SERMON XIV.

MARK Viii. 36.

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

HERE is not a person in this assembly, but who assents immediately to the truth of the maxim implied in the text. You all agree, that religion is the one thing needful, and that above all things you ought to seek the kingdom of God, and the righteousness thereof. But there is a wide difference between the assent of the mind to the truth of this principle, and that deep conviction of its importance, which, in Scripture, obtains the name of faith; sufficient to influence the heart, and to determine the life. A great part of mankind seem to have no steady belief that they are endowed with souls which are immortal; an eternity to come is with them merely a matter of speculation, and their faith in a future world has little more influence upon their lives, than their idea of a distant country, which they are never to see. Hence spiritual and eternal things are heard with little emotion or concern, while they are delivered in the house of God. Some can give themselves up to listlessness; and others soon lose all remembrance of what they have heard, in the next amusement, or in the news of the day. Even He who spoke as never man spake, and while he discoursed on points of such importance as the loss of the soul, had occasion often to take up the complaint, that in vain he stretched out his hands all day long to a disobedient people.

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To call your contemplation, then, to these subjects, for they need no more but to be considered aright, in order to be felt, I shall endeavour to shew you the value of the soul, from its native dignity, from its capacity of improvement, from its immortality, and from its unalterable state at death.

Let us consider then, in the first place, the native importance and dignity of the human soul. It is the mind chiefly that is the man. Qur souls properly are ourselves. The bodily organs are the ministers of the mind; by these it sees and hears, and holds a correspondence with external things. It is by our souls that we hold our station in the scale of being; that we rank above the animal world, and claim alli ance with superior and immortal natures. As the soul is superior to the body, so intellectual pleasures exceed the sensual; as heaven is higher than the earth, so the joys of a heavenly origin are superior to earthly enjoyments. I mean not in the common way, to depreciate temporal possessions, as being insignificant in themselves, and unworthy the cares or labours of a wise man. Such discourse is mere declamation; it is against nature, contrary to truth, and makes no impression at all. Let all the value be set upon wealth and temporal possessions which they deserve, as affording a defence from many evils to which poverty is li able; as ministering to the convenience, the consolation, and the enjoyment of life; as supporting a station with decency and dignity in the world; and as accompanied with an importance, by which a good man may find much pleasure arising to himself, and have the power of doing much good to his fellowcreatures; let all the value which reason allows, be set upon temporal acquisitions and enjoyments, still they are inferior to those of an intellectual and moral kind still the maxim remains true, that he would be an infinite loser who should gain the whole world and lose his own soul. "Thou hast put more gladness

into my heart," saith the Psalmest," than worldly ૐ men know, when their corn, and their wine, and

their oil abound." And do not your own feeling and experience bear witness to this truth? Who will not acknowledge that there is no more excellence in wisdom, than in mere animal strength? Who will not own that there is more happiness in the improving conversation of the wise, than in the tumultuous uproar of the debauched and licentious? Are the rays. of light as pleasant to the eye as the radiations of truth to the mind? Have sensual gratifications a charm for the soul, equal to intellectual and moral joys? Wile the former soon pall upon the appetite, are not the latter a perpetual feast? While the remembrance of the one is attended with no pleasure, is not the remembrance of the other a repetition of the enjoyment?

But great as the dignity of the human soul is, it may be still greater; for, in the second place, it possesses a capacity of improvement. This constitutes one essential difference between the intellectual and the material world. All material things soon reach the end of their progress, and arrive at a point beyond which they cannot go. Instinct grows apace, and the animal is soon complete in all its faculties and powers. Man ripens more slowly, because he ripens for immortality. Those enjoyments and pursuits of man also, which do not belong to him as an immortal being, come soon to their period. Amusement, when continued long, becomes a fatigue. In pleasure there is a point, beyond which, if it be carried, it is pleasure no more, it turns into pain. The pursuits of greatness, too, are very limited, and the race of honour is soon run. After many a weary step, the votary of ambition finds that he has been running in a circle, and that he is come to the self-same point from which he set out. Mind, mind alone, contains in itself the principle of progression and improvement without end. There is no ultimate power in the progress of man: there is no termination to the career of an immortal spirit. The dominions of earthly greatness are circumscribed within narrow limits, and the hero has often wished for new countries to conquer: but the empire of the mind has no limit nor boun

dary; and we can never arrive at that period, when we may say, hitherto can we go, but no farther. Never have we learned so much, but we may learn more. Suppose life never so long, if the powers remain, new paths to science may be struck out, fresh accessions of knowledge may be made. And we know from experience, that the largest measure of knowledge proves no burden to the mind, nor weakens its powers; but that, on the contrary, the capacity enlarges with the acquisition, and that men, the more they have learned, the more apt they are to learn; the less is their labour, and the easier their progress.

Improvements in goodness keep pace with improvements in wisdom. Repeated acts of obedience grow into habit; the penitent is confirmed in righteousness, and he that is holy becomes holier still. From the fulness which is in God, he adds grace to grace. The day of small things shineth more and more, and that day is succeeded by no night. The pilgrims, who at first set out feeble and faint, grow vigorous as they advance, going forward from strength to strength; ascending from one degree of goodness to another, they approach the everlasting hills, and coming within the sphere of heaven, they inhale the spirit of their native region, they feel the attractions of the uncreated beauty, they receive a foretaste of the fruits of life, and, with hearts already full of heaven, and with tongues already tuned to the songs above, they put on the brightness of angels, and enter into the mansions of paradise.

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In the third place, the value of the soul will farther appear, if we consider that it is immortal. All human things soon come to an end. Temporal possessions, and earthly greatness, have a short date. world itself is for ever changing; the fashion thereof passes away, and he who knows it in one age, in the next would not know it again. How short lived are the enjoyments of this mortal state! Although the flowers of transient joy, more hardy than the gourd of Jonah, may outlive the heat of the morning, and

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glow amid the blaze of noon, yet when the blast of evening comes, they are nipt and wither away. Ambition too has its day, and often a short one. Its votaries seem to be raised, but the more sensibly to feel their fall. The same whirlwind that snatches them up from the crowd, brings them down at even with tenfold fury. Not to mention these more violent revolutions, its natural period soon comes. He who runs the race of human glory, is lost in the very dust that is raised around him. And such is the sudden end of all terrestrial enjoyments, when, after the study and the labour of years, we have with much pains and care gathered together the requisites and materials of a happy life, and say to ourselves, "Soul, take "thine ease, thou hast goods laid up for many years,' the warning voice is heard, "Thou fool, this night thy son shall be required of thee." So transient is the date, so short the day of power, and pleasure, and greatness! But wisdom never dies; but virtue is immortal. We have a higher life than that which beats in the pulse, and when the dust returns to the dust as it was, the spirit returns to God who gave it. It is indeed an awful, though a pleasing thought, that we have an eternity before us. When the sun shall be extinguished in eternal darkness; when the heavens shall be rolled together like a scroll; when the earth, with all its works, shall be dissolved, the soul, shall survive the general wreck, and exult in the enjoyment of youth immortal! To think of an infinity of years of existence, enduring beyond all the numbers which we can add together, beyond all the millions of ages which figures can comprehend, and that, when all this vast sum of duration is expended, our existence is but just beginning, is, indeed, beyond imagination to grasp. Never to come to an end, never to be nearer an end, is indeed amazing, overwhelming, and incomprehensible to the mind. But such is thine inheritance, O man!" Because I live," saith the Lord, "ye shall live also." Our duration shall be coeval with His years who sits upon the Throne