conjunction with poverty; and well do they know that there is an eloquence in the imploring looks of these helpless poor, which no description can set before you. Oh! my brethren, figure to yourselves the calamity in all its soreness, and measure your bounty by the actual greatness of the claims, and not by the feebleness of their advocate.

bour, and I wish you to understand, that the | Sad union! they are called to witness it in advantage of this principle may be felt as much in the operations of charity, as in the operations of trade and manufactures. The work of beneficence does not lie in the one act of giving money; there must be the act of attendance; there must be the act of inquiry; there must be the act of judicious application. But I can conceive that an individual may be so deficient in the I have trespassed upon your patience; varied experience and attention which a but, at the hazard of carrying my address work so extensive demands, that he may to a length that is unusual, I must still say retire in disgust and discouragement from more. Nor would I ever forgive myself if the practice of charity altogether. The in- I neglected to set the eternity of the poor stitution of a Society, such as this, saves in all its importance before you. This is this individual to the cause. It takes upon the second point of consideration to which itself all the subsequent acts in the work I wish to direct you. The man who conand labour of love, and restricts his part to siders the poor will give his chief anxiety the mere act of giving money. It fills the to the wants of their eternity. It must be middle space between the dispensers and evident to all of you that this anxiety is the recipients of charity. The habits of little felt. I do not appeal for the evidence many who now hear me, may disqualify of this to the selfish part of mankind-there them for the work of examination. They we are not to expect it. I go to those who may have no time for it; they may live at are really benevolent-who have a wish to a distance from the objects; they may nei- make others happy, and who take trouble ther know how to introduce, nor how to in so doing; and it is a striking observation, conduct themselves in the management of how little the salvation of these others is all the details; their want of practice and the object of that benevolence which makes of experience may disable them for the them so amiable. It will be found that in work of repelling imposition; they should and by far the greater number of instances, try to gain the necessary habits; it is right this principle is all consumed on the acthat every individual among us, should commodations of time, and the necessities each, in his own sphere, consider the poor, of the body. It is the meat which feeds and qualify themselves for a judicious and them-the garment which covers themdiscriminating charity. But, in the mean the house which shelters them--the money time, the Society for the Relief of the Des- which purchases all things; these, I say, titute Sick, is an instrument ready made are what form the chief topics of benevoto our hands. Avail yourselves of this in-lent anxieties. Now, we do not mean to disstrument immediately, as, by the easiest part of the exercise of charity, which is to give money, you carry home to the poor all the benefits of its most difficult exercises. The experience which you want, the members of this laudable Society are in possession of. By the work and observation of years, a stock of practical wisdom is now accumulated among them. They have been long inured to all that is loathsome and discouraging in this good work, and they have nerve, and hardihood, and principle to front it. They are every way qualified to be the carriers of your bounty, for it is a path they have long travelled in. Give the money, and these conscientious men will soon bring it into contact with the right objects. They know the way through all the obscurities of this metropolis, and they they can bring the offerings of your charity to people whom you will never see, and into houses which you will never enter. It is not easy to conceive, far less to compute the extent of human misery; but these men can give you experience for it. They can show you their registers of the sick and of the dying; they are familiar with disease in all its varieties of faintness, and breathlessness, and pain.

courage this principle. We cannot afford it; there is too little of it; and it forms too refreshing an exception to that general selfishness which runs throughout the haunts of business and ambition, for us to say any thing against it. We are not cold-blooded enough to refuse our delighted concurrence to an exertion so amiable in its principle, and so pleasing in the warm and comfortable spectacle which it lays before us. The poor, it is true, ought never to forget, that it is to their own industry, and to the wisdom and economy of their own management, that they are to look for the elements of subsistence-that if idleness and prodigality shall lay hold of the mass of our population, no benevolence, however unbounded, can ever repair a mischief so irrecoverable-that if they will not labour for themselves, it is not in the power of the rich to create a sufficiency for them; and that though every heart were opened, and every purse emptied in the cause, it would absolutely go for nothing towards forming a well-fed, a well-lodged, or a well conditioned peasantry. Still, however, there are cases which no foresight could prevent, and no industry could provide for-where the

