indeed be finally ineffectual; but nothing that can be done, should be neglected, there should be no exemptions, no excep tions, no compromises, no connivance. The Christian magistrate, who ruleth men in justice and the fear of God, will never permit any deliberate sacrifice of principle, any precedent legalizing crimes.

It is not for the minister of God to enter into any minute detail of the particular measures, flowing from those general principles which religion points out; or to presume to dictate to men, whose experience and judgment must so far exceed his own. But were I to venture to point out any objects, more immediately and forcibly calling for the friends of religion and virtue to interpose, I should select two-the first, the OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH-the second the SUPPRESSION OF THOSE HOUSES WHICH FORM NIGHTLY RECEPTACLES OF LICEN

TIOUSNESS AND POLLUTION. It is sufficient, barely to mention those objects to such as have any reverence for religion, any regard to virtue. It is quite unnecessary to multiply arguments, to prove the utility and the necessity of supporting them by the strongest exertions which legal vigilance and legal authority can employ.

With regard to the former, how notorious, how disgraceful, how destructive is the widely-extended profanation of the Sabbath of the Lord. In a few central streets, indeed, an appearance of order and tranquillity is found upon this sacred day; but in all the more remote, poor, and populous districts, as well as every outlet of this extended city, how gross and flagrant is its profanation. Almost every second house* throwing wide its

*The annexed extract from Mr. Whitelaw's excellent essay on the population of Dublin, page 62, will place in the clearest view, the necessity of some vigorous interposition of the police on this subject:

"On the subject of dram-shops, the most alarming of all nuisances, I will take the liberty of stating one simple but authentic fact. Thomas-street, the termination of the great southern and western roads, and the link of connection between the disaffected of country and city, contains 190 houses, and of these, in the year 1798, and probably to this day, no less than fifty-two were licensed to vend raw spirits, a poison productive of vice, riot, and disease; hostile to all habits of decency, honesty, and industry; in short, destructive to the souls and bodies of our fellow-creatures. These houses, open at all hours, by day and night, are scenes of unceasing profaneness and intemperance, which even the sanctity of the Sabbath cannot suspend; and it is an undoubted fact, that on that day, sacred among Christians to piety and peace, more deeds of profaneness, immorality and disorder are perpetrated in this vicinity, than in the other six. Intemperance, idleness, and irreligion afford excellent mate

doors, inviting and receiving crowds of deluded and miserable beings, to riot in the frenzy of intoxication, and pour forth the abominations of blasphemy; to squander in one fatal hour the pittance, which ought to have sustained their perhaps helpless and almost starving families, for the entire ensuing week. Hence the poor are overwhelmed with distress, disease, and wretchedness. And from their desperate efforts to shake off the misery thus flowing from their intemperance, arise extravagant claims of wages; illegal combinations to enforce those claims; manufactures interrupted; honest, sober industry disappointed; national prosperity checked; public credit undermined; the most judicious commercial speculations baffled and reversed; and the most active and praiseworthy conductors of the great commercial system, too often plunged into bankruptcy and ruin. All this train of evils evidently originates in that gross violation of the Sabbath of the Lord, which changes it from a day of refreshing repose, and heart-reforming piety, to a bacchanalian orgy of intoxication and riot, of debauch and profaneness.

As to those receptacles of infamy and prostitution, which each night vomit forth a mob of depraved and desperate victims and instruments of vice, to spread the contagion of pollution, disease, and misery—corrupting and blasting your youth, naturally the hope of their country, and the delight of their parents, but thus contaminated, infected, debased, overwhelming their parents with shame and sorrow, with worthlessness and depravity, straying themselves from virtue and from God, and hastening to eternal misery-who can calculate the tremendous guilt attaching on all, who have it in their power to curb such enormities, to sweep away such nuisances, to stand between the living and the dead, and stop the spreading plague! Who can calculate the guilt of neglecting all this, sleeping on their post; and of thus assisting the foe of God and man in his schemes of ruin and of death! But I forbear-persuaded I am, that none who hears me, who is

rials for the designing and disaffected to work on, and accordingly, here was found the focus of rebellion. That in northern climates, a moderate quantity of spirits may be necessary to the labouring poor, to counteract the effects of cold and damp, is admitted; but the abuse of it has become not only distressing to humanity, but frightful to reflection; and every good man must, with an aching heart, lament that necessity, which obliges a Christian government to derive a revenue from the temporal and eternal misery of thousands of its subjects."

