with the Scriptures, for not giving us the preci- [ and excluded, it is the present. If ever there was sion of civil laws; and we may blame the laws, a time to make the public feel the benefit of pubfor not being content with the conciseness and lic institutions, it is this. simplicity of Scripture; and our censure in both cases be unfounded and undeserved.

The observation of the text is exactly of the nature I have been alluding to. It supplies a principle. It furnishes us with a view of our duty, and of the relations in which we are placed, which, if attended to, (and no instruction can be of use without that,) will produce in our minds just determinations, and, what are of more value, because more wanted, efficacious motives.

"None of us liveth to himself." We ought to regard our lives, (including under that name our faculties, our opportunities, our advantages of every kind,) not as mere instruments of personal gratification, but as due to the service of God; and as given us to be employed in promoting the purpose of his will in the happiness of our fellowcreatures. I am not able to imagine a turn of thought which is better than this. It encounters the antagonist, the check, the destroyer of all virtue, selfishness. It is intelligible to all; to all different degrees applicable. It incessantly prompts to exertion, to activity, to beneficence.

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But I shall add nothing more concerning the obligation which the text, and the lesson it conveys, imposes upon public men, because I think that the principle is too apt to be considered as appertaining to them alone. It will therefore be more useful to show, how what are called private stations are affected by the same principle. I say, what are called private stations; for such they are, only as contradistinguished from public trusts publicly and formally confided. In themselves, and accurately estimated, there are few such; I mean, that there are few so destined to the private emolument of the possessor, as that they are innocently occupied by him, when they are occupied with no other attention but to his own enjoyment. Civil government is constituted for the happiness of the governed, and not for the gratification of those who administer it. Not only so, but the gradations of rank in society are support. ed, not for the advantage or pleasure of those who possess the highest places in it, but for the common good; for the security, the repose, the protection, the encouragement, of all. They may b very satisfactorily defended upon this principle; but then this principle casts upon them duties. In particular, it teaches every man who possesses a fortune, to regard himself as in some measure occupying a public station; as obliged to make it a channel of beneficence, an instrument of good to others, and not merely a supply to himself of the materials of luxury, ostentation, or avarice. There is a share of power and influence necessarily attendant upon property; upon the right or the wrong use of which, the exertion or the neg lect, depends no little part of the virtue or vice, the happiness or misery, of the community. It is in the choice of every man of rank and property to become the benefactor or the scourge, the guardian or the tyrant, the example or the corrupter, of the virtue of his servants, his tenants, his neighbourhood; to be the author to them of peace or contention, of sobriety or dissoluteness, of comfort or distress. This power, whencesoever it proceeds, whether expressly conferred or silently acquired, (for I see no difference in the two cases,) brings along with it obligation and responsibility. It is to be lamented when this consideration is not known, or not attended to. Two causes ap

In order to recommend it, and in order to render it as useful as it is capable of being made, it may be proper to point out, how the force and truth of the apostle's assertion bears upon the different classes of civil society. And in this view, the description of men which first, undoubtedly, offers itself to our notice, is that of men of public characters; who possess offices of importance, power, influence, and authority. If the rule and principle which I am exhibiting to your observation, can be said to be made for one class of mankind more than another, it is for them. They, certainly, "live not to themselves." The design, the tenure, the condition of their offices; the pub lic expectation, the public claim; consign their lives and labours, their cares, and thoughts, and talents, to the public happiness, whereinsoever it is connected with the duties of their stations, or can be advanced by the fidelity of their services. There may be occasions and emergencies when men are called upon to take part in the public service, out of the line of their professions, or the ordinary limits of their vocation. But these emergencies occur, I think, seldom. The necessity should be manifest, before we yield to it. A too great readiness to start out of our separate pre-pear to me to obstruct, to men of this description, cincts of duty, in order to rush into provinces the view of their moral situation. One is, that which belong to others, is a dangerous excess of they do not perceive any call upon them at all; zeal. In general the public interest is best upheld, the other, that, if there be one, they do not see to the public quiet always best preserved, by each what they are called. To the first point I would one attending closely to the proper and distinct answer in the words of an excellent moralist,* duties of his station. In seasons of peril or con- "The delivery of the talent is the call;" it is the sternation, this attention ought to be doubled. call of Providence, the call of Heaven. The sup Dangers are not best opposed by tumultuous or ply of the means is the requisition of the duty. disorderly exertions; but by a sedate, firm, and When we find ourselves in possession of faculties calm resistance, especially by that regular and si- and opportunities, whether arising from the enlent strength, which is the collected result of each dowments and qualities of our minds, or from the man's vigilance and industry in his separate sta-advantages of fortune and station, we need ask tion. For public men, therefore, to be active in the stations assigned to them, is demanded by their country in the hour of her fear or danger. If ever there was a time, when they that rule "should rule with diligence;" when supineness, negligence, and remissness in office, when a ti midity or love of ease, which might in other circumstances be tolerated, ought to be proscribed

