overy living creature and whose goodness interposes no limits to his power but what his wisdom suggests-who is ever more ready to relieve our wants than we to express them, who commands us to ask with the assurance that it will be given us, to seek for we shall find, and to knock and it will be opened

unto us.

By adverting to the habits and feelings which influence the conduct of men in respect to their own offspring, our Saviour teaches us that the kindness and benevolence of God towards mankind is a stronger principle than even natural affection.

If, says he, a son oppressed by poverty, asks a father for bread to relieve his hunger, will he insult his distresses by giving him a stone; or if he ask a fish will he give him a serpent. If then, ye who are evil, ye who are liable to the infirmities, the perverse dispositions, the prejudices and the irritations of human nature, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him!

But who knoweth what is good for a man all his vain and chequered life which he spendeth as a shadow on earth? So ignorant are we of our own tempers and dispositions, so limited in our prospects, so dark and confused are our views respecting the influence which an external condition may have on our characters and feelings, that we know not what condition in life is best for us we know not what course of external events is best adapted to promote our ultimate goed.

The mercy of God is often more strikingly displayed in refusing, than it would be in granting our requests. We may ask, but not receive, because the things we request are such as it would be improper for God to bestow, or injurious for us to obtain.

We shall inquire what are those good things which our Saviour assures us will be yielded to our serious and earnest solicitations by our heavenly Father.

As our condition and enjoyments in this life are of subordinate importance in comparison with our condition in the life to come, that only can be considered on the whole as absolutely good which has a tendency to improve our moral characters, to secure the favour of God and render us capable of higher degrees of happiness in the future world. Whatever has the greatest tendency to produce these effects is unquestionably the greatest good of

man.

So far as any thing is in opposition to these, so far is it evil and to be deprecated by every being that is capable of distinguishing between time and eternity-between the pains and enjoyments of a life beyond the grave.

As there is no obvious connexion between personal ease and moral improvement, between the possessions of this world and the favour of God, and as it is often found that prosperity, instead of forming and strengthening those affections and habits without which no man can see the Lord, renders us the slaves of passion and produces criminal,

thoughtlessness and moral in sensibility-it is obvious in the first place,

That we should be neither particular nor importunate in our prayers for temporal favours. We cannot be two cautious in placing proper restrictions to our petitions for objects of this nature. For such is the conditio of every temporal enjoy ment, that it has no fixed, permanent character, but becomes the occasion either of good or evil according to the peculiar character or circumstances of the receiver.

As the same influence of the sun, which at one season fertil izes the fields and covers the face of the vegetable world with plenty and joy. might under other circumstances, produce barrenness, want and despair; as the same remedies which in sickness restore to health and vigour, if administered in any other state of the system, would bring on disease and death, so also the same temporal possessions, which in one state of the feelings would be the means and instruments of virtue, would, under other circumstances, corrupt the passions and become the greatest of evils.

Perhaps you are earnest in your desires that affluence may he the fruit of your industry and enterprise. But may not wealth produce in you a degree of arrogance and pride that will induce you to look down with contempt on those unassuming souls who are content to walk in the humble paths of life, whom God made your equals, and who have rendered themselves your superiors in every thing that constitutes the

Will riches expose you to no danger from a selfishness of spirit, from hardness of heart, or from that diseased and morbid sensibility, that recoils from scenes of distress ?

Is there no danger that, when you are relieved from the necessity of active and personal exertions, you will be rendered indolent and lose all vigour of body or of mind? Or, on the other hand, that the pleasure of acquiring may perpetually sharpen that avaricious spirit which pressing towards its favourite object, too often spurns the control of prudence, integrity and religion?

Is a state of uninterrupted ease and prosperity, of all others, the most fitted to produce and strengthen the feelings of piety? God is often forgotten because he is concealed by the multitude of his gifts; and we are frequently rendered thoughtless and unthankful by the very abundance of those things which should excite our gratitude.

Possibly you may justify your desire to obtain riches on the ground that they may enable you to become more useful and benevolent. It were much wiser, my friend to be content to do all the good which God hath now put in your power, because in gaining the means you may probably lose the disposition to become extensively useful.

Do you hope to rejoice the hearts of those who shall inherit your possessions? And do you believe, that their gratitude will make them always rise up and call your memory

blessed. Forget not that those for whom you intend to provide may murmur at your distribution. Instead of preserving the deep reverence and tender solicitude for your character which you now anticipate, they may rush to a public tribunal, to establish the proofs of your mental imbecility; and thus proclaim to the world that although you had sufficient prudence to accumulate wealth, you had not that ordinary share of intellect which entitled you to be trusted with the distribution of it.

Again we may desire to be invested with power and authority. But exalted stations are not exempt from mortification and sorrow; and they have also their appropriate dangers. The pride of authority may call into action the most corrupt passions and the most detestable vices. The love of office may more than counterbalance the love of virtue. It may tempt us to sacrifice our integrity and patriotism on the alter of party, as a propitiatory offering to a dominant and unprincipled faction.

We pray that God would remove us from the shade of obscurity; but in the shades of obscurity perhaps the virtues of patience and humanity might flourish, which in the sunshine of greatness might wither and die.