blow falls heavy and unexpected on some survey at which they stand, and from which devoted son or daughter of misfortune, and they command a look of both worlds. They where, though thoughtlessness and folly have placed themselves in the avenues may have had their share, benevolence, not which lead from time to eternity, and they very nice in its calculations, will feel the have often to witness the awful transition overpowering claim of actual, helpless, and of a soul hovering at the entrance-strugimploring misery. Now, I again offer my gling its way through the valley of the cheerful testimony to such benevolence as shadow of death, and at last breaking loose this; I count it delightful to see it singling from the confines of all that is visible. Do out its object; and sustaining it against the you think it likely that men with such speccruel pressure of age and of indigence; and tacles before them, will withstand the sense when I enter a cottage where I see a warmer of eternity? No, my brethren, they cannot, fire-side, or more substantial provision, than they have not. Eternity, I rejoice to anthe visible means can account for, I say that nounce to you, is not forgotten by them; the landscape, in all its summer glories, and with their care for the diseases of the does not offer an object so gratifying, as body, they are neither blind nor indifferent when referred to the vicinity of the great to the fact, that the soul is diseased also. man's house, and the people who live in it, We know it well. There is an indolent and and am told that I will find my explanation superficial theology, which turns its eyes there. Kind and amiable people! your from the danger, and feels no pressing call benevolence is most lovely in its display, for the application of the remedy-which but oh! it is perishable in its consequences. reposes more in its own vague and selfDoes it never occur to you that in a few assumed conceptions of the mercy of God, years this favourite will die-and that he than in the firm and consistent representawill go to the place where neither cold nor tions of the New Testament-which overhunger will reach him, but that a mighty looks the existence of disease altogether, interest remains, of which both of us may and therefore feels no alarm, and exerts no know the certainty, though neither you nor urgency in the business-which, in the face I can calculate the extent. Your benevo- of all the truths and all the severities that lence is too short.-It does not shoot far are uttered in the word of God, leaves the enough a-head. It is like regaling a child soul to its chance; or, in other words, by with a sweetmeat or a toy, and then aban-neglecting to administer every thing spedoning the happy, unreflecting infant to cific for the salvation of the soul, leaves it exposure. You make the poor old man to perish. happy with your crumbs and your frag. ments, but he is an infant on the mighty range of infinite duration; and will you leave the soul, which has the infinity to go through, to its chance? How comes it that the grave should throw so impenetrable a shroud over the realities of eternity? How comes it that heaven, and hell, and judgment, should be treated as so many nonentities, and that there should be as little real and operative sympathy felt for the soul which lives forever, as for the body after it is dead, or for the dust into which it moulders? Eternity is longer than time; the arithmetic, my brethren, is all one side upon this question; and the wisdom which calculates, and guides itself by calculation, gives its weighty and respectable support to what may be called the benevolence of faith.

We do not want to involve you in controversies; we only ask you to open the New Testament, and attend to the obvious meaning of a word which occurs frequently in its pages-we mean the word saved. The term surely implies, that the present state of the thing to be saved is a lost and an undone state. If a tree be in a healthful state from its infancy, you never apply the term saved to it, though you see its beautiful foliage, its flourishing blossoms, its abundant produce, and its progressive ascent through all the varieties incidental to a sound and a prosperous tree. But if it were diseased in its infancy, and ready to perish, and if it were restored by management and artificial applications, then you would say of this tree that it was saved; and the very term implies some previous Now, if there be one employment more state of uselessness and corruption. What, fitted than another to awaken this benevo- then, are we to make of the frequent occurlence, it is the peculiar employment of that rence of this term in the New Testament, Society for which I am now pleading. I as applied to a human being? If men come would have anticipated such benevolence into this world pure and innocent, and have from the situation they occupy, and the in-nothing more to do but to put forth the formation before the public bears testimony powers with which nature has endowed to the fact. The truth is, that the diseases of the body may be looked upon as so many outlets through which the soul finds its way to eternity. Now, it is at these outlets that the members of this Society have stationed themselves. This is the interesting point of

