It is the most delusive of all calculations | sadly and sullenly put away. The free to put off the acceptance of the Gospel, be- proclamation is heard without one accomcause of its freeness-and because it is free panying charm-and the man who refused at all times-and because the present you to lay hold of it through life, finds, that in think may be the time of your unconcern the impotency of his expiring grasp, he and liberty, and some distant future be the cannot apprehend it. And 0, if you but time of your return through that door knew how often the word of faith may fall which will still be open for you. The door from the minister, and the work of faith be of Christ's Mediatorship is ever open, till left undone upon the dying man, never death puts its unchangeable seal upon your would you so postpone the purposes of seeternity. But the door of your own heart, riousness, or look forward to the last week if you are not receiving him, is shut at of your abode upon earth as to the convethis moment, and every day is it fixing nient season for winding up the concerns and fastening more closely-and long ere of a neglected eternity. death summon you away, may it at length If you look attentively to the text, you settle immoveably upon its hinges, and the will find that there is something more than voice of him who standeth without, and a shade of difference between being reconknocketh, may be unheard by the spiritual ciled and being saved. Reconciliation is ear-and, therefore, you are not made to spoken of as an event that has already feel too much, though you feel as earnestly happened-salvation as an event that is to as if now or never was the alternatiye on come. The one event may lead to the which you were suspended. It is not other; but there is a real distinction be enough, that the Word of God, compared tween them. It is true, that the salvation to a hammer, be weighty and powerful. instanced in the preceding verse, is salvaThe material on which it works must be vation from wrath. But it is the wrath capable of an impression. It is not enough, which is incurred by those who have sinthat there be a free and forcible applica- ned wilfully, after they had come to the tion. There must be a willing subject. knowledge of the truth-"when there reYou are unwilling now, and therefore it is maineth no more sacrifice for sin, but a that conversion does not follow. To-mor- certain fearful looking for of judgment and row the probability is, that you will be still fiery indignation, which shall devour the more unwilling-and, therefore, though the adversaries." Jesus Christ will save us application be the same, the conversion is from this by saving us from sin. He who still at a greater distance away from you. hath reconciled us by his death, will, by his And thus, while the application continues life, accomplish for us this salvation. Rethe same, the subject hardens, and a good conciliation is not salvation. It is only the result is ever becoming more and more portal to it. Justification is not the end of unlikely-and thus may it go on till you Christ's coming-it is only the means to arrive upon the bed of your last sickness, an ultimate attainment. By his death he at the confines of eternity-and what, I pacified the lawgiver. By his life he puriwould ask, is the kind of willingness that fies the sinner. The one work is finished. comes upon you then? Willing to escape The other is not so, but it is only going on the pain of hell-this you are now, but yet unto perfection. And this is the secret of not willing to be a Christian. Willing that that unwillingness which I have already the fire and your bodily sensations be touched upon. There is a willingness that kept at a distance from each other-this God would lift off from their persons the you are now, for who of you at present, hand of an avenger. But there is not a would thrust his hand among the flames? willingness that Christ would lay upon Willing that the frame of your animal sen- their persons the hand of a sanctifier. The sibilities shall meet with nothing to wound motive for him to apprehend them is to or torture it-this is willingness of which make them holy. But they care not to apthe lower animals, incapable of religion, prehend that for which they are appreare yet as capable as yourself. You will hended. They see not that the use of the be as willing then for deliverance from new dispensation, is for them to be restored material torments as you can be now-but to the image they have lost, and, for this there is a willingness which you want now, purpose to be purged from their old sins. and which, in all likelihood, will then be This is the point on which they are in still more beyond the reach of your attain-darkness-" and they love the darkness ment. If the free Gospel do not meet with your willingness now to accept and submit to it, neither may it then. And I know not, my brethren, what has been your experience in death-beds, but sure I am, that both among the agonies of mortal disease, and the terrors of the malefactor's cell, Christ may be offered, and the offer be

rather than the light, because their deeds are evil." They are at all times willing for the reward without the service. But they are not willing for the reward and the service together. The willingness for the one they always have. But the willingness for both they never have. They have it not to-day-and it is not the operation of time

that will put it in them to-morrow. Nor reigning and paramount principle of his will disease put it in. Nor will age put it in. Nor will the tokens of death put it in. Nor will the near and terrific view of eternity put it in.. It may call out into a livelier sensation than before, a willingness for the reward. But it will neither inspire a taste nor a willingness for the service. A distaste for God and godliness, as it was the

life, so may it be the reigning and paramount principle of his death-bed. As it envenomed every breath which he drew, so may it envenom his last-and the spirit going forth to the God who gave it, with all the enmity that it ever had, God will deal with it as with an enemy.