We ask to be relieved from

the pressure of poverty; but perhaps poverty has been our security against temptations, has subdued our passions, has produced in us all the ornaments of a meek, resigned and quiet spirit; and to be deprived of its discipline, might be the occasion of our ruin. Vol. VI. No. 4.

We offer our prayers to be delivered from affliction; but affliction is the only school in which we can learn and practice the passive virtues, which are of all virtues the most sublime and probably the most acceptable to God. How hopeless would be our condition, if adversity did not sometimes bring home to us the conviction of our dependence and renew the impressions of Deity. Even the Psalmist could say, it is good for me that I have been afflicted, for before I was afflicted I went astray; but now I have kept thy law.

Is it certain, that we ask what is good for us, when we pray God to establish us in the full enjoyment of health? Will not high and unbroken health strengthen and inflame the passions? Is there no danger that a full and perpetual flow of animal spirits may produce a levity of mind and lead on to habits of dissipation and excess? And should we not have occasion to praise God, if he interpose sickness to prevent or check a guilty career? If sickness excite in us a train of sober reflection, if it bring home to us the conviction of what we are and what we should be, if the conciousness of our uncertain hold on life make us more solicitous to perform those great duties which life impose, if it tend to direct our thoughts to God and detach our affections from the earth, and gradually prepare us to resign our spirit with composure into the hands of him who gave it, may we not say, it is good to be sick?

The love of life, for wise purposes, God hath deeply im

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pressed upon us. But why should we earnestly desire or pray that our existence may be prolonged to old age? Perhaps God designs to take us away from the evil that is to come; and therefore this very hour may be the fittest season for the soul to leave its earthly cares and enter on a durable inheritance. At best, life protracted is protracted woe. Old age brings with it a train of new sorrows and new trials, which might tarnish the lustre of former ages and darken the prospects of futurity.

From this induction of particulars it is evident that we are incapable of judging with any degree of certainty what condition of life is best calculated for our ultimate good. What we deprecate as evils may be blessings in disguise, may be the best proofs of God's love and mercy towards us-and those things which we most earnestly desire as peculiar blessings of heaven might become the means of our misery and perdition. If in connexion with our ignorance respecting the influence of temporal blessings on our character, we consider, that it is the design of Christianity to render us superior to the present world, to cause us to sit loosely to its enjoymeuts and possessions; that a worldly mind is the grave of all good affections and all genuine piety; that the form of prayer which our Saviour left his disciples contains one and only one petition for earthly possessions, and that for the bare necessaries of life;-from these considerations it must be evident, that those objects promised to our prayers,

those good things which God will not deny to our requests, cannot be the possessions of the present world, and of consequence, we cannot be too guarded in our petitions for temporal favours. Perhaps I may say, we should never ask them unless with minds so chastised and disciplined that we should submit with resignation and composure if God should be pleased to refuse our desires. Otherwise we may indulge a worldly mind, at a season when of all others, we should be most free from its influence, and the earnestness of our requests may be the very reason why it is proper for God to deny them.

The benefits which, from our own observation, we perceive to be most directly obtained by our prayers, and which must correspond with all the representations of this duty, and with all the exhortations and encouragement to it which the gospel has conveyed to us, relate to the improvement of our own char

acters.

I therefore observe in the second place :

That with respect to spiritual blessings, to whatever may assist our progress in piety and our advancement in holiness, we cannot be too earnest or too particular. With respect to these we are involved in no particular uncertainty, whether they will contribute to ultimate good. We know that for whatever pertains to the increase of good affections and virtuous habits we cannot possibly ask amiss.

God has created and placed us in the present world that we might be formed to virtue so as

our prayers into the presence of that God in whom all the fam

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ty to his character; and whilst we strive and pray for the accomplishments of his purpose, for the possession of those moral qualities which give us nearer resemblance to him, and render us more worthy his favour, we may be assured that he will not be displeased with our anxiety and solicitations, or permit our sincere prayer to return unaccomplished. Whatever tends to our moral improvement, whatever may advance the kingdom of God and his righteousness, is surely to be included among those good things which prayer has a natural tendency to produce, and which God has directed us to ask with an explicit assurance that if we are sincere we shall obtain.

I observe in conclusion: That our petitions should not have an exclusive reference to ourselves. No man liveth to himself As we are connected by a community of wants, of interests and dependencies, we are bound to desire and promote the welfare of others.

let us not forget our brethren according to the flesh. Let us intercede with him for the welfare of those, with whom we are peculiarly interested that his favour may return on all those who have shown favour to us that God may forgive and bless all those who have been unforgiving and injurious to us. We should express our sympathy for all those who labour under mental distress or are bowed down with affliction, remembering that we are also in the body.

Let us not neglect a duty that contributes so much to our welfare and improvement in this world and which is indispensable to our preparation for happiness in the world to come. For I know not how any man can expect to enjoy the presence of God in heaven, who has not had intercourse with him on earth. But let not our prayers be the effusion of a worldly mind, neither let our petitions bind us more closely to the earth. Let them evince our trust in God, the ardour and sincerity of our pious desires, and the fulness of our kind and benevolent affections.

Let our most ardent prayers be for minds enlightened by heavenly wisdom-for passions disciplined and obedient-for kind and benevolent affections— for resignation, and patience, and hope that God would forgive what is past and strengthen and support us in the futurethat c

tour lives may be adorned with the beauties of holiness,