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be properly engaged where it feldom directs its attention; nor are the fatisfactions and comforts of true piety to be enjoyed, but by a stated and habitual course of duty, and the frequent exercise of calm and steady meditation. Do you, therefore, by this wholesome difcipline, improve past events, and in some measure anticipate those that are to come. portion of time allotted for our fojourning here is but little, and of that little much is already spent; every hour, nay every minute that fleets away, is robbing us of more, and bringing us nearer to our journey's end. We are all haftening, by a quick and uninterrupted progress, to " the "place of our appointed rest," from whence there is no retreat; where no contrition, however fincere, can make amends for past neglect, and where those reflections, which now, indeed, under the blessing of God, may prepare us for happiness, will only serve to quicken the remorse of confcience, and cover us with forrow and confufion.

IMAGINE

IMAGINE to yourselves that the time is come, when the shifting scene of life shall close, and this earthly tabernacle shall be diffolved. But remember this is no flight of fancy; no figure of speech to amuse the mind; we are only anticipating an event which we are sufficiently assured MUST and WILL take place.-Fix your attention, then, for a moment, on that awful scene, when the short lease of nature is expiring, and the world, with all its prospects, is about to vanish for ever; "when the filver "cord shall be loofed, the golden bowl be

broken, and the fountain at the heart "shall cease;"-then ask yourselves whether you think religion is to be trifled with, and whether it will then appear to you in an indifferent or uninterefting light..

GRACIOUS God! in that trying hour, may we look up to thee with humble confidence, as to the rock of our falvation! may we never know those unquiet moments which a wounded spirit causes! but may our departure from this world be in peace, and our access to thee prove

"the

crown of glory," not "the sting of " fin!"

FARTHER, let gratitude have its due influence in promoting our duty towards God. Let it frequently remind us of the diftinguished rank we hold in the vast works of creation. We are not only called into a state of existence, but endowed with excellencies, far superior to what any other being enjoys, that comes under our observation; and this, only from the good-will of Him that made us. From the same source of inexhaustible goodness, every blessing flows that our nature is capable of enjoying. Though we might not experience the particular comforts, on which the blind partiality of our hearts is so fondly bent, and that, perhaps, only because they would eventually interfere with our ultimate good; yet there is no one that does not, in some respect, share of the divine benevolence. It is not confined to the tranfitory enjoyments of wealth and honors;

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honors; the grant of sensual pleasure, or an exemption from corporal pain. It is as diffusive as the light that visits us from heaven, and general as the dew-drops that enrich the earth. Whatever higher gratifications we may enjoy from the exercise of our minds; whatever pleasure results from the cultivation of science; whatever comforts flow from friendship and the dearer relations of life; the never-failing joys of hope, the sweet delights of fancy, and the calm pleasures of meditation; all, all are to be traced up to the "Father " of lights," that fountain of goodness, " from whom every good and perfect gift " muft primarily come."

WHAT must the mind of that man be, who can fall into this way of thinking, without being interested and engaged in the subject! But if this should notwithstanding be infufficient to warm his heart with religious fentiment, to give vigor to his morals and fervor to his piety; let him dwell with stedfast attention on the office,

the

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1

the character, the system, and conduct of our blessed Lord and Saviour. Here, indeed, the glory of God and his good-will to man, will appear in a most tranfcendant light.

THE wisdom of Divine providence hath so ordered it, that, in this gracious revelation of its purposes and views, every religious motive is to be found that can poffibly influence the human heart. If it be actuated by the hope of reward or the fear of punishment; there are such rewards proposed as cannot enter into the imagination to conceive, and such punishments denounced against the impious and disobedient, as the mind shrinks from with horror. If it be disposed to act from love and reverence, where will it find objects fo proper for the exercise of these affections, as the Almighty Father, who is there revealed in "the brightness of his " glory," and his ever blessed Son, who exhibited, for our instruction, a perfect pattern of excellence, that was at once both