do we find, who have the wisdom to thin and judge for themselves, and have stead ness to follow out their own judgment Ignorance, and low education, darken th views of the vulgar. Fashion and pre judice, vanity and pleasure, corrupt th sentiments of the great. The example o neither affords any standard of what i right and wise. If the philosopher, whe employed in the pursuit of truth, finds i necessary to disregard established preju dices and popular opinion, shall we, in th more important enquiry after the rule o life, submit to such blind guidance as th practice of the many; esteeming whateve they admire, and following wherever the lead? Be assured, that he who sets up th general opinion as the standard of truth or the general practice as the measure o right, is likely, upon such a foundation to build no other superstructure excep

still have, the numbers and the multitude on their side. Our Saviour has sufficiently characterized the way of the world, when he describes the broad road in which the multitudes go, as the road which leads to destruction; and the path which leads to happiness, as a narrow path, which fewer find. From which it is an easy inference, that to have the multitude on our side, is so far from affording any presumption of our being safe, that it should lead us to suspect that we are holding the course of danger.

IN the second place, As the practice of the multitude is no argument of a good practice, so it cannot afford us either justification, or safety, in what is evil. - It affords us, I say, no justification.

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Truth

and

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On the Conduct to be held, &c.

SERMON after having acted his part on earth with XVIII. fidelity and honour, he may be enabled,

through the merits of his Saviour, to look for a place in the mansions of eternal and untroubled peace. This prospect is the great corrective of the present vanity of human life. It gives significancy and importance to its most transitory scenes; and, in the midst of its mutability, discovers one fixed point of rest. He who is habitually influenced by the hope of immortality, will be able to look without dismay on the changes of the world. He will neither boast of to-morrow, nor be afraid of it; but will pass through the varieties of life with a manly and unbroken mind; with a noble superiority to those fears and expectations, those cares and sorrows, which agitate the multitude. Such are the native effects of Christian faith and hope. To them alone it belongs, to surmount all the discouragements to which we are now exposed; to render our life comfortable, and our death blessed: nay, to make the day of our death better than the day of our birth.

himself he is to answer. If others be wicked, it will be the worse for them; but it will not, on that account, be the better for us, if we shall be evil also. Let vice be ever so prevalent, it is still that evil thing which the Lord abhorreth; and, though band join in hand, the wicked shall not escape unpunished. So far is the number of offenders from furnishing any ground of safety, that it calls more loudly for Divine justice to interpose.

It is as

easy for the Almighty arm to crush a whole guilty society as to punish a single individual; and when the disobedient subjects of God countenance and strengthen one another in licentiousness, by transgressing in troops and bands, it becomes high time for his government to exert itself, and let its vengeance forth. - One could scarcely think that any professor of

Christian

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On following the

SERMON sent state of the world, has proved the XIX. cause of much evil. For, as vice has

abounded in every age, it hath propagated itself much more easily by the assistance of this social disposition. We naturally mould ourselves on the pattern of prevailing manners; and corruption is communicated from one to another. By mutually giving, and taking, the example of sinful liberties, licentiousness spreads and grows; each justifies himself by his neighbour; and the multitude of sinners strengthens one another's hands to commit iniquity. In all the ages of the world, custom has had more power than reason. Few take the trouble of inquiring what is the right path; the greater part content themselves with following that in which the multitude have gone before them. No exhortation, therefore, is more necessary to be frequently given, and to be seriously enforced, than that which we receive from the text; Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil.

To acquire a full view of any danger to which we are exposed, is the first mea