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"It is not when the heart is captivated by the frivolous amusements, or when the eye is dazzled with "the pride of life," that we can see, or are disposed to see the manifestations of the glory of God. So long as our views are attracted by the glare of worldly vanities, or centered on the object of some sensual desire. the discoveries of God's glory, however obvious, and however clear, will elude our observation; they will be to us as if they were not. If the current of our affections be directed towards sensible objects, and the force of habit have once fixed them in that channel, it will carry all our thoughts along with it, and will leave us little inclination, and indeed little power, to employ our attention upon any thing, that has not some obvious relation to those scenes and objects in which we have our principal delight. It avails not that our general apprehensions of God, his character aud government, may be just. General apprehensions are always too languid and obscure to awaken the affections of the heart. It is only by a serious and continued attention to the particular displays of the perfections of God, that the correspondent sentiments can be excited in our breasts: while our attention is engrossed by other objects, whatever we may know of him in general, our love to him will not rise." p. 191.

"But our love of God depends upon the moral sensibility of our hearts, for it must arise out of our perception of the moral excellencies of his character. In his eternity, he is awful; in his omnipotence, he is tremendous; it is in the moral glories of his character, that God is the object of our esteem, our veneration, and our love. It is his purity, his equity, his veracity, his fidelity, his love of virtue, his abhorrence of unrighteousness; his attention to the wants, his condescension to the frailties of his creas tures, his tender mercies, and his liberal beneficence which extends itself to all his works; these are the perfections that we love in God, and in proportion to our sensibility to the excellence of these perfections, will be the vivacity of the love we bear him. If we discern nothing excellent in these, we shall discern nothing excellent in God, except those attributes of Independence and of power, which, separated from his moral glories, would render him an object of terror, rather than of love. If our hearts are become so callous that these moral beauties can make no impression on them, the love of God can have no admittance there." p. 192.

"But to return, You are saying to yourselves, perhaps, that your pleasures are none of them forbidden pleasures, and that you need not to be warned against the practices of which you are not guilty. Indeed, my friends, I would gladly hope, that to warn you against pleasures that are decidedly licentious, to exhort you to beware of criminal indulgencies, whether of appetite or imagination, would be superfluous and impertinent. You, I would willingly persuade myself, have not so learned Christ-You are too well acquainted with his doctrine concerning the conditions of acceptance with your Maker, to think of reconciling the hope of future happiness, with the indulgence, either of the lust of the flesh, or the lusts of the eye, or of the pride of life" in any forbidden instance, or by any forbidden means. But is it unknown to you, that no man suddenly becomes abandoned? Is it unknown to you, that vice steals into the heart by imperceptible degrees, and acquires her dominion over us in such manner and by such means as may be least alarming? Is it unknown to you, that she allures our approaches towards her, first by one step, in which considered in itself there may be nothing blameable, and afterwards by another, which compared with the former may be very little different from it, till, at length, by differences so minute that they escape our notice, or perhaps even encourage our advances, she accomplishes the greatest revolutions in our character, and alters it from good, to less good, from less good to evil, from evil, downwards through its various stages, till

we arrive at last at the most abandoned? Is this, my friends, unknown to you?--Are you so ignorant of the deceitfulness of sin, of the power of habit, and the influence of example, as, that in an age when the love of pleasure seems to be continually gaining ground upon the love of God, the caution to beware of it should be deemed superfluous? It cannot be. Vice ever lays hold on some natural propensity to bring us into her power; a good reason surely why we should keep an attentive eye and a steady rein upon these principles of our frame that are most seducible, and the more steady, and the more attentive, in proportion as external circumstances favour their undue increase, or encourage and facilitate their corruption. "If there be, as you have seen there is, a real opposition between the love of pleasure and the love of God, it behoves us at every time and in every scene, to set a guard upon this principle; but, in a scene and at a time in which almost every thing around us, tends to induce, to inflame, and to embolden this principle, it behoves us to be doubly vigilant and resolute to restrain its wanderings, and to check its growth.

