of his age.

torn in an evil hour from his children and the bosom of a disconsolate wife.

Behold much people of the city gathered together to mix their tears, with settled sorrow in their looks, going heavily along to the house of mourning, to perform that last melancholy office, which, when the debt of nature is paid, we are called upon to pay to each other.

If this sad occasion which leads him there, has not done it already, take notice, to what a serious and devout frame of mind every man is reduced, the moment he enters this gate of affliction. The busy and fluttering spirits, which in the house of mirth were wont to transport him from one diverting object to another see how they are fallen! how peaceably they are laid! In this gloomy mansion full of shades and uncomfortable damps to seize the soul - see, the light and easy heart, which never knew what it was to think before, how pensive it is now, how soft, how susceptible, how full of religious impressions, how deeply it is smitten with sense and with a love of virtue. Could we, in this crisis, whilst this empire of reason and religion lasts, and the heart is thus exercised with wisdom and busied

with heavenly contemplations - could we see it naked as it is-stripped of its passions, unspotted by the world, and regardless of its pleasures — we might then safely rest our cause upon this single evidence, and appeal to the most sensual, whether Solomon has not made a just determination here, in favour of the house of mourning ?-not for its own sake, but as it is fruitful in virtue, and becomes the occasion of so much good. Without this end, sorrow I own has no use but to shorten a man's days — nor can gravity, with all its studied solemnity of look and carriage, serve any end but to make one half of the world merry, and impose upon the other.

Consider what has been said, and

may

God

of his

mercy bless you! Amen.

SERMON III

PHILANTHROPY RECOMMENDED

Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves? And he said, He that showed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him Go, and do thou likewise. LUKE X. 36, 37.

N the foregoing verses of this chapter, the Evangelist relates, that a certain lawyer stood up and tempted Jesus, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?-To which inquiry our Saviour, as his manner was, when any ensnaring question was put to him, which he saw proceeded more from a design to entangle him, than an honest view of getting information - instead of giving a direct answer which might afford a handle to malice, or at best serve only to gratify an impertinent humour-he immediately retorts the question upon the man who asked it, and unavoidably puts him upon the necessity of answering himself; — and, as in the present case, the particular profession of the inquirer, and his supposed general knowledge of all other

branches of learning, left no room to suspect he could be ignorant of the true answer to this question, and especially of what every one knew was delivered upon that head by their great Legislator our Saviour therefore refers him to his own memory of what he had found there in the course of his studies. What is written in the law, how readest thou? - Upon which the inquirer reciting the general heads of our duty to God and man, as delivered in the 18th of Leviticus and the 6th of Deuteronomy, — namely - That we should worship the Lord our God with all our hearts, and love our neighbour as ourselves; our blessed Saviour tells him, he had answered right, and if he followed that lesson, could not fail of the blessing he seemed desirous to inherit. This do, and thou shalt live.

But he, as the context tells us, willing to justify himself-willing possibly to gain more credit in the conference, or hoping perhaps to hear such a partial and narrow definition of the word neighbour as would suit his own principles, and justify some particular oppressions of his own, or those of which his whole order lay under an accusation— says unto Jesus in the 29th verse-And who is my neighbour?