SERMON IV.

The Restlessness of human Ambition.

"How say ye to my soul, Flee as a bird to your mountain ?-O that I had the wings of a dove, that I may fly away, and be at rest."-Psalm xi. 1. and Iv.-6.

tions of the world-that you would like to
repose by yon beautiful rivulet, and soothe
every anxiety of your heart by the gentle-.
ness of its murmurs-that you would like
to transport yourself to the distance of miles,
and there enjoy the peace which resides in
some sweet and sheltered concealment? In
a word, was there no secret aspiration of the
soul for another place than what you actu-
ally occupied? Instead of resting in the
quiet enjoyment of your present situation,
did not your wishes wander abroad and
around you-and were not you ready to ex-
claim with the Psalmist in the text, "O that
I had the wings of a dove; for I would fly
to yonder mountain, and be at rest?"

To all those who are conversant in the | when the sun threw its unclouded splenscenery of external nature, it is evident, dours over a whole neighbourhood, did you that an object to be seen to the greatest ad- never form a wish that your place could be vantage must be placed at a certain distance transferred to some distant and more beaufrom the eye of the observer. The poor tiful part of the landscape? Did the idea man's hut, though all within be raggedness never rise in your fancy, that the people and disorder, and all around it be full of the who sport on yon sunny bank are happier most nauseous and disgusting spectacles-than yourself—that you would like to be yet, if seen at a sufficient distance, may ap-buried in that distant grove, and forget, for a pear a sweet and interesting cottage. That while, in silence and in solitude, the distracfield where the thistle grows, and the face of which is deformed by the wild exuberance of a rank and pernicious vegetation, may delight the eye of a distant spectator by the loveliness of its verdure. That lake, whose waters are corrupted, and whose banks poison the air by their marshy and putrid exhalations, may charm the eye of an enthusiast, who views it from an adjoining eminence, and dwells with rapture on the quietness of its surface, and on the beauty of its outline-its sweet border fringed with the gayest colouring of Nature, and on which spring lavishes its finest ornaments. All is the effect of distance. It softens the harsh and disgusting features of every object. What is gross and ordinary, it can dress in the most romantic attractions. The country hamlet it can transform into a paradise of beauty, in spite of the abominations that are at every door, and the angry brawlings of the men and the women who occupy it. All that is loathsome and offensive, is softened down by the power of distance. You see the smoke rising in fantastic wreaths through the pure air, and the village spire peeping from among the thick verdure of the trees, which embosom it. The fancy of our sentimentalist swells with pleasure, and peace and piety supply their delightful associations to complete the harmony of the picture.

This principle may serve to explain a feeling which some of you who now hear me may have experienced. On a fine day,

But what is of most importance to be observed is, that even when you have reached the mountain, rest is as far from you as ever. As you get nearer the wished-for spot, the fairy enchantments in which distance had arrayed it, gradually disappear; when you at last arrive at your object, the illusion is entirely dissipated; and you are grieved to find, that you have carried the same principle of restlessness and discontent along with you.

Now, what is true of a natural landscape, is also true of that moral landscape, which is presented to the eye of the mind when it contemplates human life, and casts a wide survey over the face of human society. The position which I myself occupy is seen and felt with all its disadvantages. Its vexations come home to my feelings with all the cer