them, and so rise through the progressive stages of virtue and excellence, to the rewards of immortality, you would not say of these men that they were saved, when they were translated to these rewards. These rewards of man are the natural

effects of his obedience, and the term saved | power of God through faith unto salvation, is not at all applicable to such a supposi- to every one who believes them. tion. But the God of the Bible says differently. If a man obtain heaven at all, it is by being saved. He is in a diseased state, and it is by the healing application of the blood of the Son of God, that he is restored from that state. The very title applied to him proves the same thing. He is called our Saviour. The deliverance which he effects is called our salvation. The men whom he doth deliver are called the saved. Doth not this imply some previous state of disease and helplessness? And from the frequent and incidental occurrence of this term, may we not gather an additional testimony to the truth of what is elsewhere more expressly revealed to us, that we are lost by nature, and that to obtain recovery, we must be found in Him who came to seek and to save that which was lost. He that believeth on the Son of God shall be saved, but he that believeth not, the wrath of God abideth on him.

We know that there are some who loathe this representation; but this is just another example of the substantial interests of the poor being sacrificed to mismanagement and delusion. It is to be hoped that there are many who have looked the disease fairly in the face, and are ready to reach forward the remedy adapted to relieve it. We should have no call to attend to the spiritual interests of men, if they could safely be left to themselves, and to the spontaneous operation of those powers with which it is supposed that nature has endowed them. But this is not the state of the case. We come into the world with the principles of sin and condemnation within us; and, in the congenial atmosphere of this world's example, these ripen fast for the execution of the sentence. During the period of this short but interesting passage to another world, the remedy is in the gospel held out to all, and the freedom and universality of its invitations, while it opens assured admission to all who will, must aggravate the weight and severity of the sentence to those who will not; and upon them the dreadful energy of that saying will be accomplished, "How shall they escape if they neglect so great a salvation?"

We know part of your labours for the eternity of the poor. We know that you have brought the Bible into contact with many a soul. And we are sure that this is suiting the remedy to the disease; for the Bible contains those words which are the

To this established instrument for working faith in the heart, add the instrument of hearing. When you give the Bible, accompany the gift with the living energy of a human voice-let prayer, and advice, and explanation, be brought to act upon them; and let the warm and deeply felt earnestness of your hearts, discharge itself upon theirs in the impressive tones of sincerity, and friendship, and good will. This is going substantially to work. It is, if I may use the expression, bringing the right element to bear upon the case before you; and be assured, every treatment of a convinced and guilty mind is superficial and ruinous, which does not lead it to the Saviour, and bring before it his sacrifice and atonement, and the influences of that spirit bestowed through his obedience on all who believe on Him.

While in the full vigour of health we may count it enough to take up with something short of this. But-striking testimony to evangelical truth! go to the awful reality of a human soul on the eve of its departure from the body, and you will find that all those vapid sentimentalities which partake not of the substantial doctrine of the New Testament, are good for nothing. Hold up your face, my brethren, for the truth and simplicity of the Bible. Be not ashamed of its phraseology. It is the right instrument to handle in the great work of calling a human soul out of darkness into marvellous light. Stand firm and secure on the impregnable principle, that this is the word of God, and that all taste, and imagination, and science, must give way before its overbearing authority. Walk in the footsteps of your Saviour, in the twofold office of caring for the diseases of the body, and administering to the wants of the soul; though you may fail in the former-though the patient may never arise and walk, yet, by the blessing of Heaven upon your fervent and effectual endeavours, the latter object may be gained-the soul may be lightened of all its anxieties, the whole burden of its diseases may be swept away--it may be of good cheer, because its sins are forgiven -and the right direction may be impressed upon it, which will carry it forward in progress to a happy eternity. Death may not be averted, but death may be disarmed. It may be stript of its terrors, and instead of a devouring enemy, it may be hailed as a messenger of triumph.

and

THOUGHTS ON UNIVERSAL PEACE.

