God, who wills that at all times we rely upon his blessing as the first cause of deliverance in all distress, but forbids not that we use the instruments which his mercy hath put in our own hands, his province is no more invaded in the one case than in the other. On the contrary, it is not less criminal, less uncharitable, less offensive to God, to neglect the man under the recent symptoms of death, than to neglect the sick man, in whom those symptoms have not taken place; since the true condition of both, for any thing we can possibly know to the contrary, is only that of sickness.

Nor let us be deterred from promoting the attempts to reanimate, by another superstition,-that if we recover the man apparently dead, we do him no good office; we only bring him back from the seats of rest and bliss to the regions of misery. Elijah had no such apprehension, when he revived the widow's son; nor our Lord, when he reanimated the daughter of Jairus, or the widow's son of Nain,-nor even when he recalled the soul of Lazarus. He recalled the soul of Lazarus! The soul once gone no human effort ever shall recall; but if it were criminal to stay the soul, not yet gone, but upon the point of her departure, the cure of diseases and of wounds, and the whole art of medicine and of surgery, by parity of reason would be criminal. But in truth, whatever might be the case of St. Paul and others of the first preachers and martyrs, who had no expectation in this world but misery, and were secure of their crown of glory in the next,-to the generality of men, even of Christians, continuance in the present life is highly desirable; and that without regard to secular interests and enjoyments (which claim however a moderate subordinate regard), but purely with a view to the better preparation for the next. Upon this ground we pray against sudden death; and we may lawfully use other means besides our prayers to rescue ourselves and our brethren from it. The continuance of the present life gives the good leisure to improve, and affords the sinner space for repentance. Nor

is it the least part of the praise of this Society, that the restoration of the present life, effected by its means, hath been to many, by the salutary instruction and admonition which they have received from their deliverers, the occasion that they have been begotten anew, by the word of God and the aid of his Holy Spirit, to the hope of immortality.

They stand here before you whose recovered and reformed lives are the proof of my assertions. Let them plead, if my persuasion fail, let them plead the cause of their benefactors. Stand forth, and tell, my brethren, to whom you owe it under God that you stand here this day alive! Tell what in those dreadful moments were your feelings, when on a sudden you found yourselves surrounded with the snares of death, when the gates of destruction seemed opening to receive you, and the overflowings of your own ungodliness made you horribly afraid! Tell what were your feelings, when the bright scene of life opened afresh upon the wondering eye, and all you had suffered and all you had feared seemed vanished like a dream! Tell what were the mutual feelings, when first you revisited your families and friends!-of the child returning to the fond parent's care-of the father receiving back from the grave the joy, the solace of his age-of the husband restored to the wife of his bosom-of the wife, not yet a widow, again embracing her yet living lord! Tell what are now your happy feelings of inward peace and satisfaction, sinners rescued from the power of darkness, awakened to repentance, and reconciled to God! Your interesting tale will touch each charitable heart, and be the means of procuring deliverance for many from the like dangers which threatened your bodies and your souls. Let it be the business of your days, so unexpectedly lengthened, first to pay to God the true thanksgiving of a holy life; next, to acknowledge, for the good of others, the instruments of his mercy. Say, "These are they who saved our bodies from the power of the grave, and have restored

us to thy fold, O Shepherd and Bishop of our souls! 'What though the dead praise thee not, nor they that go down to the regions of silence? yet we will bless the Lord from this time forth for evermore!""

SERMON XL.

Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.* MATTHEW Xxiv. 12.

COMPARING the actual manners of mankind with those magnificent descriptions which occur in every page of prophecy, of the prosperous state of religion, both speculative and practical, under the Christian dispensation,-in those happy times" when the mountain of the Lord's house should be exalted above all hills, and all nations should. flow unto it"-" when the earth should be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea"when this knowledge should not only be imparted to all nations, but indiscriminately dispensed to all ranks and conditions of men (for the promise was, that not only on "the sons and daughters," but on "the servants also and the handmaids" the spirit should be poured forth)-when the fruit of this knowledge was to be, that "kings should reign for righteousness, and for equity princes should bear rule;" that government should be administered, not for the purposes of avarice and ambition, but for the advantage of the subject, and the general happiness of mankind-" when the vile person should no more be called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful"-when the foolish preacher of infidelity (a mean and sordid doctrine, which perplexes the understanding and debases the sentiments of man) should no longer have the praise of greatness of mind; nor the atheistic churl, who envies the believer his hope

* Preached for the Philanthropic Society, March 25, 1792.

full of immortality, be esteemed as a patriot generously struggling for the freedom of mankind enthralled by superstitious fears-" when nothing to hurt or destroy should be found in all the holy mountain"-when all pernicious opinions should be banished from the schools of the learned, and all evil passions weeded out of the hearts of men"when the work of righteousness should be peace, and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever,"-comparing the actual manners of mankind, even in those countries where the Christian religion is taught and professed in its greatest purity, with these prophetic descriptions of the state of religion under the gospel, we may perhaps imagine that we see too much reason to conclude, that the liberality of the promise is balked in the poverty of the accomplishment-that the event of things falsifies the prediction.

Survey the habitable globe, and tell me in what part of Christendom the fruits of Christianity are visibly produced in the lives of the generality of its professors: in what Christian country is charity the ruling principle with every man in the common intercourse of civil life, insomuch that the arts of circumvention and deceit are never practised by the Christian against his brother, nor the appetites of the individual suffered to break loose against the public weal, or against his neighbour's peace? Where is it that the more atrocious crimes of violence and rapine are unknown? Where is it that religion completely does the office of the law, and the general and habitual dread of future wrath spoils the trade of the executioner? If that zeal for good woaks which ought to be universal in Christendom is nowhere to be found in it, it may seem that Christianity, considered as a scheme for the reformation of mankind, has proved abortive. In truth, since the whole object of revelation is to recover mankind from the habit and dominion of sin, in which the first transgression had involved them,--since this was the common object of the earliest as well as of the latest revelations, since

the promulgation of the gospel is evidently, in the nature of the thing, and by the express declarations of holy writ, the last effort to be made for the attainment of that great object,—if that last effort still proves unsuccessful, the conclusion may seem inevitable, that in a contest for the recovery of man from sin and perdition, continued for the space of full seven thousand years, from the hour of the fall to the present day, between the Creator of the world and man's seducer, the advantage still remains (where from the first indeed it hath ever been) on the side of the apostate angel. A strange phenomenon it should seem, if Infinite Goodness, Infinite Wisdom, and Omnipotence, have really been engaged on the one side, and nothing better than the weakness and malice of a creature on the other!

But ere we acquiesce in these conclusions, or indulge in 'the scepticism to which they lead, let us compare the world as it is now is, not with the perfection of the ultimate effect of Christianity as described by the entranced prophets contemplating the great schemes of Providence in their glorious consummation,-but let us compare the world as it now is with what it was before the appearance of our Saviour. We shall find, if I mistake not, that the effect of Christianity in improving the manners of mankind, though as yet far less than may be ultimately hoped, is already, however, far from inconsiderable. Let us next consider by what means God vouchsafes to carry on this conflict of his mercy with the malice of the Devil. We shall see, that the imperfection of what is yet done so little justifies any sceptical misgivings, that in the very nature of the business itself ages are necessary to the completion of it: and that the considerable effect already wrought is an argument of the efficacy of the scheme to the intended purpose, and an earnest of the completion of the work in God's good season. We shall also be enabled to discern what we may ourselves contribute to the furtherance of a