tainty of experience. I see it before mine actual observation. What is present fills me eyes with a vision so near and intimate, as with disgust. What is distant allures me to admit of no colouring, and to preclude the to enterprise. I sigh for an office, the busiexercise of fancy. It is only in those situa-ness of which is more congenial to my temtions which are without me, where the prin- per. I fix mine eye on some-lofty eminence ciple of deception operates, and where the in the scale of preferment. I spurn at the vacancies of an imperfect experience are condition which I now occupy, and I look filled up by the power of imagination, ever around me and above me. The perpetual ready to summon the fairest forms of pure tendency is not to enjoy his actual position, and unmingled enjoyment. It is all resolva- but to get away from it-and not an indivible, as before, into the principle of distance. dual amongst us who does not every day of I am too far removed to see the smaller his life join in the aspiration of the Psalmist features of the object which I contemplate. "O that I had the wings of a dove, that Í I overlook the operation of those minuter may fly to yonder mountain, and be at causes, which expose every situation of hu- rest." man life to the inroads of misery and disappointment. Mine eye can only take in the broader outlines of the object before me, and it consigns to fancy the task of filling them up with its finest colouring.

But the truth is, that we never rest. The most regular and stationary being on the face of the earth, has something to look forward to, and something to aspire after. He must realize that sum to which he annexes the Am I unlearned? I feel the disgrace of idea of a competency. He must add that ignorance, and sigh for the name and the piece of ground which he thinks necessary distinctions of philosophy. Do I stand upon to complete the domain of which he is the a literary eminence? I feel the vexations of proprietor. He must secure that office which rivalship, and could almost renounce the confers so much honour and emolument splendours of my dear-bought reputation upon the holder. Even after every effort for the peace and shelter which insigni- of personal ambition is exhausted, he has ficance bestows. Am I poor? I riot in friends and children to provide for. The fancy upon the gratifications of luxury, and care of those who are to come after him, think how great I would be, if invested with lands him in a never-ending train of hopes, all the consequence of wealth and of pa- and wishes, and anxieties. O that I could tronage. Am I rich? I sicken at the de- gain the vote and the patronage of this hoceitful splendour which surrounds me, and nourable acquaintance-or, that I could seam at times tempted to think, that I would cure the political influence of that great man have been happier far, if, born to a humbler who honours me with an occasional call, station, I had been trained to the peace and and addressed me the other day with a corinnocence of poverty. Am I immersed in diality which was quite bewitching or that business? I repine at the fatigues of em- my young friend could succeed in his comployment, and envy the lot of those who petition for the lucrative vacancy to which have every hour at their disposal, and can I have been looking forward, for years, with spend all their time in the sweet relaxations all the eagerness which distance and uncerof amusement and society. Am I exempted tainty could inspire-or that we could fix from the necessity of exertion? I feel the the purposes of that capricious and unaccorroding anxieties of indolence, and at-countable wanderer, who, of late indeed has tempt in vain to escape that weariness and disgust which useful and regular occupation can alone save me from. Am I single? I feel the dreariness of solitude, and my fancy warms at the conception of a dear and domestic circle. Am I embroiled in the cares of a family? I am tormented with the perverseness or ingratitude of those around me; and sigh in all the bitterness of repentance, over the rash and irrecoverable step by which I have renounced for ever the charms of independence.

been very particular in his attentions, and whose connection we acknowledge, in secret, would be an honour and an advantage to our family-or, at all events, let me heap wealth and aggrandizement on that son, who is to be the representative of my name, and is to perpetuate that dynasty which I have had the glory of establishing.

This restless ambition is not peculiar to any one class of society. A court only offers to one's notice a more exalted theatre for the play of rivalship and political enThis, in fact, is the grand principle of hu- terprise. In the bosom of a cottage, you man ambition, and it serves to explain both may witness the operation of the very same its restlessness and its vanity. What is pre-principle, only directed to objects of greater sent is seen in all its minuteness, and we insignificance and though a place for my overlook not a single article in the train of girl, or an apprenticeship for my boy, be all little drawbacks, and difficulties and disap- that I aspire after, yet an enlightened obpointments. What is distant is seen under server of the human character will pera broad and general aspect, and the illu-ceive in it the same eagerness of competisions of fancy are substituted in those places tion, the same jealousy, the same malicious which we cannot fill up with the details of attempts to undermine the success of a more

of his past experience, and hurrying his
footsteps to some new object with the same
eagerness and rapidity as ever; compare the
ecstacy of hope with the lifelessness of pos-
session, and observe the whole history of
his day to be made up of one fatiguing race
of vanity, and restlessness, and disappoint-
ment;

"And, like the glittering of an idiot's toy,
Doth Fancy mock his vows."

