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SERMON V.

RANGERS INCIDENTAL TO THE CLERICAL CHARAC TER, STATED,

Lest that, by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a cast-away-1 Cor. ix. part of the 27th verse.

THESE words discover the anxiety, not to say the fears of the writer, concerning the event of his personal salvation; and, when interpreted by the words which precede them, strictly connect that event with the purity of his personal charaç

Iter.

It is extremely material to remember who it was that felt this deep solicitude for the fate of his spiritual interests, and the persuasion, that his acceptance (in so far as it is procured by human endeavours) would depend upon the care and exactness with which he regulated his own passions, and his own conduct: because if a man ever existed, who, in the zeal and labour with which he served the cause of religion, in the ardour or the efficacy of his preaching, in his sufferings or his success, might hope for some excuse to indulgence, some license for gratifications which were forbidden to others, it was the author of the text which has been now read to you. Yet the apostle appears to have known, and by his knowledge teaches us, that no exertion of industry, no display of talents, no public merit, however great, or however good or sacred be the cause in which it is acquired, will compensate for the neglect of personal self-government

This, in my opinion, is an important lesson to : to none, certainly, can it be more applicable, .n it is in every age to the teachers of religion; a little observation of the world must have inmed us, that the human mind is prone, almost ond resistance, to sink the weakness or the gularities of private character in the view

tages hich they a

Now is there good rasa ke concealing.end from ourselves or others, ang anda Pourable use witions which the nature of our employment r situation may tend to generate: for be the o hey will, they only prove, that it happesus cording to the condition of human my benefits to receive some inconven th many helps to experience some trials: the many peculiar motives to virtue, and me improvement in it, some obstacles are pres d to our progress, which it may require a hot and Asitive effort of the mind to surmo

am stating a cause of no

Consible importance when amongst these i Aligious impressions, which a constat www with religious subjects, and stil intermixture with religious of to induce. Such is the frame of th on (and calculated also for the that whilst all active habits ar ngthened by repetition, impre

in the first place, the ins

we are passive are weakene

Upon the first of these proper great measure, the exercise d DOD the second, the capacity

which the mind possesses of adapting itself to alnost every situation. This quality is perceived n numerous, and for the most part beneficial exmples. Scenes of terror, spectacles of pain, obects of loathing and disgust, so far lose their efect with their novelty, as to permit professions o be carried on, and conditions of life to be enured, which otherwise, although necessary, yould be insupportable. It is a quality, however, hich acts, as other parts of our frame do, by an peration which is general: hence it acts also in stances in which its influence is to be corrected; ad, amongst these, in religion. Every attentive hristian will have observed how much more owerfully he is affected by any form of worship hich is uncommon, than with the familiar rerns of his own religious offices. He will be senble of the difference, when he approaches, a few ames in the year, the sacrament of the Lord's upper; if he should be present at the visitation sick; or even if that were unusual to him, ght of a family assembled in prayer. He eive it also upon entering the doors of a congregation; a circumstance which has ny, by causing them to ascribe to some in the conduct of public worship, what, only the effect of new impressions. w much a lay frequenter of religious ds himself less warmed and stimulated

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than by extraordinary acts of devomuch it may be expected, that a clerbitually conversant with the offices of ill be less moved and stimulated than at then is to be done? it is by an effort ;by a positive exertion of the mind; this tendency, and by setting ourselves o resist it; that we are to repair the pontaneous piety. We are no more r ourselves to the mechanism of our to the impulse of our passions. We our sensitive by our rational nature. upply this infirmity (for so it may be