animated with the feelings of a man, the tenderness of a parent, or the principles of a Christian, but will give this solemn subject the fullest consideration, and apply to this crying evil the most prompt and decisive remedies.

I have thus, my friends, ventured to press the general principles of private conduct and public reformation, which the present occasion has suggested to me, with freedom and plainness; relying on your candour and kindness for receiving them patiently, and interpreting them fairly and favourably; as I may with confidence assure you, they were dictated by a heart, sincerely anxious not only for public order and public happiness, but for your personal, spiritual, and eternal interests; which must undoubtedly be materially affected by the manner in which you discharge duties so important, and acquit yourselves of a responsibility so awful.

And oh! forget not, how utterly insignificant are all merely temporal considerations, in comparison of these eternal interests! "What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall he give in exchange for his soul ?"* Look forward, my fellow-Christians, to that dread hour, when the Son of God shall descend from the heaven of heavens in power and great glory, to judge the world. When the assembled myriads of mankind-from the monarch on his throne, to the captive in his dungeon-shall stand before his dread tribunal. When the secrets of every heart shall be revealed; the detail of every man's life hung up on high, that men and angels all, may read the characters of each man's glory, or of each man's shame, blazoned in the records of eternal truth. When the noble and the mean, the ruler and the subject, the monarch and the slave shall be alike humbled in the dust; alike undistinguished in the countless throng; until the angel shall go forth to separate on the one side, "all who offend and work iniquity;"† all whose licentious principles, whose base connivances and wilful crimes have outraged the purity of virtue and the Majesty of heaven; and on the other, all the elect of God, the just, the pious, and the good.

O, my fellow-Christians, are we each of us sure, if this

night, this hour, we were hurried before the tribunal of our Judge, are we sure, on which side we should stand? Grant, O God most holy! O Lord most mighty! that at that dread hour, we may not be cast out to eternal misery, but pardoned and accepted through the merits and mediation of that Jesus, who came into the world to save all who repent and turn unto thee. Amen, blessed Lord; Amen.

632

SERMON LIII.

[Preached in St. Andrew's Church, Dublin, on Sunday, 21st April, 1811, in aid of the London Society, for promoting Christianity amongst the Jews.]

ROMANS, X. 1.

"Brethren, my heart's desire, and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved."

We are assembled in this, the temple of God, my fellow-Christians, for a purpose as sacred and solemn, as it is unprecedented and singular. We are called together by the voice of Christian benevolence indeed, but it is the voice of Christian benevolence raised in no common cause, for no minute and private interest, no local and transitory concern. It is the voice of Christianity, pleading in behalf of that people, through whom has been derived every blessing religion confers upon mankind, and who were the original guardians and depositories of every truth a Christian venerates-in behalf of that people for whose salvation the great apostle of the Gentiles felt such deep anxiety, that for it he would have submitted to be himself a sacrifice*-that people, to use His language, true as it is energetic, "to whom belongeth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is God over all blessed for ever." To advance that object, for which this great apostle so ardently longed, to forward the salvation by promoting the conversion of the HOUSE OF ISRAEL, are we now assembled, my brethren: this is the important, the sacred purpose, in which we are called to co-operate. May that Holy Spirit which perpetually directs the progress of the eternal Gospel, inspire us with a zeal corresponding to the importance of this sacred call, and give to our exertions energy and success.