likely pretender, the same busy train of pas- | pressing forward to some eminence which sions and anxieties which animate the ex-perpetually recedes away from him; see ertions of him who struggles for precedency the inexplicable being, as he runs in full in the cabinet, and lifts his ambitious eye to pursuit of some glittering bauble, and on the management of an empire. the moment he reaches it, throws it behind This is the universal property of our na-him, and it is forgotten; see him unmindful ture. In the whole circle of your experience, did you ever see a man sit down to the full enjoyment of the present, without a hope or a wish unsatisfied? Did he carry in his mind no reference to futurity-no longing of the soul after some remote or inaccessible object-no day-dream which played its enchantments around him, and which, even when accomplished, left him nothing more than the delirium of a momentary triumph? Did you never see him, after the bright illu- To complete the unaccountable history, sions of novelty were over-when the pre- let us look to its termination. Man is irresent object had lost its charm, and the dis-gular in his movements, but this does not tant begun to practise its allurements-when hinder the regularity of Nature. Time will some gay vision of futurity had hurried him not stand still to look at us. It moves at its on to a new enterprise, and in the fatigues own invariable pace. The winged moments of a restless ambition, he felt a bosom as fly in swift succession over us. The great oppressed with care, and a heart as anxious luminaries which are suspended on high, and dissatisfied as ever? perform their cycles in the heaven. The sun describes his circuit in the firmament, and the space of a few revolutions will bring every man among us to his destiny. The decree passes abroad against the poor child of infatuation. It meets him in the full career of hope and of enterprise. He sees the dark curtain of mortality falling upon the world, and upon all its interests. That busy, restless heart, so crowded with its plans, and feelings, and anticipations, forgets to play, and all its fluttering anxieties are hushed for ever.

This is the true, though the curious, and I had almost said, the farcical picture of human life. Look into the heart which is the seat of feeling, and you there perceive a perpetual tendency to enjoyment, but not enjoyment itself—the cheerfulness of hope, but not the happiness of actual possession. The present is but an instant of time. The moment you call it your own, it abandons you. It is not the actual sensation which occupies the mind. It is what is to come next. Man lives in futurity. The pleasurable feeling of the moment forms almost no part of his happiness. It is not the reality of to-day which interests his heart. It is the vision of to-morrow. It is the distant object on which fancy has thrown its deceitful splendour. When to-morrow comes, the animating hope is transformed into the dull and insipid reality. As the distant objeet draws near, it becomes cold and tasteless, and uninteresting. The only way in which the mind can support itself, is by re-sit down in the fulness of contentment, after curring to some new anticipation. This may give buoyancy for a time-but it will share the fate of all its predecessors, and be the addition of another folly to the wretched train of disappointments that have gone before it.

Where, then, is that resting-place which the Psalmist aspired after? What are we to mean by that mountain, that wilderness, to which he prayed that the wings of a dove may convey him, afar from the noise and distractions of the world, and hasten his escape from the windy storm, and the tempest? Is there no object, in the whole round of human enjoyment, which can give rest to the agitated spirit of man? Will he not

he has reached it, and bid a final adieu to the cares and fatigues of ambition? Is this longing of the mind a principle of his nature, which no gratification can extinguish? Must it condemn him to perpetual agitation, and to the wild impulses of an ambition which is never satisfied?

What a curious object of contemplation to a superior being, who casts an eye over We allow that exercise is the health of this lower world, and surveys the busy, the mind. It is better to engage in a trifling restless, and unceasing operations of the pursuit, if innocent, than to watch the mepeople who swarm upon its surface. Let lancholy progress of time, and drag out a him select any one individual amongst us, weary existence in all the languor of a conand confine his attention to him as a speci-suming indolence. But nobody will deny men of the whole. Let him pursue him that it is better still, if the pursuit in which through the intricate variety of his move- we are engaged be not a trifling one-if it ments, for he is never stationary; see him conducts to some lasting gratification-if it with his eye fixed upon some distant ob-leads to some object, the possession of ject, and struggling to arrive at it; see him which confers more happiness than the

