which, when the debt of nature is paid, we are called upon to pay to each other.

If this fad occafion which leads him there, has not done it already, take notice, to what a ferious and devout frame of mind every man is reduced, the moment he enters this gate of affliction. The bufy and fluttering fpirits, which in the house of mirth were wont to transport him from one diverting object to another fee how they are fallen! how peaceably they are laid! In this gloomy manfion full of fhades and uncomforta ble damps to seize the foul-fee, the light and easy heart, which never knew what it was to think before, how penfive it is now, how foft, how fufceptible, how full of religious impreffions, how deeply it is fmitten with fenfe and with a love of virtue. Could we, in this crifis, whilft this empire of reafon and religion lafts, and the heart is thus exercifed with wifdom and bufied with heavenly contemplations-could we fee it naked as it is -ftripped of its paffions, unfpotted by

the world, and regardless of its pleafures-we might then fafely rest our cause upon this fingle evidence, and appeal to the most fenfual, whether Solomon has not made a just determination here, in favour of the house of mourning?-not for its own fake, but as it is fruitful in virtue, and becomes the occafion of fo much good. Without this end, forrow I own has no use but to fhorten a man's days-nor can gravity, with all its ftudied folemnity of look and carriage, ferve any end but to make one half of the world merry, and impofe upon the other.

Confider what has been said, and may God of his mercy blefs you! Amen.

SERMON III.

Philanthropy recommended.

LUKE X. 36, 37.

Which now of thefe three, thinkeft thou, was neighbour unto him that fell amongst the thieves?—And he said, He that fhewed mercy on him. Then faid Jefus unto him-Go, and do thou likewife.

IN

N the foregoing verfes of this chapter, the Evangelift relates, that a certain lawyer ftood up and tempted JESUS, faying, Mafter, what fhall I do to inherit eternal life?-To which enquiry our SAVIOUR, as his manner was, when any enfnaring question was put to him, which he faw proceeded more from a defign to entangle him, than an honest view of getting information-instead of giving a direct anfwer which might afford a handle to malice, or at best serve

only to gratify an impertinent humourhe immediately retorts the queftion upon the man who asked it, and unavoidably puts him upon the neceffity of answering himself; and, as in the prefent cafe, the particular profeffion of the enquirer, and his fuppofed general knowledge of all other branches of learning, left no room to fufpect he could be igno rant of the true anfwer to this question, and especially of what every one knew was delivered upon that head by their great Legislator, our SAVIOUR therefore refers him to his own memory of what he had found there in the course of his ftudies.-What is written in the law, how readeft thou?-Upon which the enquirer reciting the general heads of our duty to GOD and MAN, as delivered in the 18th of Leviticus and the 6th of Deuteronomy,-namelyThat we should worship the Lord our God with all our hearts, and love our neighbour as ourselves; our bleffed SAVIOUR tells him, he had answered right, and if he followed that leffon, he could not

fail of the bleffing he seemed defirous to inherit.-This do, and thou shalt

live.

But he, as the context tells us, willing to justify himfelf-willing poffibly to gain more credit in the conference, or hoping perhaps to hear fuch a partial and narrow definition of the word neighbour as would fuit his own principles, and juftify fome particular oppreffions of his own, or thofe of which his whole order lay under an accufationfays unto Jesus in the 29th verfeAnd who is my neighbour? Though the demand at first fight may feem utterly trifling, yet was it far from being fo in fact. For according as you understood the term in a more or less restrained fenfe -it produced many neceffary variations in the duties you owed from that relation. Our bleffed SAVIOUR, to rectify any partial and pernicious mistake in this matter, and to place at once this duty of the love of our neighbour upon its true bottom of philanthropy and univerfal kindness, makes anfwer to the propofed