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SERMON I.

Man an accountable Creature.

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SERMON I.

ROM. xiv. 12.

EVERY ONE SHALL GIVE AN ACCOUNT

OF HIMSELF TO GOD.

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OR what end or purpose are

we come into the world? Are

we to live at large, as accident

"or paffion blindly drive us; or are "there any stated laws to controul and "regulate our conduct?”

EVERY man fhould put this question to himself, upon the first dawnings of knowledge and reflexion. Grown up to maturity, in the ferment of swelling pas fions, and in a world presenting a thoufand things around us to inflame and gra

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tify our defires, we are too apt to confider ourselves as our own mafters. (cries licentious appetite) is the Lord, that I should obey him; or the Almighty that I should ferve him? I know no fuperior, no law but will; no restraint, but want of power to compafs my defire. Under this impulfe, we take our different courses: one pursues his pleasures through the most facred and endearing relations; another buildeth his house by unrighteousness and his chambers by wrong, oppreffeth the weak, defraudeth the innocent, and fupplanteth his dearest friend to accomplish his selfish defigns. The great conteft is, who can get most of the good things of life for himfelf: we disturb and convulfe the world with our competitions.

It is true, we have the power of committing all thefe outrages. But let us not mistake indulgence for privilege, or a difcretionary power for a full and abfolute right. For though, O ignorant

man,

man, GoD permits thee, for many wife reafons, to walk in the ways of thy heart and the fight of thine eyes, yet he, by no means an idle spectator of the world, looks down from above, obferves thy actions, and for all these things will bring thee into judgment. Ecclef. xi. 9. FOR

EVERY ONE MUST GIVE AN ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF TO GOD.

We need only confult our common feelings and experience to convince ourfelves of the power and fuperintendence of Providence. We feel the Maker in every state of life, and we fee him in every object around us. We come not into the world of ourfelves: we come without our knowledge, and leave it without our choice. While we live, we live and move and have our being in fome fuperior agent. We are but mere inftruments in the very actions that fupport our life. The heart beats, the lungs refpire, the vital fluid circulates, without our concurrence, or even with

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