A SERMON,

DELIVERED ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 18, 1816, THE DAY OF NATIONAL
THANKSGIVING FOR THE RESTORATION OF PEACE.

"Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."-Isaiah ii. 4. THERE are a great many passages in | shall offer or not to help it forward by our Scripture which warrant the expectation that a time is coming, when an end shall be put to war-when its abominations and its cruelties shall be banished from the face of the earth-when those restless elements of ambition and jealousy which have so long kept the species in a state of unceasing commotion, and are ever and anon sending another and another wave over the field of this world's politics, shall at length be hushed into a placid and ever-during calm; and many and delightful are the images which the Bible employs, as guided by the light of prophecy, it carries us forward to those millennial days, when the reign of peace shall be established, and the wide charity of the gospel, which is confined by no limits, and owns no distinctions, shall embosom the whole human race within the ample grasp of one harmonious and universal family.

co-operation. But if the object is to be brought about, and if, in virtue of the same sovereignty by which he determined upon the object, he has also determined on the way which leads to it, and that that way shall be by the acting of human principle, and the putting forth of human exertion, then, let us keep back our co-operation as we may, God will raise up the hearts of others to that which we abstain from; and they, admitted into the high honour of being fellow-workers with God, may do homage to the truth of his prophecy, while we, perhaps, may unconsciously do dreadful homage to the truth of another warning, and another prophecy: "I work a work in your days which you shall not believe, though a man declare it unto you. Behold, ye despisers, and wonder and perish."

Now this is the very way in which prophecies have been actually fulfilled. The But before I proceed, let me attempt to return of the people of Israel to their own do away a delusion which exists on the land, was an event predicted by inspiration, subject of prophecy. Its fulfilments are all and was brought about by the stirring up certain, say many, and we have therefore of the spirit of Cyrus, who felt himself nothing to do, but to wait for them in pas-charged with the duty of building a house sive and indolent expectation. The truth to God at Jerusalem. The pouring out of of God stands in no dependence on human the Spirit on the day of Pentecost was foreaid to vindicate the immutability of all his told by the Saviour ere he left the world, announcements; and the power of God and was accomplished upon men who asstands in no need of the feeble exertions of sembled themselves together at the place man to hasten the accomplishment of any to which they were commanded to repair; of his purposes. Let us therefore sit down and there they waited, and they prayed. quietly in the attitude of spectators-let us The rapid propagation of Christianity in leave the Divinity to do his own work in those days was known by the human agents his own way, and mark, by the progress of of this propagation, to be made sure by the a history over which we have no control, word of prophecy; but the way in which the evolution of his designs, and the march it was actually made sure, was by the of his wise and beneficent administration. strenuous exertions, the unexampled heroNow, it is very true, that the Divinity ism, the holy devotedness and zeal of marwill do his own work in his own way, but tyrs, and apostles, and evangelists. And if he choose to tell us that that way is not even now, my brethren, while no professwithout the instrumentality of men, but by ing Christian can deny that their faith is to their instrumentality, might not this sitting be one day the faith of all countries; but down into the mere attitude of spectators, while many of them idly sit and wait the turn out to be a most perverse and disobe-time of God putting forth some mysterious dient conclusion? It is true, that his pur- and unheard of agency, to bring about the pose will obtain its fulfilment, whether we universal diffusion, there are men who have

betaken themselves to the obvious expedient | other, and taking its ample round among all the tribes and families of the earth, shall we arrive at the magnificent result of peace throughout all its provinces, and security in all its dwelling-places.

of going abroad among the nations, and teaching them; and though derided by an undeserving world, they seem to be the very men pointed out by the Bible, who are going to and fro increasing the knowledge of its doctrines, and who will be the honoured instruments of carrying into effect the most splendid of all its anticipations.