mere prospect-if the mere pleasure of the Now, to find fault with man for the pleachase is not the only recompense-but sure which he derives from the mere exwhere, in addition to this, we secure some citement of a distant object, would be to reward proportioned to the fatigue of the find fault with the constitution of his nature. ¦ exercise, and that justifies the eagerness It is not the general principle of his activity with which we embarked in it. So long as which I condemn. It is the direction of the exercise is innocent, better do something that activity to a useless and unprofitable than be idle: but better still, when the object. The mere happiness of the pursuit something we do, leads to a valuable and does not supersede the choice of the object. important termination. Any thing rather Even though you were to keep religion out than the ignoble condition of that mind of sight altogether, and bring the conduct which feels the burden of itself—and which of man to the test of worldly principles, you knows not how to dispose of the weary still presuppose a ground of preference in hours that hang so oppressively upon it. the object. Why is the part of the sober But there is certainly a ground of preference and industrious tradesman preferred to that in the objects which invite us to exertion-of the dissipated gambler? Both feel the and better far to fix upon that object which delights of a mind fully occupied with leaves happiness and satisfaction behind it, something to excite and to animate. But than dissipate your vigour in a pursuit the exertions of the one lead to the safe enwhich terminates in nothing-and where joyment of a competency. The exertions the mere pleasure of occupation is the only of the other lead to an object which, at best, circumstance to recommend it. When we is precarious, and often land you in the hortalk of the vanity of ambition, we do not rors of poverty and disgrace. The mere propose to extinguish the principles of our pleasure of exertion is not enough to justify nature, but to give them a more useful and every kind of it: you must look forward to exalted direction. A state of hope and of the object and the termination-and it is activity is the element of man--and all that the judicious choice of the object which, we propose, is to withdraw his hopes from even in the estimation of worldly wisdom, the deceitful objects of fancy, and to engage forms the great point of distinction betwixt his activity in the pursuit of real and per- prudence and folly. Now, all that I ask of manent enjoyments. you, is to extend the application of the same principle to a life of religion. Compare the wisdom of the children of light, with the wisdom of a blind and worldly generation; the prudence of the Christian who labours for immortality, with the prudence of him

perishable ambition. Contrast the littleness of time, with the greatness of eternity-the restless and unsatisfying pleasures of the world, with the enjoyments of heaven, so pure, so substantial, so unfading-and tell me which plays the higher game-he, all whose anxiety is frittered away on the pursuits of a scene that is ever shifting, and ever transitory; or he, who contemplates the life of man in all its magnitude; who acts upon the wide and comprehensive survey of its interests, and takes into his estimate the mighty roll of innumerable ages.

Man must have an object to look forward to. Without this incitement the mind languishes. It is thrown out of its element, and, in this unnatural suspension of its powers, it feels a dreariness, and a discomfort, far more unsufferable than it ever ex-who labours for the objects of a vain and perienced from the visitations of a real or positive calamity. If such an object does not offer, he will create one for himself. The mere possession of wealth, and of all its enjoyments, will not satisfy him. Possession carries along with it the dulness of certainty, and to escape from this dulness, he will transform it into an uncertainty-he will embark it in a hazardous speculation, or he will stake it at the gaming-table; and from no other principle than that he may exchange the lifelessness of possession, for the animating sensations of hope and of enterprise. It is a paradox in the moral con- There is no resting-place to be found on stitution of man; but the experience of this side of time. It is the doctrine of the every day confirms it-that man follows Bible, and all experience loudly proclaims what he knows to be a delusion, with as it. I do not ask you to listen to the commuch eagerness, as if he were assured of its plaints of the poor, or the murmurs of the reality. Put the question to him, and he disappointed. Take your lesson from the will tell you, that if you were to lay before veriest favourite of fortune. See him placed him all the profits which his fancy antici- in a prouder eminence than he ever aspired pates, he would long as much as ever for after. See him arrayed in brighter colours some new speculation; or, in other words, than ever dazzled his early imagination. be as much dissatisfied as ever with the po- See him surrounded with all the homage sition which he actually occupies-and yet, that fame and flattery can bestow-and afwith his eye perfectly open to this circum-ter you have suffered this parading exterior stance, will he embark every power of his mind in the chase of what he knows to be a mockery and a phantom.

to practise its deceitfulness upon you, enter into his solitude-mark his busy, restless, dissatisfied eye, as it wanders uncertain on