are given you to bestow. Think, then, how high are the obligations which your prosperity creates ! -that you are the stewards of the Universal Parent; and that to you the wretched look up for relief, the injured for protection, the industrious for reward, the virtuous for praise, and the world for example. When you pass the threshold of your gates, ask your own hearts, whether, of those to whom so much is gratuitously given, much will not also be required ?-and if thankfulness spring up in your hearts, on the review of your blessings, mingle with it the humble prayer, that you may be enabled to use them as becomes those who are permitted to know the will of the God who gave them.

And ye, my afflicted brethren! ye who are to return to the various scenes of the house of mourning, to meet the struggles of poverty or misfortune,—to watch, with throbbing hearts, the bed of sickness, or to bend, in speechless sorrow, over the bed of death,-return, I beseech you, with all the consolations of this doctrine in your souls. Sad as are the homes to which you are going, remember who it is that "sends you away." Remember that your afflictions "rise not from "the dust," but descend from the Throne of your Father; that they are ordained for the trial of that faith which may end in joy, and that patience which may lead to glory; that above the shades of present time, there reigneth the Father of

Eternal Light; and that the noblest virtues which blossom in eternity, are those which have sprung beneath the tears of adversity. Remember still more, that He who now sitteth on the right hand of God, was only "made perfect by suffering;" that He has led the way before you from earth to Heaven; and that, in calling you to be partakers of his suffering, He calls you also to be partakers of his glory.

1 add, my brethren! only one farther reflection. We read in the text, "That they who had eaten, "were about four thousand." In the hour in which I speak, the number of those that have this day approached the same Lord, and heard the same accents of salvation, are countless millions of the family of God. While we thus see that faith advancing on earth, which is to be finally triumphant in Heaven, let us prostrate ourselves in thankfulness for those means of grace which are given to all, and for those purposes of salvation which may yet unite all into one fold, and under one shepherd. Let us pray for them, and for ourselves, that the real spirit of our faith may dwell among us; that all of every church who retire this day from the house of God, may retire with the consciousness of his peace upon their souls; and that, whatever be the home to which they return, they may feel it as the "dwelling of God," and enter into it as into the "gate of Heaven."

SERMON VII.

ON THE GENERAL FAST, OCTOBER 20, 1803,*

ST. LUKE xxi. 19.

"In your patience possess ye your souls."

Ir was in these words that our Saviour consoled his disciples, while he predicted to them the final ruin and desolation of Jerusalem. The people of Judea, confident in the letter, while they were ignorant of the spirit of their religion, had long before ceased to listen to his admonitions, and it was only to the chosen few who felt his truth, and who understood his gospel, that he unveiled the mighty scenes which that desolation was to precede. Amid "the wars, and the rumours of "wars," that were to follow, he led them to see the "salvation of the world" approach. The destruction of Jerusalem was to be the dissolution of that pale which kept the Gentiles from the knowledge of the true God; and he enjoined them, amid all the dread calamities which were to come, to " pos

* Preached when the expectation of invasion was universal, and when the volunteer corps were every where forming in the national defence.

* sess their souls" in patient expectation of that mighty day, when his name and his religion were to begin their triumphal reign.

Of the many reflections which this subject naturally excites, there is one only, my brethren, which I shall at present submit to your consideration; it is, the difference between the patience which human wisdom teaches, and that which religion inspires. When the moralist speaks to us of hardship or danger; when he animates us to meet those scenes of calamity which we may be doomed to undergo, he tells us of the dignity of our nature,-the magnanimity of self-denial,-and the heroism of patient suffering. He makes the world the spectator of our conduct; and summons us, by every consideration of honour or of fame, to act our part like men, and to deserve the sympathy of those who surround us, by the firmness and magnanimity which we display.

The patience which the Gospel inspires is of a different, but of a sublimer kind. It speaks not to us of ourselves,-it speaks of that great system to which we belong, and of the ends to which we contribute in that system. It tells us, that every suffering to which man is born, has its final purpose either in individual or in publick good ;-that to nations, as to individuals, the seasons of adversity are the seasons of their highest virtue ;-that, in every situation, the discharge of the duties which that situation brings are the simple means by which

the mighty designs of nature are to be carried on ;and that, above all the weakness or suffering of men, there presides one Almighty Mind, in whose extended government "all things are working to"gether for final good," and who can make even "the wrath of men to praise him."

There are no considerations which seem more proper for the solemnity in which we are at present engaged. We are met together, with all the rest of our land, to humble ourselves before the God of nations; to call to mind what are the duties demanded of us, in this hour of general alarm; and to form those resolutions for the coming danger, which become us as citizens, as Christians, and as

men.

It is, my brethren, in no common hour of peril that we are now assembled. A contest more awful than either we or our fathers have seen, is rapidly approaching; and that sun which witnesses our meeting, has never, in his long career, beheld a time so pregnant with hope or despair to our country. It is no common war in which we are engaged, and no common enemy we are to oppose. It is a war, in which are put to the hazard of the sword, every blessing of our faith, every honour of our name, and every glory of our country. It is an enemy we are now summoned to oppose,—whose positions are kingdoms, and whose march is revolution; before whom the sovereigns of Europe have bowed their diminished heads; and who seeks