ancholy and a pitiable sight, to see, what we too often may see, the wretched victims of intemperance and sensuality; squalid, diseased, avoiding their former acquaintance, or meeting them with an apparent feeling of disgrace and inferiority; attempting sometimes to conceal this feeling by an affected impudence; debased and ruined as to their moral tastes and principles, and without any of that pride, which may sometimes supply the place of these; their understanding and their other faculties of mind, weakened and debauched; silly in their talk, and mean in their dispositions and purposes; disconnected from society, without any of the common interests or pursuits of men; flying from thought to intoxication, and recovering from this to a gloomy and restless state of mind, in which all reflection is made more bitter; thinking perhaps, in these intervals of recollection, of what they are, and what they might have been; recollecting how much cruel suffering they have caused to those with whom they are connected; considering, it may be, what has been their conduct toward their families and children, those dependant on their exertions, and who had a right to look up to them for protection, comfort, and an introduction into life, but to whom they have been ministers only of misery and disgrace; and reflecting, last of all, upon their own prospects in this world, and what they have to expect hereafter, when disease and intemperance shall have finished their work.

In these consequences of sin, which are so regular and natural; for there is nothing much more regular and natural, than that habitual excess should destroy our bodies and our minds, and that poverty, where a man's fortune is dependant on his own exertions, should come along with it; in these consequences, in which there is so little of what we call accident; we may see the character and will of Him, by whom all things here are appointed and ordered. They are punishments directly and apparently from Him, who is the maker and judge of us all.

The next consequence of a vicious life, which may be mentioned, is the want of friendship and domestick happiness. A man is loved and valued as a friend, in proportion to his integrity, his generosity, his amiableness, his sincerity; and we might go on to mention every other virtue, that can be

named; and in proportion to his want of goodness, he is distrusted and avoided; unless, indeed, he have the power of deceiving others with regard to his character, which, in so intimate a connexion, and especially in respect to those, whose friendship is much worth possessing, is not very easy to be accomplished. But, indeed, the peculiar gratifications of friendship, like the other pleasures of benevolence and good feeling, are pleasures, from which, for the most part, a bad man is, of course, excluded, by his very want of capacity for their enjoyment.

As it respects domestick happiness, there are some vices, such as those last spoken of, by which it is obviously and directly destroyed. But though a bad man may not have any vices, which operate immediately to its destruction, though he may not be debauched, or intemperate, or violent in his angry passions, or morose in his temper, or hard-hearted, or cruel, or tyrannical, or in any other way directly banish comfort from about him, yet still the very existence of a bad character is destructive of domestick enjoyment. In the unrestrained intercourse of domestick life, where the concealments worn in society, are thrown aside, men for the most part appear what they really are, and the character, whatever it may be, discloses itself and becomes visible. Now, where there is any thing known to be habitually bad in a man's character, he can hardly hope for esteem or respect, and where there is no esteem or respect, there cannot long exist much love or kindness. If, however, there were nothing in the character of a bad man, either directly or indirectly to destroy domestick happiness, still he is not well qualified for partaking of it. It is only by that mind, which is at peace with God and with itself, that its calm and deepfelt pleasures can be enjoyed. The bad man has no refuge from the evils of the world. His crimes, his fears, his remorse, his enmities, his mean and his restless passions, pursue him to his home and his fireside, pollute the place, and destroy its sacredness; and peace and comfort fly before them.

The last consequences of sin, I shall mention, are those, which it has directly upon the mind of him by whom it is committed. The commission of sin is attended with secret uneasiness, and this from two causes. One of them is the pain, which in the very constitution of our nature, is

