT PLOUGHETH, SHOULD PLOUGH IN HOPE AND HE THAT THRASHETH IN SHOULD BE PARTAKER OF HIS

HOPE,

HOPE.

GOD hath given us in the Bible, the clearest revelation of his will: but he hath alfo given us, to affift the Bible, books of inftruction wherever we throw our eyes. The man who seeks for religious wisdom, can throw them no where without receiving it. The lillies of the field, which are cut down, and wither, will impress him with the great leffon of mortality. The ravens, which fow not, nor gather into barns, will teach him dependence on divine providence. fluggard is fent to the ant for inftruction-the

The

intempe

intemperate man, to the fow, that walloweth in the mire-and the proud man is put in mind of the worm which is deftined, one day, to banque upon him.

But amidst all the topics of inftruction, which the book of nature holds out, there are none fo apt, and various, as thofe fuggefted in the text, from the culture of the earth. The hufbandman has the book of wisdom continually before him; and it is his own fault, if he do not gather inftruction from it.

To affift him however in reading this wife book, though indeed it is open to us all, I fhall, in the following difcourfe, point out a few of those various pieces of instruction it sets before us.

AND first, the very ground you cultivate, affords much inftruction. Without proper tillage, you know, it will bear nothing: and the more it is cultivated, the more it will produce. And though there are many different kinds of foil, yet none is fo bad, but it may be improved; and none fo good, but without improvement, it will become barren.-Now what inftruction have we here! How aptly does the ground reprefent our minds; and bring daily to our remembrance the need

VOL. I.

R

need we have of culture? As the ground muft be difpofed to receive the feed, so must our minds to receive the truths of the gofpel. A proud, felf-conceited difpofition effectually stops all the inlets to religious knowledge. Prejudices become arguments; and our own reafon, however uninformed, becomes the standard of truth.

Our bleffed Saviour, you remember, in one of his parables, explains the different dispositions of men towards religious truth, by different kinds of ground. He speaks of the hardened ground, that will receive no feed-of the neglected ground, in which the feed is choked and of the good ground, which being properly prepared, brings forth fruit in abundance. As our bleffed Saviour himself therefore ufes this explanation, you may be fure it is a juft one. You ought all therefore to confider this parable as spoken to you; and each of you reflect, which of these feveral kinds of ground he resembles-whether your minds are open, and ready to receive instruction-or whether they are fhut up and hardened against it?

AFTER the inftruction, which you receive from the ground, confider next, what inftruction may be gathered from feed time. On this,

you