form the world, may instruct his ignorant, or comfort his afflicted neighbour: he who cannot communicate instruction, may give alms. If even these are not in your power, the gate of heaven is ever open; the throne of grace is ever accessible; and by your intercession with God, society may reap more benefit, than from the bounty of the opulent, or the labours of the learned. It was thus that Job improved his time, as we learn from his affecting complaint, when he reviewed the days of his prosperity: "O "that I were as in months past, as in the days when "God preserved me; as in the days of my youth, "when the candle of the Lord shined upon my head, "when the Almighty was yet with me, when my children were about me; when the ear heard me, "then it blessed me; when the eye saw me, it gave "witness to me; because I delivered the poor that cried, the fatherless, and him that had none to help "him. I was eyes to the blind, feet was I to the "lame I was a father to the poor, and the cause which I knew not, I searched out. The stranger "did not lodge in the street; I opened my doors to "the traveller, The loins of the naked blessed me,

and were warmed with the fleeces of my flock. The blessing of him that was ready to perish came up"on me, and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy."

In the last place, accustom yourselves to frequent self-examination.

Call yourselves to an account at the close of the day. Inquire what you have been doing; whether you have lost a day, or redeemed the time? Have you learned any useful truth? treasure it up in your heart, as a valuable acquisition; make it a principle of action, and bring it into life. Have you done a good deed? then enjoy the self-approving hour, and give thanks unto God for the pleasures of virtue, and the testimony of a good conscience. Have you been led astray by temptation, and overtaken in a fault? repent sincerely of your past transgression; implore

the mercy of God, through the merits of Jesus Christ' and resolve, through divine grace, to be more guarded in the time to come. Did we, my brethren, thus make a study of a holy life; were we as much in earnest about improving the soul in piety and virtue, as we are about many trifling concerns, to what high degrees of sanctity might we ascend! How pleasant would it be at the close of any period of time, to look back on a life, no season of which was spent in vain; to number up the days, the months, the years, that are marked with good deeds; to behold our youth, our manhood, and our age, as so many stages in our journey to the land of Emanuel? This would inspire us with that peace of God which passeth all understanding. This would cheer the traveller in the decline of his days. His evening would be bright and pleasant, and his sun go down in glory. Life thus spent, would make us triumph in death. improved, would make us rejoice through all eternity. I have thus given you some directions for the proper improvement of time.-The second thing proposed, was to set before you the obligations to the practice of this duty; which I shall do by considering, in the first place, your nature as men, and, in the second place, your expectations as Christians.

Time thus

In the first place, Let us consider our nature as

men.

It is a study full of instruction to the curious or the pious mind, to contemplate the appearances in the universe, and trace the laws by which it is governed. All nature is busy and active. Something is ever coming forward in the creation; in the moral world, as well as in the natural, there is a design going on. The great purpose of nature in our system is to diffuse existence; to multiply all the forms of matter and classes of being. Every element is stored with inhabitants. Even the loneliest desart is populous, and putrefaction is pregnant with life. Worlds are inclosed in worlds, and systems of being going on, that escape the eye of sense.

Such is the plan of Providence in this inferior world. The order established at the first of time is still advancing. The divine Spirit, who at the beginning moved upon the face of the deep, and turned a chaos into a beautiful world, still continues to move, inform, and actuate the great machine. Nothing in nature is at rest; all is alive, all is in motion in the great system of God. Thou too, O man! are appointed to action. The love of occupation is strongly implanted in thy nature. One way or another, thou must be always employed. Woe to the man who by his own folly is doomed to bear the pains and penalties of idleness. Rest is the void which mind abhors. An idle man is the most miserable of all the creatures of God. He falls upon a thousand schemes to fill up his hour, and rather than want employment, is contented to lie upon the torture of the mind, while the cards are shuffling, or the die is depending. The glory of our nature is founded upon exertions of activity. From the want of them, those in the more affluent stations of life, whose fortune is made at their birth, so often fail in attaining to the higher improvements and honours of their nature. Have you not, on the other hand, seen men, when business roused them from their usual indolence, when great occasion called them forth, discover a spirit to which they were strangers before, and display to the world abilities and virtues which seemed to be born with the occasion? While there are so many splendid objects to allure the mind, why trust your character to be evolved by accident? Why leave your glory in the power of fortune?