Now, the same holds true, I apprehend, of the prophecy in my text. The abolition of war will be the effect not of any sudden or resistless visitation from heaven on the character of men-not of any mystical influence working with all the omnipotence of a charm on the passive hearts of those who are the subjects of it-not of any blind or overruling fatality which will come upon the earth at some distant period of its history, and about which, we, of the present day, have nothing to do but to look silently on, without concern, and without co-operation. The prophecy of a peace as universal as the spread of the human race, and as enduring as the moon in the firmament, will meet its accomplishment, ay, and at that very time which is already fixed by Him who seeth the end of all things from the beginning thereof. But it will be brought about by the activity of men. It will be done by the philanthropy of thinking and intelligent Christians. The conversion of the Jews-the spread of the gospel light among the regions of idolatry-these are distinct subjects of prophecy, on which the faithful of the land are now acting, and to the fulfilment of which they are giving their zeal and their energy. I conceive the prophecy which relates to the final abolition of war will be taken up in the same manner, and the subject will be brought to the test of christian principle, and many will unite to spread a growing sense of its follies and its enormities, over the countries of the world-and the public will-be enlightened, not by the factious and turbulent declamations of a party, but by the mild dissemination of gospel sentiment through the landand the prophecy contained in this book will pass into effect and accomplishment, by no other influence than the influence of its ordinary lessons on the hearts and consciences of individuals-and the measure will first be carried in one country, not by the unhallowed violence of discontent, but by the control of general opinion, expressed on the part of a people, who, if Christian in their repugnance to war, will be equally Christian in all the loyalties, and subjections, and meek unresisting virtues of the New Testament-and the sacred fire of good-will to the children of men will spread itself through all climes, and through all latitudes and thus by scriptural truth conved with power from one people to an

In the further prosecution of this discourse, I shall, first, expatiate a little on the evils of war.

In the second place, I shall direct your attention to the obstacles which stand in the way of its extinction, and which threaten to retard for a time the accomplishment of the prophecy I have now selected for your consideration.

And, in the third place, I shall endeavour to point out, what can only be done at present in a hurried and superficial manher, some of the expedients by which these obstacles may be done away.

I. I shall expatiate a little on the evils of war. The mere existence of the prophecy in my text, is a sentence of condemnation upon war, and stamps a criminality on its very forehead. So soon as Christianity shall gain a full ascendency in the world, from that moment war is to disappear. We have heard that there is something noble in the art of war; that there is something generous in the ardour of that fine chivalric spirit which kindles in the hour of alarm, and rushes with delight among the thickest scenes of danger and of enterprise ;--that man is never more proudly arrayed, than when, elevated by a contempt for death, he puts on his intrepid front, and looks serene, while the arrows of destruction are flying on every side of him:-that expunge war, and you expunge some of the brightest names in the catalogue of human virtue, and demolish that theatre on which have been displayed some of the sublimest energies of the human character. It is thus that war has been invested with a most pernicious splendour, and men have offered to justify it as a blessing and an ornament to society, and attempts have been made to throw a kind of imposing morality around it; and one might almost be reconciled to the whole train of its calamities and its horrors, did he not believe his Bible, and learn from its information, that in the days of perfect righteousness, there will be no war;-that so soon as the character of man has had the last finish of Christian principle thrown over it, from that moment all the instruments of war will be thrown aside, and all its lessons will be forgotten: that therefore what are called the virtues of war, are no virtues at all, or that a better and a worthier scene will be provided for their exercise; but in short, that at the commencement of that blissful era, when the reign of heaven shall be established, war will take its departure from the world with all the other plagues and atrocities of the species.