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are whole, need not a physician, but they that are sick while you fancy yourselves well, it signifies nothing to offer you advice; but when you feel your disorders, you will need little persuasion to apply to Him, who is eminently the Physician of value.

4. Because God alone can fill our hearts.

Naturally we are poor, and destitute, without any thing substantial to live upon our heart and our flesh faileth, and we cry, to every one we meet, Who will show us any good?---Our carnal hearts fly. first to carnal things: but can carnal things give us, the content we look for? Our sphere is too confined; neither our circumstances nor our constitutions may allow us to make all the experiments which our inclinations might prompt us to; but we have upon record the testimony of one who went through all the round of vanity; and perhaps it will be better received, if I quote him, not as Solomon the Preacher, but as Solomon the King: "I said in mine heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth; therefore enjoy pleasure: and, behold, this also is vanity. I said of laughter, It is mad; and of mirth, What doeth it? I sought in mine heart to give myself to wine (yet acquainting mine heart with wisdom,) and to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was that good for the sons of men, which they should do under the heaven all the days of their life. I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards; I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kinds of fruit.... I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces; I gat me men-singers and women-singers,

and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all sorts. So I was great,› and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom remained with me. And whatever mine eyes desired 1, kept not from them; I withheld not my heart from any joy : for my heart rejoiced in all my labour; and this was my portion of all my labour. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do; and, be- ! hold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun." (Eccles. ii. 1.): This was Solomon's experience: and say, ye children of this world, ye lovers of pleasure, say if it be not your experience too. You that love silver, were you ever satisfied with silver; or you that love y abundance, with increase? Did not drunkenness inflame your thirst, and every gratification provokedesire? In the midst of your sufficiency were you not in straits?It is so, it must be so-however you may attempt to conceal it from the world, or excuse it to yourselves it will be always so. You might as well fill your belly with the east wind, as satisfy the cravings of your souls by making provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof." -But give your hearts to God, and you will find it otherwise. "He will fulfil the desire of them that fear him he also will hear their cry, and will save them." (Ps. cxlv. 19.) Let the desires of your heart be never so. enlarged, you will always find enough. "I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt; open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it." (Ps. lxxxi. 10.) This was. the happy experience of the Psalmist, when he said,

"And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me!” (Jer. xxxii. 40.)

And, to name no more, "To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the Beloved." (Ephes. i. 6.)

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SERMON XXVII.

JON CONFORMITY TO THE WORLD.

ROM. xii. 2.

And be not conformed to this world: but be

ye transformed by the renewing of your minds; that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.

DOCTRINES of grace do always infer and enforce duties of obedience. What passed between God and your souls the last Sabbath was not (I hope it was not-I am sure it should not be) a temporary transaction. Then God said, 66 My son, give me thine heart." You gave it to him, and promised-oh how solemnly did you promise!--that you would never so much as wish it out of his hands again; that, if you had never so many hearts, he should have them all: and that you were never so happy in all your lives as at that moment when you cried out, with so much rapture, "Thou art my portion, O Lord." Now the Lord says, My son, be not conformed to this world. If thou wast sincere when thou gavest me thy heart, if I am to look upon thee as mine, and if thou expectest any benefit from the agreement then made between us, be not conformed to this world: for thou canst not serve the world and

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me tco: I am not to be so put off. If therefore thou wouldst approve thyself a faithful servant to me, I tell thee again, Be not conformed to this world.' And as to you, who invited your Beloved to come into his garden and eat his pleasant fruit, and were entertained by him with some of the choicest dainties of heaven-(for even now the remembrance of his love is better than wine)-He, your Beloved, now addresses his church; ter, my spouse, if thou didst sit under my shadow with such delight, and if my fruit, was so sweet unto thy taste as thou saidst it was; if thou dost indeed think me the chief of ten thousand, and altogether lovely; and if thou wouldst continue in my love; then be not conformed to this world: I cannot bear a rival in thy affections. I know the snares that will be laid for thee: I know the triumph with which every instance of thy criminal compliance will be received by thy enemies and mine; and I know, too, what shame--yea, what remorse.-yea, what indignation---yea, what anguish and torture of mind, thou wilt feel for thy desertion and denial of me, when thou comest to think on thy ways, and remember from whence thou art fallen. Therefore I charge thee, by all the love I have shown to thee, and by all the love thou hast professed to me; and by that eternity of mutual enjoyment before us: I charge thee, Be not conformed to this world.'

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After this, the language of the Apostle in the verse preceding the text though surely the most tender and affectionate that human friendship could dictate---yet, coming after the counsels and compassions of the mighty God, the everlasting Fa