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undervalue, or to condemn entirely, all worldly pursuits and pleasures. On the contrary, we cannot live in the world, nor discharge our duty in it, unless, to a certain degree, we engage in its pursuits. And that we should wholly disregard its enjoyments, is neither a dictate of reason, nor a command of religion. There is scarcely a principle of our nature which does not find some appropriate gratification in the world; and it never could be the design of the beneficent Author of our being, that by renouncing entirely all worldly pleasure, we should do violence to those principles of our nature, and make ourselves miserable. The world which the Christian is commanded to renounce, is the world, as guided by evil maxims and customs; the world, with its pursuits and pleasures carried to excess. The attachment to the world, which is hostile to the exercise of repentance and of every other Christian grace, is an excessive, a supreme, a devoted attachment to it.

This inordinate love of the world, this supreme devotion to its pursuits and pleasures, characterizes the bulk of mankind, and leads them to disregard all the warnings, the threats, and the invitations, to repentance and a holy life. The man devoted to wealth cannot relax his pursuit of it. The covetous man cannot think of diminishing, in acts of pious and charitable munificence, his accumulating hoards. The unjust man cannot

relinquish the successful arts of fraud and imposture; much less can he bring himself to the resolution to make restitution of his unrighteous acquisitions. The slave of intemperance cannot resolve to subdue the passion which holds him in bondage; nor the debauchee to forsake the haunts of brutish sensuality. The candidate for worldly greatness cannot be induced to withdraw his gaze from the honors for which he is contending; nor the votary of pleasure to renounce the fascinating idol which has seduced her heart. The prosperous man cannot consent to stop in the rapid course to the haven of fortune; and he who is struggling against the adverse current, thinks that a moment's intermission, a moment's diversion of his attention, may sink him in the flood. The man of business is engrossed with incessant cares; the man of indolence and leisure shuts out all painful reflections and serious duties. The man of science cannot remit the ardent pursuit and enjoyment of his intellectual treasures: and he who knows no higher joys than the gratification of animal passion, finds this a master that claims his devoted service.

All these slaves of the world you may call to repentance, to turn from these vanities to the service of the living God. Alas! how often will you call in vain!

It is the world that silences the voice of conscience, the voice of reason, the voice of God→

the world, whose imperfect pleasures its votaries can enjoy but for a few years; which often forsakes them in the moment when she is flattering them with her choicest gifts; and from which they may be wrested when in the full career of prosperity, of glory, and of enjoyment.

This is the world, O God, which engrosses us, and which renders us insensible to the demands of thy authority, to the calls of thy justice, to the invitations of thy love.

Brethren, is not this the fact? What is it which dissipates the serious concern for your salvation, which sometimes arises in your minds? What is it which banishes the sense of your sinfulness, of your guilt, and of your danger, while in a state of disobedience to God? What is it which leads you to disregard the calls to repentance, and to postpone this most important duty, this indispensable work of conforming, by divine grace, your hearts and lives to the image and to the laws of God?

Is it not the world-its business, its cares, its pursuits, its pleasures?

And this dominion will continue; and will prevent you from making, by repentance, your peace with God, and from finding the full perfection and the full happiness of your nature in his service; until you strip the world of those delusive colours which your reason tells you it has assumed; and

boldly resolve to act upon a just estimate of it-as corrupting and unsatisfying, as utterly unworthy of your desire and pursuit, except in subordination to the concerns of eternity, to the principles and hopes of religion, to the laws and to the favor of your God.

SERMON XXII.

THE WOMAN OF CANAAN.

[SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT.]

MATT. XV. part of the 28th verse.

Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith, be it unto thee even as thou wilt.

THESE are the words of commendation and comfort which our blessed Lord addressed to the woman of Canaan. The character of the woman, as unfolded in the history, is in many respects interesting and instructive; and the behaviour of Jesus to her, while it will afford many edifying inferences, was also marked by some peculiar circumstances, which demand explanation.

The evangelists thus relate the history*, which you have heard in the Gospel for the day,

"Then Jesus went thence," from the part of

To those who have read the sermons of Bishop Horsley, it is hardly necessary to mention that the interpretation which he gives to this history is that which is followed in this sermon.

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