for no further evidence of the intention of the donor: we ought to see in that intention a demand upon us for the use and application of what has been given. This is a principle of natural as

of

The late Abraham Tucker, Esq. author of The Light Nature, and of The Light of Nature and Revelation pursued, by Edward Search, Esq.

which the private endeavours of an individual can produce upon the mass of social good, is so lost, and so unperceived, in the comparison, that it neither deserves, they think, nor rewards, the attention which it requires. The answer is, that

well as revealed religion: and it is universal. Then as to the second inquiry, the species of benevolence, the kind of duty to which we are bound, it is pointed out to us by the same indication. To whatever office of benevolence our faculties are best fitted, our talents turned; what-the comparison, which thus discourages them, ever our opportunities, our occasions, our fortune, our profession, our rank or station, or whatever our local circumstances, which are capable of no enumeration, put in our power to perform with the most advantage and effect, that is the office for us; that it is, which, upon our principle, we are designed, and, being designed, are obliged to discharge. I think that the judgment of mankind does not often fail them in the choice of the objects or species of their benevolence: but what fails them is the sense of the obligation, the consciousness of the connexion between duty and power, and springing from this consciousness, a disposition to seek opportunities, or to embrace those that occur, of rendering themselves useful to their generation.

ought never to be made. The good which their efforts can produce, may be too minute to bear any sensible proportion to the sum of public happiness, yet may be their share, may be enough for them. The proper question is not, whether the good we aim at be great or little; still less, whether it be great or little in comparison with the whole; but whether it be the most which it is in our power to perform. A single action may be, as it were, nothing to the aggregate of moral good; so also may be the agent. It may still, therefore, be the proportion which is required of him. In all things nature works by numbers. Her greatest effects are achieved by the joint operation of multitudes of (separately considered) insignificant individuals. It is enough for each that it executes Another cause, which keeps out of the sight of its office. It is not its concern, because it does those who are concerned in them, the duties that not depend upon its will, what place that office belong to superior stations, is a language from holds in, or what proportion it bears to, the genetheir infancy familiar to them, namely, that they ral result. Let our only comparison therefore be, are placed above work. I have always considered between our opportunities and the use which we this as a most unfortunate phraseology. And, as make of them. When we would extend our habitual modes of speech have no small effect upon views, or stretch out our hand, to distant and public sentiment, it has a direct tendency to make general good, we are commonly lost and sunk in one portion of mankind envious, and the other the magnitude of the subject. Particular good, idle. The truth is, every man has his work. The and the particular good which lies within our kind of work varies, and that is all the difference reach, is all we are concerned to attempt, or to inthere is. A great deal of labour exists beside that quire about. Not the smallest effort will be forof the hands; many species of industry beside bo- gotten; not a particle of our virtue will fall to the dily operation, equally necessary, requiring equal ground. Whether successful or not, our endeaassiduity, more attention, more anxiety. It is not vours will be recorded; will be estimated, not actrue, therefore, that men of elevated stations are cording to the proportion which they bear to the exempted from work; it is only true, that there is universal interest, but according to the relation assigned to them work of a different kind: whe- which they hold to our means and opportunities; ther more easy, or more pleasant, may be ques- according to the disinterestedness, the sincerity, tioned; but certainly not less wanted, not less with which we undertook, the pains and perseve essential to the common good. Were this maxim rance with which we carried them on. It may be once properly received as a principle of conduct, it true, and I think it is the doctrine of Scripture, would put men of fortune and rank upon in- that the right use of great faculties or great opporquiring, what were the opportunities of doing tunities will be more highly rewarded, than the good, (for some, they may depend upon it, there right use of inferior faculties and less opportuniare,) which in a more especial manner belonged ties. He that with ten talents had made ten toto their situation or condition; and were this lents more, was placed over ten cities. The negprinciple carried into any thing like its full effect, lected talent was also given to him. He who or even were this way of thinking sufficiently in- with five talents had made five more, though proculcated, it would completely remove the invidi-nounced to be a good and faithful servant, was ousness of elevated stations. Mankind would see in them this alternative: If such men discharged the duties which were attached to the advantages they enjoyed, they deserved these advantages: if they did not, they were, morally speaking, in the situation of a poor man who neglected his business and his calling; and in no better. And the proper reflection in both cases is the same: the individual is in a high degree culpable, yet the business and the calling beneficial and expedient.

