us to take care, that our death become not a confignation of us to a fad eternity. For all the pleafures of the whole world, and in all its duration, cannot make recompence for a miserable eternity.

The ufe that wife men have made, when they reduced this confideration to practice, is, to believe every day to be the last of their life; for fo it may be, and for ought we know it will. And then let us think what we would avoid, or what we would do, if we were to die to-day; and that, in all reason, and in proportion to the ftrength of our confideration, we shall do always. For that is the fublimity of human wisdom, to do those things living, which are to be defired and chosen by dying perfons. An alarm of death, every day renewed, and preffed earnestly, will render a man fubmiffive and humble, fo as that the precepts of religion will fink deep in his fpirit. In fhort, Let every man, in the firft addrefs to his actions, confider, whether if he were now to die, he might fafely and prudently do fuch an act; and whether he would not be infinitely troubled that death should surprize

him in the prefent difpofitions; and then let him proceed accordingly.

LASTLY: Before, and in, and after all this, our bleffed Saviour propounds prayer as a remedy againft temptations: Watch and pray, fays he, that ye enter not into temptation. For befides that prayer is the great inftrument of obtaining victory by the grace of God, as a fruit of our defires and of God's natural and effential goodnefs; the very praying against a temptation, if it be hearty, fervent, and devout, is a denying of it, and part of the victory. For it is a difclaiming the entertainment of it; it is a pofitive rejection of the crime; and every confent to the crime is a ceafing to pray and defire remedy. And we shall obferve, that whenfoever we begin to listen to the whispers of temptation, our prayers against it leffen, as the confent encreases; there being nothing a more direct enemy to the temptation than prayer, which as it is of itself a profeffed hostility against the crime, so it is a calling in auxiliaries from above to make the victory certain.

Wherefore, if temptation affails us, let us apply ourselves unto God; for he is as foon moved to good, as we are to evil; he is as inclined to pity us, as we are to afk him; provided that we do not finally reft in the petition, but pass into action, and endeavour to co-operate with it. For a ftrong prayer, and a feeble endeavour, are contradictions in the discourses of religion.

But if we pray earnestly and frequently, if we watch carefully that we be not furprised, and make religion our work, and ferving God to be the bufinefs of our lives; then we shall walk fafely, or recover speedily; and by doing advantages to piety, fhall fecure a greatnefs of religion, and fpirituality to our understanding: But let us remember always, that when Ifrael fought against Amelek, Mofes' prayer, and Mofes' hand lifted up, fecured the victory; his prayer became ineffectual, when his hands were flack;-to remonftrate to us, that we muft co-operate with the grace of God, praying devoutly, and watching carefully, and obferving prudently, and labouring with all diligence.

SERMON

SERM ON XVI.

Vifiting the Sins of the Fathers upon the Children.

[From Bishop TAYLOR's Sermons. ]

EXOD. XX. 5, 6.

I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, vifiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me :

And fhewing mercy unto thousands, of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

I

T is not neceffary, that the magiftrates

should give penfions to orators, to dif

suade men from running into houses infected with the plague, or to intreat them to be out of love with violent torments, or to create in men evil opinions concerning famine or painful deaths. Every

man hath a fufficient ftock of felf-lové, upon the ftrength of which he hath entertained principles, able enough to fecure himself against voluntary mifchiefs, and from running into states of death and violence.

A man would think, that this that I have now faid were in all cafes certainly true: And it would be well if it were. For that which is the greatest evil, namely fin,-that which makes all evils, that which turns good into evil, and every natural evil into a greater forrow, and makes that forrow lafting and perpetual, that which fharpens the edge of fwords, and puts ftings into every trifling accident,- that evil of fin men fuffer patiently, and chuse willingly, and run after it greedily, and will not fuffer themselves to be diverted from it.

And therefore God hath hired fervants to fight against this evil. He hath set angels with fiery fwords to drive us from it. He hath employed advocates to plead against it. He hath made laws and decrees to abolish it. He hath dispatched pro

A

phets