"I will suppose, if you will have it so, that you neither are guilty, nor in danger of becoming guilty, of any such voluptuous indulgencies, as, considered singly, and in themselves, are criminal; yet you have no reason to conclude from this, that in respect to the love of pleasure, either your temper or your conduct is what it ought to be. Though none of your pleasurable gratifications, considered singly, be criminal either in their nature or in their degree, yet, notwithstanding this, your character may still be exceedingly inexcusable and unworthy. It is not merely the criminal gratifications of this passion that are inconsistent with the love of God, it cannot consist with even a prevailing taste for pleasure. Where the desire and the pursuit of pleasure have formed and fixed the habits of the mind, there, in that mind, there is no room for the love of God. Sensuality and levity of spirit, though they should be so restricted, by regard to credit, or to interest, or by any other principle, as never to break out into any flagrant violations of the law of God, are, nevertheless, where they constitute the temper of the heart, irreconcileable enemies to the genuine love of God.-Do not then, my friends, soothe yourselves with the thought, that your pleasures are neither of the basest nature, nor indulged to an extravagant degree; consider what your temper is; what are your prevailing affections; what are your habitual pursuits? Is pleasure, not spiritual or moral, but worldly pleasure of some species or other, the idea that first meets you in these several inquiries? You are not then uninterested in any admonition that warns you to beware of the love of pleasure. Do not flatter yourselves with the reflection, that carnality or levity is not your appropriate character." pp. 205–207.

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Take also the conclusion of the whole.

'My friends, you have much to do with God; yourselves and every thing in which you have any interest, are absolutely in his hands. You have far more important transactions with him than any that you are conscious of in this world; it will not be very long before the youngest of this audience will find it so. The time will come, I could tell the day beyond which it will not be deferred, but the day before which it will not come, I cannot tell; the time will come, when you will find this world vanishing away, and another opening upon you, this world of trial ending for ever unto you, and a sense of everlasting recompense commencing. You know as well as I do, would to God that you would let the idea sink deep into your hearts, that the round of this world's pleasures will not last for ever. New Series-vol. I

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The rose will fade, the eyes grow dim, and the heart grow faint, and all that is of this worid become incapable of administering, even a momentary cordial or amusement. You know as well as I do, would to God that you would let the thought take possession of your souls! that the time will come when the warmest appetites will be cold, when the acutest senses will be dull, when the liveliest fancy will be languid, when the giddiest sinner will be serious, and the drowsiest conscience awake. The time will come, of which your preachers have so often warned you, when your bodies shall be undistinguishable from the dust that flies before the wind, and when that dust shall have as much interest in the gayeties and sensualities of those upon whom it falls, as you! Long before that time arrives, the day may come upon you, when, on a dying bed, while you watch for the moment that is to stop that beating heart, you shall look back upon the life that you have spent, and forward into the eternity that is to receive you. In that awful season, whence will you derive your comfort? to whom will you apply yourselves—to pleasure, or to God? I have seen devotion triumph in the arms of death, but you need not wait until that awful period, to be perfectly persuaded, that pleasure cannot triumph there. It is not the remembrance, that you have loved pleasure more than God, that can give you confidence when you are entering into his presence: it is not this conviction that can comfort your attending friends: if you love them, if you love your own souls, let God have your first attentions, let your duty regulate your pleasures." pp. 232, 233.

Then follow next, two interesting sermons on our Lord's appearance to Mary Magdalene after his resurrection. Then three on the text, "Come, see the place where the Lord lay," in which some circumstances are pointed out in relation to the tomb in which our Lord lay, tending to strengthen the argument for his resurrection; and some reflections are made, not in this writer's usual style, on the religious benefit to be derived from meditating on the place where he was laid.

"David's morning hymn of praise," (psalm xix) is illustrated in the nineteenth discourse; and the two succeeding are occupied in exhibiting "the glory of God as displayed by the heavenly luminaries." They are intended "as an illustration of the manner in which we ought to meditate on the works of God." And they certainly show us how the study of nature may assist our piety, and how even those portions of it which most men regard only with curiosity, may be made subservient to religion, by the desire to "see God in every thing, and every thing in God." Thus the very external appearance of the heavens, the magnitude, rapidity, barmony, of the heavenly bodies, the importance of the sun's light and heat, even the changes of the moon, and the moons of other planets, are all brought forward to illustrate God's glory, and help our devotion. And thus indeed, in the mind of this preacher, various subjects appear to have been associated in some way with religion, which are probably seldom thought of in that connex

