nothing to agitate or disturb us. There is no craving appetite for pardoning mercy. There is no aching void within, which holiness alone can fill. There is no indifference to external objects, till the necessities of the soul are supplied. Pride, and interest, and pleasure, are ever uppermost in the thoughts; while religion alone is forgotten. If the mind can comprehend but one idea; it is an idea distinct from God. If the heart be susceptible but of one feeling; it is one, which tears the Creator from his throne, and establishes some beloved idol in his room. If there be a grand object for which we live ; it is not the preservation of the soul, which must exist for ever in happiness or misery, such as "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive;" but some human pursuit, which we yet affect to despise; some worldly vanity, which we yet profess to have renounced. If we rejoice; it is because all around us is fair and prosperous; because we are satisfied with the objects of time and

sense,

sense, and have not been taught their insignificance by disappointment and sorrow. If we mourn, it is because the interests and pleasures of life begin to fail us; because we find that we have "laid up treasures, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal." Can we wonder that a religion, which neither influences our conduct, nor excites our feelings, should remain unblest? If, instead of amusing a few idle moments of our time, it mingled with every occupation, consoled every sorrow, and chastened every enjoyment; we should experience the blessing of Jesus Christ, and receive the promise with which it is accompanied.

This brings me to the last part of my subject, in which that promise remains to be considered. "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled."

66

"Ye lust and have not:" said St. James;

ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, be

cause

cause ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts." How much is contained in these few words! We see here the reason of the disappointment in which human pursuits so often terminate. We see the benevolence of God in withholding from us the objects of our ardent desire, and suffering us to labour for them in vain. There may be some present, who have "risen early and late taken rest," to increase their riches; whose aim it has been to "pull down their barns, and build greater; and to bestow there all their fruits and their goods;" who longed to " say to their soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry." Cannot they imagine why Almighty Providence has involved them in difficulty and trial; blasted their fairest hopes, and disappointed their most reasonable expectations? Was it not to free them from the dangers of prosperity; from the worldly spirit, which threatened to absorb all care for a better state of

being, and to lull them into the deep and fatal repose, from which they would awake in eternity? Of those who enjoy uninterrupted success, are there many to whom Christianity is any thing but an empty name? Does not the seed, sown in their hearts, "fall among thorns?" "When they have heard," they "go forth, and are choked with cares, and riches, and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection." Eternity is nothing to them. The world occupies their time, engrosses their attention, and fills, if it does not satisfy, their souls. In the meanwhile, they are gliding, rapidly though imperceptibly, on the stream that is hurrying them away. "Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided ?" So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not "rich towards God." Is this a picture, which we are desirous to resemble? Is this a state to be envied? And when the mercy of God, by a painful but necessary discipline, deprives us of the tem

VOL. II.

G

poral

poral advantages, which might obstruct our moral improvement, and even be an insurmountable bar to our salvation: shall we not kiss the rod, that heals us while it wounds? I might mention many other instances, in which the disappointment of our worldly hopes, has been blessed by the substitution of higher aims, and the adoption of better feelings; but one example is sufficient to justify the ways of God to man. I turn to the necessities that are always supplied, the desires that are always satisfied, the prayers that are always answered. The Gospel, which warns its real followers to expect persecution and contempt; and which, far from promising to their efforts, the honours, riches, and pleasures of life, exhorts them to renounce the splendid danger; assures the penitent believer that nothing which is done for heaven shall lose its "just recompence of reward." On no subject are the Scriptures more explicit than on this: that he, who hungers and thirsts after righteousness, shall be filled;" that he, who seeks spiritual