connected with it. No man, unless he be hardened in vice, does what he knows to be wrong without self-condemnation, and a feeling of being degraded. He feels, though he may not suffer himself to reflect, that he is becoming an outcast from the favour of God, and all the better part of his fellowcreatures; that he is sacrificing to some low, present gratification, his hopes of the future, and his prospects of progressive improvement and glory; that he is submitting, what is most excellent within him, to what is mean and vile; and relinquishing all those pleasures, which belong to the higher and better part of our nature. It is true, that those feelings, which arise from quick moral sensibility, are soon blunted, when a man has once begun an habitual course of sin. But there is another cause of uneasiness, not so easily overcome. It is the fear of punishment; a fear, of which every serious thought concerning the moral government of God, and our own future condition, tends to confirm the reasonableness. When a man, by habitually disobeying the laws of God, has, as it were, renounced his protection, and set about to be the sole artificer of his own happiness, and to rely on his own strength and wisdom in opposition to Omnipotence, he cannot always be free from some feeling of his dreadful insecurity. It is true, that in health and prosperity, the fear of future punishment may be driven away by business, by pleasure, or by passion; but it will return upon him in sickness, in despondency, and in age. With regard, indeed, to bad men, such as we often find them, men irresolute in wickedness, who sin with the hope of repenting, who are, if we may so speak, by no means willing to break with religion altogether, and who try to make some compromise as to its requirements, and balance one part of their character against another; to men of this class, we may believe, the fear of future punishment constitutes no small portion of alarm and disquietude.

These, which I have enumerated, are some of the natural consequences of sin in this world. There are, it is true, some bad men, who seem, in a considerable degree, to escape these consequences, and almost every other present punishment; and there are those, who, not guilty of any flagrant crimes, yet very neglectful of religion and its peculiar duties, pass through life with their full share of prosperity. But the present consequences of sin, are by no means the

only, or the principal, sanctions by which the laws of God are enforced. They are of very considerable efficacy in regulating men's conduct here; they are very important in constituting this life a state of discipline and instruction; they give us some knowledge of the nature of the moral government under which we are, and of the character of God; and thus confirm every thing, which religion teaches concerning his future disposals towards us; but it is to these. future disposals, we must principally look for the motives by which his laws are enforced.

There are not a few men, who would be shocked, if you were to call in question their belief in Christianity, who yet appear to be very little affected by what it reveals concerning the future punishment of the wicked. There are wild and loose notions respecting the mercy of God, which seem to have an effect upon the minds of many by whom they are not directly professed. The mercy of God is infinite; but it would seem that nothing more can be expected from infinite mercy, than what has been actually done and unquestionably promised. The power has been given us of becoming virtuous and holy; all necessary assistance has been offered, and the highest motives proposed to our exertions. If we despise these motives, if we reject this assistance, if we misuse our powers, if we pursue that course of conduct, the tendency of which is, to introduce confusion and misery among the works of God, we cannot expect, that the order of nature should for our sakes be reversed, and that there should be a special interposition to extricate us from the guilt and misery in which we have involved ourselves. Offering us every encouragement and assistance, God has ultimately intrusted us with our own destiny. What we are, and what we may enjoy or suffer, he has left to depend upon ourselves. We cannot be made virtuous against our will; and without virtue, we cannot be made happy. If, when the time of our preparation is finished, we are found unfit for heaven, it is not possible, that there should be prepared for us a paradise of sensuality, or ambition, or gain. The unrestrained indulgence of our vicious passions, would in a short time be the worst misery-a misery that may, perhaps, constitute the principal part of those future sufferings, the nature of which is left in Scripture in such awful obscurity.

The hour is coming, and now is,-for to every man it is in effect, if not in reality, the hour of death,-when the dead shall hear the voice of God, and they that hear shall live; and shall come forth, they that have done good, to the resurrection of life, and they who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation. With all our present consciousness, we shall be removed into another state; it may be of enjoyment, of which we have had scarcely a foretaste; or it may be of misery, of which we may form some conception from the question repeatedly proposed by our Saviour, What is a man profited if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? The time of this most awful change may be very near, or it may be somewhat more distant, but there is a period of no very great extent, within which all uncertainty will cease. The vision is not for many days to come, nor the prophesy of times that are far off.

ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF DEATH.

THAT death is the consequence of our being is taught us by the observation of every day, by the passage of every hour. The character of all things about us is that of decay and change. Dissolution is written on the glory of man in letters, which transient success may for a moment conceal, but which a day's revolution will set forth in their terrible clearness. The progress of time is marked by overthrow, and his path is traced by the ruins of happiness, and honour, and influence. The works of God change. We admire the glorious garment of the clouds thrown around the setting sun, and before our first fervour of admiration has subsided, the beauty has passed away; the sun has disappeared, and the darkness is gathering about us. And so it is with all beauty, and all the glory of earth; they are but fleeting clouds on which God's goodness has shed a momentary brightness. The world is full of life, but it is in continual succession. Myriads of beings surround us; we know not whence they come nor whither they go. We only learn that they are and that they are not, and the rapidity with which the one con