for the reception of divine truth.

Divine revelation, every good man's hope, but the poor man's only treasure. Since in this transitory and imperfect state, there must be high and low, rich and poor; and although every man having ample duties to discharge, may find good enough for his hand to do, yet, some will have ease, leisure, and superfluity, while others labour in necessity, or pine in want or privation; of the poor man especially the Gospel is a dear and invaluable portion, a balm of comfort to his distressed spirit in his fainting hopes of this world's good. In his sordid, mean, and despised dwelling, it opens to him the joyful visions of futurity, where the distinctions of rich and poor shall not prevail; where trouble, sorrow, or guile, shall not enter; where he beholds laid up for him an infinite recompense for all his earthly sufferings, if he will only endure to the end, following the example of his more afflicted and suffering Saviour, who opened his ministry with reading that remarkable passage of prophecy declaring of himself, that he was sent to preach the Gospel to the poor. This general blessing is, therefore, in a distinguished sense, the property

Simplicity and probity of mind proper qualifications

perty of the lowly and indigent. And how great is that wickedness, which would rob them of it! You, I trust, my brethren, cannot be indifferent spectators of the crime. If you be wise, you cannot; for the calamity, should it be wrought, will not fall more lightly upon you, than upon those below you. It is such a calamity as the Almighty would not inflict upon any people, but for their heinous offences against Him. Let us then, cast an impartial retrospect each on his own ways, to ascertain whether we have made that use of the religion of Christ, which that religion enjoins; and whosoever shall discover that he has not, let him amend, while the punishment is yet suspended: let him do all that remains in his power to appease the Almighty, and prevent the pouring out of his wrath.

I conclude with reminding you, and the admonition should sound through the land, that to profess religion, and not to practise it, is hypocrisy; and, that, on hypocrisy and licentiousness, in our own times, apostacy and infidelity, with their numerous offspring of hateful and atrocious, pernicious and ravag

for the reception of divine truth.

ing vices, have been, in the hands of God, His instruments of vengeance.

SERMON III.

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SERMON III.

Religious Faith the safeguard and consolation of Man.

Preached in the Autumn of 1819.

Daniel 3. 24, 25.

Then Nebuchadnezzar, the king, was astonied, and rose up in haste, and spake, and said unto his counsellers, did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, true O king. He answered and said, lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.

Το

O the pious believer it is at all times a grateful and useful occupation, to trace the history, and contemplate the lives, of those holy persons, in different ages, who were distinguished for their fidelity to the supreme Lord of Heaven and Earth. While the mind is thus engaged, it is drawn to venerate and