This activity is not only the source of our excellence, but also gives rise to our greatest enjoyments. Even the lower class of enjoyments, animal pleasures, are not only consistent with a life of activity, but also derive from it additional sweets. Hours of leisure, suppose hours of employment; they alone will relish the feast, who have felt the fatigues of the chace. But mere animal pleasures are not of themselves objects

for a wise or a good man. Unless they are under the direction of taste; unless they have the accompaniments of elegance and grace; unless they promote friendship and social joy; unless they come at proper intervals, and have the additional heightening of being a relief from business, they soon pall upon the appetite, and disgust by repetition. Has sensuality a charm when thy friend is in danger, or thy country calls to arms? Who listens to the voice of the viol, when the trumpet sounds the alarm of battle? When the mind is struck with the grand and the sublime of human life, it disdains inferior things, and, kindling with the occasion, rejoices to put forth all its strength. Obstacles in the way only give additional ardour to the pursuit; and the prize appears then the most tempting to the view, when the ascent is arduous, and when the path is marked with blood. Hence that life is chosen, where incentives to action abound; hence serious engagements are the preferable objects of pursuit; hence the most animating occasions of life are calls to danger and hardship, not invitations to safety and ease; and hence man himself, in his highest excellence, is found to pine in the lap of repose, and to exult in the midst of alarms that seem to threaten his being. All the faculties of his frame engage him to action: the higher powers of the soul, as well as the softer feelings of the heart; wisdom and magnanimity, as well as pity and tenderness, carry a manifest reference to the arduous career which he has to run, the difficulties with which he is destined to struggle, and the sorrows he is appointed to bear. Happiness to him is an exertion of soul. They know not what they say, who, cry out, "Let us build taber"nacles of rest." They mistake very much the nature of man, and go in quest of felicity to no purpose, who seek for it in what are called the enjoyments of life, who seek for it in a termination of labour, and a period of repose. It is not in the calm scene; it is in the tempest; it is in the whirlwind; it is in the thunder that this Genius resides. When once you have dis

covered the bias of the mind; when once you have recognized your path in life; when once you have found out the object of the soul, you will bend to it alone; like an eagle when he has tasted the blood of his prey, who disdains the objects of his former pursuit, and follows on in his path through the heavens. Thus have I set before you your obligations as men, to make a right use of life, and have shewed you, from the principles of nature alone, without having recourse to Christianity, that the excellency and the happiness of man consists in a virtuous course of action, and in making a proper improvement of time. Let us now, in the second place, take in the considerations suggested by the Christian religion, and see what new obligations arise from it, to urge us to redeem the time.

It is the doctrine of revelation, then, that the present life is a state of probation for the life to coine; that we are now training up for an everlasting existence; and that, according to our works here, we shall, be judged in a future world. According, therefore, as you now sow, hereafter you shall reap. The time is now passing that decides your fate for ever. hours are at this instant on the wing, upon which eternity depends. In this view, let me exhort you to look

The

back upon your past life. Call your former hours to an account. Ask them what report they have carried to Heaven. Is there any thing in your life, to distinguish it from mere existence? Do you discern any thing but shadows in that mirror which remembrance holds up? Is the book of memory one vast blank, or blotted all over? If this be the case, and I am afraid it is the case with a great part of men,-what better are ye than the animals of the field or the forest? Like you they sleep and they wake; like you they eat and they drink; like you they perform the various functions Alas! my brethren, did Almighty God create you after his own image, that you might sink that image to the resemblance of a beast? For, what have you done since you came into being, to distinguish yourselves from the brutes that perish? have F

of nature.

VOL. I.