0!

better to leave it by the allurements of grace, than by the violence of death. O! leave the world, while it is in your power to prove that you relinquish it for conscience sake. leave it as you will wish you had renounced it, when you enter an eternal state; and now shew yourselves in the class in which you hope to appear at the day of judgement.— View the world as an object of solitary contemplation. View it as an object of dying contemplation. And arise, and depart hence. If you remain in the world, with the world you will perish.

O how I pity certain individuals which seem to have their everlasting welfare at heart-but caunot once for all resolve to give up the world. They are for ever purposing, but never decide. They seem to yield to every thing we advance, until we touch the subject of separation from the world-then they immediately shrink back; and if pressed, employ all their ingenuity to excuse, or palliate their attachments and compliances. Are you of this number?

-Perhaps you imagine your withdrawment from the world will be very miserable. Now even allowing it to be irksome, still if it can be proved to be necessary, you ought to sub

mit to it. You act thus in other pressing cases. But we are bold to affirm that if you detach yourselves from it, you will be infinitely more happy, than in connexion with it. What liberty, what satisfaction have the votaries of the world? Are they not the most miserable of all beings? Are they not always disgusted or disappointed?-And still more peculiarly wretched is a ssate of suspense, between the world, and religion; where you have the inconveniencies of both, without the pleasure of either. But says Solomon, her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. My soul, says David, shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips: when I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night-watches.

Good Matthew Henry said as he was expiring, to his friends in the room; you have heard and read the words of many dying men-and these are mine; I have found a life of communion with God, the happiest life in the world. Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way-It is true: but hear Bishop Beveredge: if the way be narrow it is not long; and if the gate be strait, it opens into endless life.

DISCOURSE XII.

WEAK GRACE ENCOURAGED.

For who hath despised the day of small things. Zech. iv. 10.

IT is not indeed easy to determine always what is small. Things originally and apparently trivial and uninteresting, often become very great and momentous.

It is so in nature. The oak whose branches cover the side of the mountain, and whose strength defies the storm, grows from an acorn which we should trample under foot. Broad rivers and streams which fertilize the countries through which they roll and become a sea, if retraced, would be found to spring from obscure, if not imperceptible sources.

It is so in science. There was a time when Johnson was learning his letters. Sir Isaac Newton sitting in a garden, saw an apple fall

from a tree; and this led him to speculate on the power of gravity he saw a boy blowing bubbles; and this led him to investigate the subject of light and colours. And from such hints was derived much of the grand scheme of philosophy which distinguished this illustrious genius.

It is so in political affairs. As we read history, how often are we forced to exclaim, behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth. What an inconsiderable incident has sometimes set a whole nation in a blaze. How wonderful the difference between many of the revolutions of empires in their rise, and in their effects.

It is so in moral concerns. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Our Saviour teacheth us that there may be murder in an angry word, and adultery in a wanton look. Hence the wisest part we can act is to stop beginnings; yea to avoid the very appearance of evil. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

And what inference would you derive from hence? Why this. A philosopher will not despise the day of small things; a statesman will not despise it; a moralist will not-and should