placed only over five cities. This distinction might, without any great harshness to our moral feelings, be resolved into the will of the Supreme Benefactor: but we can see, perhaps, enough of the subject to perceive that it was just. The merit may reasonably be supposed to have been more in one case than the other. The danger, the activity, the care, the solicitude, were greater. Still both received rewards, abundant beyond measure when compared with the services, equitable and proportioned when compared with one another.

The habit and the disposition which we wish to recommend, namely, that of casting about for That our obligation is commensurate with our opportunities of doing good, readily seizing those opportunity, and that the possession of the opporwhich accidentally present themselves, and faith-tunity is sufficient, without any further or more fully using those which naturally and regularly belong to our situations, appear to be sometimes checked by a notion, very natural to active spirits, and to flattered talents. They will not be content to do little things. They will either attempt mighty matters, or do nothing. The small effect

formal command, to create the obligation, is a principle of morality and of Scripture; and is alike true in all countries. But that power and property so far go together, as to constitute private fortunes

Matt. xxv. 20, et scq,

our contentions, if we have any, our parties, and our prejudices; strangers to every thing except the evidence which they hear. The effect corresponds with the wisdom of the design. Juries may err, and frequently do so; but there is no system of error incorporated with their constitu tion. Corruption, terror, influence are excluded by it; and prejudice, in a great degree, though not entirely. This danger, which consists in juries viewing one class of men, or one class of rights, in a more or less favourable light than another, is the only one to be feared, and to be guarded against. It is a disposition, which, whenever it rises up in the minds of jurors, ought to be repressed by their probity, their consciences, the sense of their duty, the remembrance of their oaths.

into public stations, as to cast upon large portions | country, and who come amongst us, strangers to of the community occasions which render the preceding principles more constantly applicable, is the effect of civil institutions, and is found in no country more than in ours; if in any so much. With us a great part of the public business of the country is transacted by the country itself: and upon the prudent and faithful management of it, depends, in a very considerable degree, the interior prosperity of the nation, and the satisfaction of great bodies of the people. Not only offices of magistracy, which affect and pervade every district, are delegated to the principal inhabitants of the neighbourhood, but there is erected in every county a high and venerable tribunal, to which owners of permanent property, down almost to their lowest classes, are indiscriminately called; and called to take part, not in the forms and ceremonies of the meeting, but in the most efficient And this institution is not more salutary, than and important of its functions. The wisdom of it is grateful and honourable to those popular feelman hath not devised a happier institution than ings of which all good governments are tender. that of juries, or one founded in a juster know- Hear the language of the law. In the most moledge of human life, or of the human capacity. In mentous interests, in the last peril indeed of hujurisprudence, as in every science, the points ulti-man life, the accused appeals to God and his mately rest upon common sense. But to reduce country, "which country you are." What pomp a question to these points, and to propose them of titles, what display of honours, can equal the accurately, requires not only an understanding real dignity which these few words confer upon superior to that which is necessary to decide upon those to whom they are addressed? They show, them when proposed, but oftentimes also a tech- by terms the most solemn and significant, how nical and peculiar erudition. Agreeably to this highly the law deems of the functions and character distinction, which runs perhaps through all sci- of a jury; they show also, with what care of the ences, what is preliminary and preparatory is left safety of the subject it is, that the same law has to the legal profession; what is final, to the plain provided for every one a recourse to the fair and understanding of plain men. But since it is ne- indifferent arbitration of his neighbours. This is cessary that the judgment of such men should be substantial equality; real freedom: equality of informed; and since it is of the utmost importance protection; freedom from injustice. May it nethat advice which falls with so much weight, ver be invaded, never abused! May it be pershould be drawn from the purest sources; judges petual! And it will be so, if the affection of the are sent down to us, who have spent their lives in country continue to be preserved to it, by the inthe study and administration of the laws of their tegrity of those who are charged with its office.

