perfection will allow of. Hearken not to thofe who are given to change: "Ufe not liberty "as an occafion to the flesh;" the natural corruption of liberty is licentiousness; and the neceffary correction thereof opens the way to defpotifm: This progrefs has been univerfally obferved. If ye dread the iffue, guard against the abuse of liberty; avoid faction, difcord, tumult, petulance. Be loyal to your King, who is intitled to your confidence. Be obedient to the laws of your country, which are every man's fecurity; and give all neceffary aid to the due execution of the laws; and fubmit chearfully to the burdens requifite for the fupport of the ftate, i. e. for your own prefervation. Improve the bleffings of your fituation, by that industry which enriches your. felves, while it adds to the wealth of the community; and in all your industry and commerce, obferve justice, honour, and truth, with citizens, and with strangers: Fraud may bring money; but honeft gain is bleffed. Beware of oppreffing your neighbours, or of feeming to opprefs them: It is dishonourable and inhuman: It may provoke refiftance, which is the beginning of civil war: It may teach others to opprefs you: It may gradually extinguish the love of liberty, with which freedom itself muft expire. Have a facred regard to the rights of other men; their rights of nature, of fociety, of confcience. Be indulgent to those who differ from you in religious fentiments: Deny them not that liberty which

which God hath given to you as the confolation of your lives. Live "foberly, rightė"coufly, and godly," otherwise ye defecrate all thefe Chriftian privileges which ye fo fully enjoy. When God bleffes and favours a nation, it is for this end, that they may ferve him more chearfully, more fervently, more conftantly; and when men really feel the goodness of God, they express their gratitude by obedience. Intemperance, irreligion, neglect of duty, unfruitfulness under mercies, render a people unworthy of the Divine protection: They have reduced many ftates, once free and happy, to barbarism and slavery. And furely it is meet for us to fay, "O Lord, we, "with our fathers, have finned: And seeing "that thou, our God, haft," in thy former corrections, "punished us lefs than our ini"quities deferve; and has given us fuch a "deliverance as this; fhould we again break "thy commandments, and join in affinity with "the people of abominations; wouldeft not "thou be angry with us until thou hadft con"fumed us, fo that there should be no rem

nant nor escaping ?" A virtuous people only are worthy of liberty, or capable of enjoying it; and "righteoufnefs" only "ex"alteth a nation." If we are unanimous and stedfast in "fearing God, and honouring the "the King," in "doing justly, loving mercy, "and walking humbly with our God;" in discharging our duty each of us in his place;

in

in feparating ourselves" from our own ini"quities," and "keeping the ways of the "Lord; then, and then only, may we truft, that "this God will be our God for ever and "ever," that he will blefs us, and blefs our country, and fhew favour to our children's children. Amen.

SER

SERMON XV.

The Study of the Scriptures recommended.

By ANDREW HUNTER, D. D. & S. S. Th. P.

Preached before the Society in Scotland for Propagating Chriftian Knowledge, June 9. 1775.

ACTS, xvii. II.

These were more noble than those in Theffalonica, in that they received the word with all readinefs of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were fo.

N this instructive history of the first teachers

IN

of Christianity, nothing is more interesting than the reception which the gospel met with, and the means by which its fuccefs was promoted. That our holy religion should triumph over the deep-rooted prejudices and vicious attachments of mankind; that it should be propagated with amazing rapidity and fuccefs through the world, by no other means than the force of argument, the evidence of miracles, the holy lives and comfortable deaths of its profeffors; that a few illiterate perfons fhould communicate a fyftem of doctrines and

precepts,

precepts, much more excellent and powerful in their influence on the perfection and happinefs of men, than the collected wifdom of former ages, and of the most polished nations, had produced; that they fhould adhere to their teftimony of the truth as it is in Jefus, with unfhaken conftancy, in the midst of the fiercest perfecutions, and perfuade multitudes in every part of the world to believe in a crucified Saviour, and to hazard their all in this life for his fake: these are the moft fatisfactory proofs of the divine original and excellence of our religion, as well as of the integrity of its teachers, which can be defired. Such are the interesting scenes that present themselves to our view, through the whole hiftory of the tranfactions of our Lord's apoftles, and which may justly fill every beholder with wonder at the hand of God fo visibly displayed in the confirmation of the Chriftian faith.

In the preceding part of this chapter we are informed of the diligent labours of St Paul and his companion in travail; who, like their Divine Master, went about continually doing good. Having come to Theffalonica, Paul went, according to his cuftom, into the fynagogue of the Jews, " and three Sabbath days

reafoned with them out of the Scriptures; "opening and alledging, that Christ must "needs have fuffered, and rifen again from "the dead; and that this Jefus, whom he "preached unto them, was Chrift." Thefe VOL. IV. P difcourfes