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proves its faith by righteous obedience; fhews itself by its works in a good life and converfation. It is without partiality: it draws no needlefs or unwarrantable diftinctions between man and man; it renders equal juftice to all, and diftributes kindnefs in proportion to the united claims of neceffity and defert. It is without hypocrify: it affumes no delufive exterior; it is a ftedfaft obferver of truth; it will fubmit to any lofs, any fcorn, rather than escape them by having recourse to the crooked management which is the policy and the pride of the children of this world. Such are the characters by which the Holy Ghost has diftinguished heavenly wifdom; that wif dom which comes down from heaven; that wifdom which points to heaven; that wisdom which makes wife unto falvation through faith in Chrift Jefus; that wifdom for want of which the fool dieth even death eternal. Have you this wif dom? If you have it not, you have nothing. Had you all the abilities, all the learning, all the riches, all the grandeur, which mortality can attain, and had not this wifdom; you would have nothing. Wisdom, faith our Lord, is justified of her children. Are you the children of wifdom?

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Do you prize her above all things? Do you walk by her rules? Do you fhew forth her fruits? Do you labour for her rewards? maintain her caufe? Do you invite others to her leffons? Give me under ftanding, exclaims David, and I shall keep thy law; yea, I fhall obferve it with my whole heart. Under whatever points of view you confider the subject, the refult is uniformly this: that to fear God and to keep his commandments is the whole wifdom as well as the whole duty of man. Let us labour then, my brethren, by fervent fupplication, to draw down upon ourselves this bleffing from above. Let us befeech the only wife God to renew a right fpirit within us, that we may forfake the foolish and live; that we may go in the ways of understanding, and find it a well-fpring of life. While we perceive that wisdom and true religion are the fame, let us pray that He may grant us understanding to difcern that there is a religion which is not wif dom, but folly: a religion of form, and decorum; a religion of felf-juftifying morality; a religion of the head, not of the heart. Let us intreat him to teach us fo to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom; to enforce upon us not

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only the inexpreffible importance of working out our falvation through the grace of his Son Jefus, but the fhortness of the time during which we have to work. May He inftruct us habitually to bear in mind how speedily the longest life will have passed away: and how uncertain it is, not merely whether we shall be preferved unto length of days, but whether another year, another month, or even another hour, may not have ended our exiftence upon earth. May He caufe us to be roufed to ferious and deep reflection by the frequent examples which He difplays of the precariousness of life. May He caufe thofe who are in the vigour of health ever to remember that ftrength rears not even a momentary bulwark against death: and those who are of a feeble frame, daily to confider how flight a barrier is interpofed between them and diffolution. O that men were wife; that they understood this; that they would confider their latter end!

SERMON XV.

Folly illuftrated by the Character of Saul

SAM. xiii. 13.

And Samuel faid to Saul;

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Thou hast done

foolishly thou hast not kept the com"mandment of the Lord."

WHEN the children of Ifrael, diffatif→

fied with their fituation under the immediate fovereignty of the Most High, persisted in requiring to be governed, like the neighbouring nations, by a king; Saul, a young man of the tribe of Benjamin, was the person whom God placed upon the throne. We perhaps, had we poffeffed no ulterior information, might have been disposed to expect that, when the Searcher of hearts caft his eye over the twelve tribes in quest of a man whom he might appoint to be ruler over his people; He would select

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one confpicuous for piety, and prepared by ftedfaft faith to meet the trials with which his exaltation would be attended. Yet why should we have expected fuch a choice? Is it the established order of Providence that piety fhould be recompenfed by elevation to dignity and power? Are the rulers of the earth, whether in Pagan or in Chriftian lands, whether God raises them to empire by the fettled courfe of fucceffion, or by the ftorms of warfare and revolutions, ufually eminent for religion beyond the mafs of their fubjects? Was it to be prefumed that when He gave to his people a king in His anger (a), in His anger at their rebellious rejection of His own regal fway, the individual fingled out thould be one whofe excellence might lull them into forgetfulnefs of their crime; rather than one who through misconduct flowing from wilful perverseness of character might be the inftrument of convincing them of their guilt, and of the preeminent diftinction and peculiar happiness which they had renounced? The thoughts of the Moft High are not as our thoughts. He knows by what governor, in any par

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