SERMONS ON SEVERAL SUBJECTS.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The Author of these Sermons, by a codicil to his will, declares as follows::-" If my life had been continued, it was my intention to have printed at Sunderland a Volume of Sermons-about 500 copies; to be distributed gratis in the parish; and I had proceeded so far in the design as to have transcribed several Sermons for that purpose, which are in a parcel by themselves. There is also a parcel from which I intended to make other transcripts; but the business is in an imperfect unfinished state; the arrangement is not settled further than that I thought the Sermon on Seriousness in Religion should come first, and then the doctrinal Sermons: there are also many repetitions in them, and some that might be omitted or consolidated with others." The codicil then goes on to direct, that, after such disposition should have been made respecting the Manuscripts as might be deemed necessary, they should be printed by the Rev. Mr. Stephenson, at the expense of the testator's executors, and distributed in the neighbourhood, first to those who frequented church, then to farmers' families in the country, then to such as had a person in the family who could read, and were likely to read them: and, finally, it is added, I would not have the said Sermons published for sale."

แ

In compliance with this direction, the following Sermons were selected, printed, and distributed by the Rev. Mr. Stephenson, in and about the parish of Bishop Wearmouth, in the year 1806. These Discourses were not originally composed for publication, but were written for, and, as appears by the Manuscripts, had most of them been preached at the parish Churches of which, in different parts of the Author's life, he had the care. It was undoubtedly the Author's intention that they should not be published, but the circulation of such a number as he had directed by his will to be distributed, rendered it impossible to adhere to that intention; and it was found necessary to publish them, as the only means of preventing a surreptitious sale.

SERMON I.

SERIOUSNESS IN RELIGION INDISPENSABLE ABOVE ALL OTHER DISPOSITIONS.

-Be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.-1 Pet. iv. 7

THE first requisite in religion is seriousness. One might have expected that events so awful No impression can be made without it. An or- and tremendous, as death and judgment; that a derly life, so far as others are able to observe us, question so deeply interesting, as whether we is now and then produced by prudential motives, shall go to heaven or to hell, could in no possible or by dint of habit; but without seriousness, case, and in no constitution of mind whatever, there can be no religious principle at the bottom, fail of exciting the most serious apprehension and no course of conduct flowing from religious concern. But this is not so. In a thoughtless, a motives: in a word, there can be no religion. This careless, a sensual world, many are always found cannot exist without seriousness upon the sub- who can resist, and who do resist, the force and ject. Perhaps a teacher of religion has more dif- importance of all these reflections, that is to say, ficulty in producing seriousness amongst his hear-they suffer nothing of the kind to enter into their ers, than in any other part of his office. Until he succeed in this, he loses his labour: and when once, from any cause whatever, a spirit of levity has taken hold of a mind, it is next to impossible to plant serious considerations in that mind. It is seldom to be done, except by some great shock or alarm, sufficient to make a radical change in the disposition: and which is God's own way of bringing about the business.

thoughts. There are grown men and women, nay, even middle aged persons, who have not thought seriously about religion an hour, nor a quarter of an hour, in the whole course of their lives. This great object of human solicitude affects not them in any manner whatever.

It cannot be without its use to inquire into the causes of a levity of temper, which so effectually obstructs the admission of every religious

influence, and which I should almost call unnatural.

seem to be excusable. Excusable did I say? I ought rather to have said that they are contrary to reason and duty, in every condition and at every period of life. Even in youth they are built upon falsehood and folly. Young persons as well as old, find that things do actually come to pass. Evils and mischiefs, which they regarded as distant, as out of their view, as beyond the line and

they find, to be actually felt. They find that nothing is done by slighting them beforehand; for, however neglected or despised, perhaps ridiculed and derided, they come not only to be things present, but the very things, and the only things, about which their anxiety is employed; become serious things indeed, as being the things which now make them wretched and miserable. Therefore a man must learn to be affected by events which appear to lie at some distance, before he will be seriously affected by religion.

