less when experienced by ourselves. Thus Evangelical love to GoD and mankind must be exercised, in order to be realized. But this love is the sum of virtue. None therefore, who are not virtuous, can know what virtue is; and none, but they, can discern its amiableness and beauty. The rewards of virtue, also, are furnished only by the exercise of virtue; and, where it is not exercised, cannot be found. Even to understand them in any valuable degree it is absolutely necessary, that we should previously become virtuous.

To address, then, these motives to sinners, in order to persuade them to become holy, would be to address to them that, which they do not know, and cannot feel; or in other words that, which to them is literally nothing. To this hopeless employment the philosophers of Greece, and Rome, addicted themselves with great ingenuity and eloquence: but they spoke to deaf ears, and immovable hearts; and among all who listened to their fine sentiments and elegant diction, with admiration and applause, there is not the least reason to believe, that they reformed even a single individual.

In the same fruitless manner would a preacher display to the understanding of sinners the glory, virtue, and happiness, of heaven. Holiness, the well spring of all this happiness and glory, the sinner would neither understand nor feel. A cold assent, that such a place, as heaven is asserted to be in the Scriptures, may be a happy place, would be all which his mind would really give. A heartfelt conviction of the necessity of holiness to real and enduring good, he would still be incapable of feeling; but without such a conviction no desire could be excited in his mind, no persuasion operate, no effort exist. A Mohammedan paradise, if he could be assured of inhabiting it beyond the grave, might indeed rouse his wishes, and his labours; but the joys of heaven would be proclaimed to an assembly of sinners with much the same hope of success, as to the inhabitants of the tomb.

Danger, suffering, and death, the terror of being miserable beyond the grave, and the hope of escaping that misery, are the only things, which ever seriously affect a sinning, guilty mind:

and are therefore the only things, which, in ordinary cases, are efficaciously preached to minds of this character. "Knowing the terrors of the Lord," says St. Paul, "we persuade men;" and only when knowing these terrors are men usually persuaded.

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But how could these motives be addressed with effect, or even with hope, to men, secure of life for a thousand years? To the human eye this period would seem a kind of eternity. Death and judgment, heaven and hell, removed beyond this period, would be removed beyond the utmost verge of care and thought; and recede far from all settled belief, if not from the doubtful assent of fear and hope. Future evil at such a distance would be no longer dreaded; future good no longer desired. Death itself, though certain and undeniable, would at such a distance cease to alarm, or even to solemnize; and would be regarded as a bugbear; the object only of contempt and ridicule. No argument could be founded on it, or enforced by it, which could be brought home to the heart; no motive derived from it, to impress the importance of salvation, or the reality of never ending being. To all inducements to consideration on these subjects, presented to human beings in such a situation, the answer would be short and final: "Where is the promise of his coming? for, since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were at the beginning of the creation."

This single fact would change essentially the whole system of Providence, and in some respects the whole character of man. A future state either of rewards or punishments would be triumphantly denied; and all, who believed it, placed on the same level with the advocates for the warnings of the deathwatch, and the existence of witchcraft. "Death an eternal sleep" would be engraved on the gate posts of every churchyard; and become the creed of every tongue. To the wanderings of human opinion there would be neither check, nor end. Whatever philosophical theory could devise; whatever sin could relish; whatever willing credulity could swallow; would be proudly taught, and eagerly believed. Animal enjoyment would be the amount of all ac

knowledged human good, and the end of every human effort. The favourite maxim by which it is now governed, would, however, be reversed. It would not be as now, "Let us eat and drink for to-morrow we die ;" for death would be disregarded, and forgotten: but, "Let us eat and drink; for to-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant.”

Should any person question the correctness of this representation; I am furnished with unanswerable proof of its truth. Noah preached for one hundred and twenty years to audiences in this very condition. I need not tell you, that he preached in vain ; so in absolutely vain, that he made not a single convert to truth and righteousness.

7thly. Life, greatly extended, would be undesirable to man, because it would produce pernicious Consequences to the world at large.

