SERM. ed their real friend. True charity is not

a meteor, which occafionally glares; but a luminary, which, in its orderly and regular course, difpenfes a benignant influence.

THE third and last adjunct connected in the text with charity is, that it be of faith unfeigned. Faith, in the fcripture sense of it, includes the whole of religious principles respecting God, and respecting Chrift. Good principles, without good practice, I confefs, are nothing; they are of no avail in the fight of God, nor in the estimation of wife men. But practice not founded on principle is likely to be always unftable and wavering; and, therefore, the faith of religious principles enters, for a very confiderable fhare, into the proper discharge of the duties of charity.

It will be admitted that, without faith, our duties towards God cannot be properly performed. You You may be affured that your duties towards men will always greatly fuffer from the want of it. Faith, when pure and genuine, fupplies to every part of virtue, and in particular to the virtue of charity, many motives

and

and affiftances, of which the unbeliever SER M. is deftitute. He who acts from faith,

acts upon the high principle of regard to the God who hath made him, and to the Saviour who redeems him; which will often ftimulate him to his duty when other principles of benevolence became faint and languid, or are croffed by oppofite interefts. When he confiders himself as purfuing the approbation of that divine Being, from whom love defcends, a facred enthufiafm both prompts and confecrates his charitable difpofitions. Regardless of men, or of human recompence, he is carried along by a higher impulse. He acts with the spirit of a follower of the Son of God, who not only has enjoined love, but has enforced it by the example of laying down his life for mankind. Whatever he does in behalf of his fellow-creatures he confiders himself as doing, in fome degree, to that divine Perfon, who hath faid, Inafmuch as ye have done it unto one of the leaft of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me *. Hence charity is with

II.

SERM. him not only a moral virtue, but a ChristII. ian grace. It acquires additional dignity

and energy from being connected with the heavenly state and the heavenly inhabitants. He mingles with beings of a higher order, while he is discharging his duty to his fellow-creatures on earth; and by joining faith and piety to good works, he completes the character of a Christian.

THUS I have endeavoured to explain the full sense of that comprehenfive view of religion which is given in the text. I have fhewn in what refpe&ts charity, joined with the pure heart, the good confcience, and faith unfeigned, forms the end of the commandment. Let us ever keep in view those effential parts of a virtuous character, and preferve them in their proper union. Thus fhall our religion rife into a regular and well-proportioned edifice, where each part gives firmness and fupport to another. If any one of those material parts be wanting in the structure; if, out of our fyftem of charity, either purity, or justice, or faith, be left, there

will be cracks and flaws in the building which prepare its ruin.

This is indeed one of the greatest and moft frequent errors of men, in their moral conduct. They take told of virtue by pieces and corners only. Few are fo depraved as to be without all fenfe of duty, and all regard to it. To fome moral qualities which appear to them amiable or eftimable, almoft all men lay claim; and on these they reft their worth in their own eftimation. But these scattered pieces of virtue, not uniting into one whole, nor forming a confiftent character, have no powerful influence on their general habits of life. From various unguarded quarters they lie open to temptation. Their lives are full of contradiction, and perpetually Aluctuate between good and evil. Virtue çan neither rife to its native dignity, nor attain its proper rewards, until all its chief parts be joined together in our character, and exert an equal authority in regulating our conduct.

D+

SERMON III.

On our LIVES being in the Hand of

God.

[Preached at the Beginning of a New Year*

*.]

III.

PSALM XXXI. 15.

My times are in thy hand.

SERM. THE fun that rolls over our heads, the food that we receive, the rest that we enjoy, daily admonish us of a fuperior power, on whom the inhabitants of the earth depend for light, life, and fubfiftence. But as long as all things proceed in their ordinary courfe; when day returns after day with perfect fimi

* January 6th, 1793.

larity;