SERM. except that of a thoughtless, and disho noured youth.

VI.

LET me once more advife you, to look forward fometimes beyond old age; to look to a future world. Amidft evil com munications, let your belief, and your cha racter as Chriftians arise to your view. Think of the facred name in which you were baptifed. Think of the God whom your fathers honoured and worshipped; of the religion in which they trained you up; of the venerable rites in which they brought you to partake. Their paternal cares have now ceased. They have finished their earthly course; and the time is coming when you muft follow them. You know that you are not to live always here; and you furely do not believe that your exiftence is to end with this life. Into what world then are you next to go? Whom will you meet with there? Before whofe tribunal are you to appear? What account will you be able to give of your prefent trifling and irregular conduct to him who

made

J

made you?-Such thoughts may be treated SER M. as unfeafonable intrufions. But intrude

they sometimes will, whether you make them welcome or not. Better then to allow them free reception when they come, and to confider fairly to what they lead. You have seen perfons die; at least, you have heard of your friends dying near you. Did it never enter into your minds, to think what their laft reflections probably were in their concluding moments; or what your own, in fuch a fituation, would be? What would be then your hopes and fears; what part you would then wish to have acted; in what light your closing eyes would then view this life, and this world?

These are thoughts, my friends, too important to be always excluded. These are things too folemn and awful to be trifled with. They are fuperior to all the ridicule of fools. They come home to every man's bofom; and are entitled to every man's highest attention. Let us regard them as becomes reasonable and mortal creatures;

VI.

VI.

SERM. and they will prove effectual antidotes to the evil communications of petulant fcoffers. When vice or folly arise to tempt us under flattering forms, let the ferious character which we bear as men come alfo forward to view; and let the folemn admonitions, with which I conclude, found full in our ears: My fon, if finners entice thee, consent thou not. Come out from amongst them, and be feparate. Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth. Fear the Lord, and depart from evil. The way of life is above to the wife; and he that keepeth the commandment, keepeth his own foul *.

Prov. i. 10.; 2 Corinth. vi. 17.; Ecclef. xii. 1.j Prov. xv. 24. }

SERMON VII.

On FORTITUDE.

PSALM Xxvii. 3.

Though an boft should encamp against me, my heart fhall not fear.

VII.

THIS world is a region of danger, in SER M. which perfect fafety is poffeffed by no man. Though we live in times of eftablished tranquillity, when there is no ground to apprehend that an hoft fhall, in the literal fenfe, encamp against us; yet every man, from one quarter or other, has fomewhat to dread. Riches often make to themselves wings, and flee away. The firmeft health may in a moment be thaken. The most flourishing family may unexpectVOL. III.

K

edly

VII.

SERM. edly be scattered. The appearances of our fecurity are frequently deceitful. When our sky seems more fettled and ferene, in fome unobferved quarter gathers the little black cloud, in which the tempeft ferments, and prepares to discharge itself on our head. Such is the real fituation of man in this world; and he who flatters himself with an opposite view of his ftate, only lives in the paradife of fools.

In this fituation, no quality is more requifite than conftancy, or fortitude of mind; a quality which the Pfalmift appears, from the fentiment in the text, to have poffeffed in an eminent degree. Fortitude was justly claffed by the ancient philosophers, among the cardinal virtues. It is indeed effential to the support of them all and it is moft neceffary to be acquired } by every one who wishes to discharge with fidelity the duties of his ftation. It is the armour of the mind, which will fit him for encountering the trials, and furmounting the dangers, that are likely to occur in the course of his life. It may be thought,

perhaps,