From the general tendency of human nature, which is thoroughly known by the experience of ages, we may easily determine with sufficient accuracy the real influence, which a long protraction of life must necessarily have on the general interests of mankind. No person can doubt, that the extension of life would, of course, enlarge proportionally all the plans formed by men for business, or for pleasure. The schemes of accumulating wealth, of acquiring renown, of amassing power, of compassing superiority, would all grow with the extension of years. The design in the mind of every sagacious and enterprising man, instead of being limited by the narrow bounds which now encircle all human efforts, and, like those of the ocean, say to every purpose, "Hitherto shalt thou come and no further;" would become a vast outline, to be filled up by the efforts of centuries succeeding centuries. The disappointments of one age would be confidently expected to find a balance in the more auspicious events of another; defeat would be consoled with the sanguine expectation of a future triumph; and loss be firmly borne under the assurance of future gain. No enterprise which did not overstep the bounds of earth, would be thought too great to be formed by the ardent projector, nor to be executed by the hand of courage,

patience, and perseverance. The defects, which time might discover, experience would supply. The errors, into which inattention might be betrayed, caution, improved by succeeding skill, would correct. Ingenuity, sharpened by long continued application, emboldened by frequent success, and ardent in the prospect of vast acquisitions; would repair every disaster, and remove every obstacle.

With these advantages, to what a height would rise the labours and acquisitions of man? During the present, limited period of human life, a single individual has often amassed millions. Could the same protection be afforded him, what would be the accumulation of the same individual through a thousand years? His coffers, like an abyss, would engulf the wealth of empires. Vast riches always spread around their possessor vast and multiplied poverty. With what a desert of want and misery would he, who had engrossed wealth for centuries, and raised it to the height of mountains, environ his dwelling?

Heroes fight alike for glory, and for power. Alexander, Cæsar', and Tamerlane, within a little part of our present life subjugated, successively, a great proportion of the known world. Had the lives of these men been extended to the antediluvian length; the world must have bowed to their yoke, and trembled to its utmost shores, beneath the iron rod of their power. What armies would they have assembled? Like that of Gog, described by the prophet Ezekiel, they would have "ascended like a storm, and like a cloud" have "covered the breadth of the earth." What battles would they have fought, when the millions following their standards, met in conflict! What victories would they have achieved! How many and how vast regions would they have drenched in blood, covered with the corpses, and whitened with the bones of men! Within ten years a single man, of obscure origin, reduced one third part of Europe under his feet. Had his life been extended through a thousand years; all the human race would, not improbably, have crouched in iron bondage beneath his sceptre; and all their blessings been wrenched from them to swell his grandeur, and to gorge his voracious demand for pleasure.

In the mean time, to what a depth of degeneracy, and pollution, would mankind sink in sensuality? Restraint from principle would be removed by the doctrines of Atheism; restraint from fear would vanish before the assurance of living through an immense succession of ages, restraint from shame would expire amid the general hatred of duty, and the universal encouragement of example. All mankind would, therefore, be let loose to revel and to riot. From one end of heaven to the other the soul of man would sink to the level of animal existence; and hail the sloth and the swine, as its companions and brethren. A Sodom would rise in every climate, and in every field; and "ten righteous men" would not be found to save a world.

Of all these awful and debasing things we are furnished with the most ample proof from unquestionable fact. The Antediluvians thus lived, and thus acted. "The sons of GoD," we are told, "saw the daughters of men, that they were fair; and they took them wives, of all whom they chose." Of this loose and lewd mixture were born "giants, who became mighty men," and who were in that day "men of renown." As the immediate consequence it followed, that "God saw, that the wickedness of man was great, and that every imagination," i. e. every purpose and design, "of the thoughts of his heart were only evil continually so evil, so abandoned, that "it repented the Lord, that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. The earth also was corrupt before GOD; and the earth was filled with violence; and God looked upon the earth; and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way on the earth." Here is a concise, but strong and finished picture of the entire profligacy of the human race, and their utter abandonment of all principle, and all decency. "All flesh had corrupted his way;" was lewd, sensual, brutal: "the earth was filled with violence," i. e. as the word is explained, with vengeance, fraud, rapine, and oppression and those, who were the great, the leaders in this profligacy," were giants," fierce, tyrannical, men of oppression and of blood, and for these very reasons "men of renown." So polluted did the world in a short time become, that "GOD repented,