Now there is a numerous class of mankind, who are wrought upon by nothing but what applies immediately to their senses; by what they see, or by what they feel; by pleasures or pains, or by the near prospect of pleasures and pains which they actually experience or actually observe. But it is the characteristic of religion to hold outreach of their preparations or their concern, come, to our consideration consequences which we do not perceive at the time. That is its very office and province. Therefore if men will restrict and confine all their regards and all their cares to things which they perceive with their outward senses; if they will yield up their understandings to their senses, both in what these senses are fitted to apprehend, and in what they are not fitted to apprehend, it is utterly impossible for religion to settle in their hearts, or for them to entertain any serious concern about the matter. But surely this conduct is completely irrational, and can lead to nothing but ruin. It proceeds upon the supposition, that there is nothing above us, about us, or future, by which we can be affected, but the things which we see with our eyes or feel by our touch. All which is untrue. "The invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are seen; even his eternal Power and Godhead;" which means, that the order, contrivance, and design, displayed in the creation, prove with certainty, that there is more in nature than what we really see; and that amongst the invisible things of the universe, there is a Being, the author and original of all this contrivance and design, and, by consequence, a being of stupendous power, and of wisdom and knowledge incomparably exalted above any wisdom or knowledge which we see in man; and that he stands in the same relation to us as the maker does to the thing made. The things which are seen are not made of the things which do appear. This is plain: and this argument is independent of Scripture and Revelation. What further moral or religious consequences properly follow from it, is another question; but the proposition itself shows, that they who cannot, and they who will not, raise their minds above the mere information of their senses, are in a state of gross error as to the real truth of things, and are also in a state to which the faculties of man ought not to be degraded. A person of this sort may, with respect to religion, remain a child all his life. A child naturally has no concern but about the things which directly meet its senses; and the person we describe is in the same condition. Again: there is a race of giddy thoughtless men and women, of young men and young women more especially, who look no further than the next day, the next week, the next month; seldom or ever so far as the next year. Present pleasure is every thing with them.-The sports of the day, the amusements of the evening, entertainments and diversions, occupy all their concern; and so long as these can be supplied in succession, so long as they can go from one diversion to another, their minds remain in a state of perfect indifference to every thing except their pleasures. Now what chance has religion with such dispositions as these? Yet these dispositions, begun in early life, and favoured by circumstances, that is, by affluence and health, cleave to a man's character much beyond the period of life in which they might

Again: the general course of education is much against religious seriousness, even without those who conduct education foreseeing or intending any such effect. Many of us are brought up with this world set before us, and nothing else. Whatever promotes this world's prosperity is praised; whatever hurts and obstructs and prejudices this world's prosperity is blamed: and there all praise and censure end. We see mankind about us in motion and action, but all these motions and actions directed to worldly objects. We hear their conversation, but it is all the same way. And this is what we see and hear from the first. The views which are continually placed before our eyes, regard this life alone and its interests. Can it then be wondered at that an early worldlymindedness is bred in our hearts, so strong as to shut out heavenly-mindedness entirely? In the contest which is always carrying on between this world and the next, it is no difficult thing to see what advantage this world has. One of the greatest of these advantages is, that it pre-occupies the mind: it gets the first hold and the first pos session. Childhood and youth, left to themselves, are necessarily guided by sense; and sense is all on the side of this world. Meditation brings us to look towards a future life; but then meditation comes afterwards: it only comes when the mind is already filled and engaged and occupied, nay, often crowded and surcharged with worldly ideas. It is not only, therefore, fair and right, but it is absolutely necessary, to give to religion all the advantage we can give it by dint of educa tion; for all that can be done is too little to set religion upon an equality with its rival; which rival is the world. A creature which is to pass a small portion of its existence in one state, and that state to be preparatory to another, ought, no doubt, to have its attention constantly fixed upon its ulteri or and permanent destination. And this would be so, if the question between them came fairly before the mind. We should listen to the Scriptures, we should embrace religion, we should enter into every thing which had relation to the subject, with a concern and impression, even far more than the pursuits of this world, eager and ardent as they are, excite. But the question between religion and the world does not come fairly before us. What surrounds us is this world; what addresses our senses and our passions is this world; what is at hand, what is in contact with us, what acts upon us, what we act upon, is this world.