purity and propriety of their own conduct. By such means, by a right faith and an upright practice, where there is fixed in the mind a just standard of right, and where it is rigidly adhered to in opposition to the practices and opinions of others, the world may yet be reclaimed and saved from impending ruin.

Those, who are thus engaged, may be but few; yet their influence will be powerful and extensive, and they may expect that their numbers will gradually increase. For there is a secret charm in genuine Christian virtue (undebased with the gloom of superstition and the moroseness of the recluse) in which benevolence is the predominant feature, which attracts the affection of beholders. It draws other men after it, and induces them to desert the standard of the enemy, or at least, by inspiring them with awe, prevents them from proceeding to those excesses, in which they would otherwise indulge themselves. The effect may not be immediately vi. sible; but it is not the less certain. It operates in silence like the salt in the meat or the leaven in the mass, until the whole is salted, or leavened.

Having now shown, how Christians of the first ages were qualified to produce the effect ascribed to them in the text, and that Christians of our own times are capable of doing the same good, nothing now remains, but to exhort you in the second place to exert the powers, with which you are furnished, for this purpose. If you be, what I hope and be

lieve you are already, well inclined, many words will not be wanted. For nothing more is necessary to excite a good man to pursue a particular course of conduct, than to show him, that he may do good thereby.

I have now shown you the relation in which you stand to the world by professing a purer faith than your brethren, and the important change you are capable of producing in society. Let me now intreat you to labour to accomplish it effectually. This depends much upon yourselves; for, although faith operates naturally and necessarily upon the mind, yet it's operations are greatly aided and accelerated by our own voluntary exertions, by the degree of attention we pay to our principles, and the care and fre quency with which we reflect upon them. If therefore you wish to do much good to others by the profession and practice of the truth, take care that it be well understood and diligently practised by yourselves. Examine the grounds of your faith, and let your conduct in every instance correspond with your principles. For in vain is it, that we attempt to reform the world with erroneous principles or a defective example. Ever keep in remembrance, that you are not to receive an example from other men, but to give one to them; that you are not to be guided by others, but to be a rule to yourself; and that there is no surer mark of unfitness for the office for which you are designed, than an intire conformity to the practices of those, who have corrupted genuine

Christianity. In your intercourse with the world be not ashamed to avow your principles, or to defend them on every proper occasion; since in this way only can they be known or procure attention. In every society into which you are brought, in every connection in which you are placed, endeavour to sow the principles of Christian piety and virtue, and to recommend them by a suitable behaviour.

This conduct you are bound to pursue by a principle of gratitude to God, who has favoured you with superiour knowledge for this purpose, and to whom this will be the most acceptable return you can make; by a principle of benevolence to mankind, whose hopes of an approved state of society depend entirely upon your exertions; and I will add (if more generous motives have no influence), by a regard to your own honour and interest.

You now hold the most conspicuous and desirable situation among mankind; you possess the only distinction which is of real value, the power of doing more good than your brethren. But, if the world be not purified and improved by your doctrine and example, you will incur the disgrace of having enjoyed a talent, which you know not how to use, of having possessed advantages, which you had not wisdom to turn to your own account; an instance of folly and weakness, which cannot fail to degrade you in your own eyes, and, what is of more consequence, in the estimation of him, whose judgment is to decide your final condition.

By conforming to the world you may hope to rise into favour with your brethren, whose vanity may be flattered by your compliances, and who will be disposed to reward them by marks of their regard; but let it be remembered, that in proportion as you rise in the esteem of mankind by these means, you sink in the estimation of God, and that he will regard such conformity to the world (in the same contemptuous light, in which men view salt which has lost it's savour, is become insipid, is wholly unfit for the purposes it was designed to answer, and is for that reason cast out and trodden under foot of

men.

SERMON XXVI.

ON THE PHRASEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLES.

13

COR. ii, 12, 10.

Now we have received, not the Spirit of the World, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the Things that are freely given us of God: which Things also we speak, not in the Words which Man's Wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing Spiritual Things with Spiritual.

THE general meaning of these verses is this; the

apostle asserts, that the words he employed to express the privileges of Christians under the Gospel, were not taken from the terms used in the common intercourse of life, or in the discourses of philosophers, but from what had already been employed by God for a like purpose respecting the Jews, and that both in the application of the terms, and in adopting the ideas they were intended to represent, he had been guided, not by a worldly, but by a spiritual mind. In order to show the propriety of this conduct, I shall consider what the language of God respecting the Jews has been, and then on what grounds it may be applied to Christians.

The children of Israel, who were the descendants