ion, and still more seldom presented in that connexion by the preachers of the gospel. Some may think indeed, that such topics are foreign from the purpose of preaching, and are too far from the revealed truths of the gospel to be proper for the pulpit. But for ourselves, we care not how many things afar off are brought nigh; how many subjects are made to have a bearing upon religious truths, and to be connected with religious feelings. We certainly think it important that men, being, as they are, moral and immortal agents, should never be suffered to forget their nature and destiny, their relation to a higher Being and a better world; and therefore, that preachers should teach them how to contemplate all they meet with a religious eye, and so make all beings, all subjects, all events, subservient to their religious improvement. We conceive it to be the excellence of that admirable book of Paley, "Natural Theology," not only that it proves the existence and agency of God, by proving design in all the works of nature, but that it leads us to the habit of noticing that design; so that after we have read that book, we look upon nature and its objects around us with new eyes, we view them in a different connexion, we see them, more clearly than before, touched by the finger of God, and so are drawing perpetual nourishment to our devotional propensities. It is something like this which may be effected by the mode of preaching of which we speak; kingdoms and provinces of nature are taken out of the hand of chance, and drawn away from the gaze of irreverent inattention. We are made to recollect that they are part of God's dominion, and are reminded that religion has to do with something else than a selected list of topics; and instead of being confined to a narrow circle, around which she must be perpetually walking, and from which she is never to depart, is an uncontrolled observer of the whole universe, who may range without limit from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, and call in, as a handmaid to her service, the least and most distant things.

The three discourses which conclude the volume, are those which were written by Mr. Cappe upon occasion of his recovery from a long and dangerous sickness. They are full of exactly such sentiments as we should expect to fill the mind of a pious man at such a season. We cannot speak of them more particularly; but take our leave with the following extract.

"The visitations of which we speak, that have brought near to death, and have not terminated in it, will be applied by the wise and good man, in his reflections on the feelings of such times, to reduce the over-weenings

of self-esteem, and therefore to quicken him in the culture of the Christian character, and to animate his diligence in all the business of life.

"There is no scene so humbling as the bed of death. In that solemn light, which the near approach of judgment and eternity sheds around us, infirmities are apt to look like iniquities; in that awful hour that enlivens the desire, and takes from him for ever the power, to repair them, there is danger that the good man's errors and failings should rise up in his imagination to the magnitude of faults and crimes. When the end of life is just upon us, it is natural, it is scarcely avoidable, to compare its attainments with its length. Short must be the life, or great the attainments, which upon such a comparison, at such an hour, shall not hold forth to the comparer, much cause of humiliation and regret; opportunities unobserved, neglected, or declined.-Talents, though not misapplied, nor hid, nor unimproved; yet improved but feebly, coldly, and remissly, are not desirable attendants on a dying bed; no self-esteem is to be derived from them; in their aspect there is nothing pleasing; there is nothing soothing, nothing elevating in the language which they hold. Dejection, it may be expected, will accompany them, and it is well, if they do not cast some transient and uncomfortable clouds, on "good hope through grace."

"Christian, thy heart is no stranger to such sentiments; in the hour of devout reflection, how often have they intruded on thy repose! Humility is of the very essence of thy character, and when, drawing nigh unto thy Maker in acts of religious contemplation, or of pious homage, it is natural that self-abasement should spring up within the heart-it may even be, that "his dread falleth on thee,” and that “his excellency, maketh thee afraid!"-Yet, I may appeal to you, that your humiliations were never more sincere, your self-esteem never lowlier, the sense of your imperfections never more awakening, and your sense of the divine excellencies more over-powering, if you have ever been there, than on the bed of death. With what affection was it that you then looked through impending death, to instant judgment, and an opening eternity? It was not terror-terror was forbidden by divine mercy; it was not confidence, for confidence was repressed by the awful presence in which you were about to appear:-conscious of your own littleness and unworthiness, did you cast yourself wholly on the goodness and mercy of God? Sentiments like these become a creature such as man towards infinite perfection and unspotted holiness, and are highly favourable to Christian diligence and zeal; yet who that has ever felt the tender anguish intermixed with them, would prepare more of it against another hour of serious self-communion, or of approaching death?-Who, that on the bed of death, has compared himself with his great Exemplar; his own conduct with the law of God; his temper, with God's discipline, and his attainments, with his privileges; who, that from such a situation has ever dwelt upon the painful retrospect of his own miscarriages and imperfections, can ever more think highly of himself; or ever more want motives in the future, to repair the past?

"Christians, cherish the remembrance of every scene and of every event which may have reminded you how far you have fallen short of the standard, to which your duty, your honour, your interest, and your comfort required you to aspire.

While they are present with you, yield your hearts to the penitential sentiments which they awaken, for this is one act of honour unto God; but forget not, that in respect of such visitations, you have not rendered to him all the glory due unto his name, till you have pursued the dictates and demands of such penitential sentiments, into the faithful correction, and the diligent improvement of your hearts and lives." pp. 359–361.

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