to insult and outrage, to persecution and to destruction. That such a story should be false, or, if false, should make its way over such a portion of the habitable globe, does appear impossible to explain by human laws; yet such is the Christian story, and under such difficulties and such opposition did it spread and prevail. This is a short summary of those arguments by which the history of Christianity is proved, and upon these I will take the liberty to offer a few short observations. Of what a revelation discloses, the most material question to ask is this: "Was it of importance to mankind to know this, or to be better assured of it?" But when we turn our eyes to the great Christian doctrine of the resurrection, who can doubt what answer should be given to such a question? Are riches and honours, are any present gratifications opened to the senses, comparable to this? He who gives to us just grounds for believing that we are to live again, that the day of account and retribution will come, is to us that which blesses all other blessings, while it inspires higher and greater feelings than their united energy can impart.

Other articles of the Christian faith, although of infinite importance when placed beside any other topic of human inquiry, are only the adjuncts and circumstances of this; they are, however, such as appear quite worthy of the original to which we ascribe them. The morality of the religion, whether taken from the precepts or the example of its Founder, or from the lessons of its primitive teachers, is in all its parts wise and pure; neither adapted to vulgar prejudices, nor flattering popular notions, nor excusing established practices, but calculated in the matter of its instruction to promote happiness, and in the form to produce impression. Upon the greatest, therefore, of all possible occasions, it pleased the Deity to vouchsafe a miraculous attestation; having done this for the Christian religion, which alone could fix its authority in the beginning, he committed

to create.

its future progress to the natural means of human communication, and to the influence of those causes by which human conduct and affairs are governed. In fact, let the constant recurrence to our observation of contrivance and design once fix in our minds the belief of a God, and all is easy with regard to the evidence for the Christian religion: upon such a supposition it is not improbable there should be a future state; it is not improbable we should be acquainted with it, for a future state rectifies every thing; because, if we are made in the last state happy or miserable according to our merits, it matters not by what rule our stations are determined here; this hypothesis at once solves all those objections to the divine goodness which the promiscuous distribution of good and evil is apt on so many occasions This one truth changes the nature of things, gives order to confusion, and makes the moral and the natural world alike. Thus, then, we see that a future state, and the revelation of a future state, is not only perfectly consistent with the attributes of God, but when it is more, when it alone removes the appearances of injustice in the present distribution of good and evil,— when a strong body of historical evidence, confirmed by every inward evidence of truth, gives us just reason to believe that such a revelation hath been made,—it is no longer for us to enquire how this gift of eternal life can be given, how the dead are raised up, and with what manner of body they shall come: we ought to know that in the resources of creative wisdom, expedients cannot be wanted to carry into effect what God wills; either a new influence will descend upon the world to rouse extinguished consciousness, or secret provision is already made for conducting us through the necessary changes of being, to those final distinctions of happiness and misery, the dread of which compels the wicked man to cling to this world, and the hope of which enables the righteous to endure it.

SERMON XII.

ON ANXIETY IN WORLDLY MATTERS.

1 PETER, V. 7.

Casting all your care upon God, for he careth for you.

THESE expressions of the holy Apostle are intended to check the excessive anxiety of human beings for their worldly welfare, to inspire them with cheerfulness and confidence, and to teach them that after due care and attention the event must be left to God.

In conformity with this text, I shall endeavour on the present occasion to dissuade you against excessive anxiety in worldly matters, and to restrain that anxious presentiment of future evil within those limits in which it behoves a good Christian to take care it is retained.

The text says cast yourself upon God, meaning not before human exertions, but after them; not previously to the suggestions of prudence, not previously to the ardour of invention, not prior to the best exertions of your best faculties in the business of the world; but when you have planned, and thought, and guarded, and contrived, and done every thing which the degree of talent entrusted to you enables you to do, then avoid useless anxiety, then allay unprofitable perturbation: cast yourself upon God; believe that he careth for you; await in silent tranquillity, and with steady piety, events over which you have no further controul.

This excessive anxiety proceeds from want of due reflection on human life. The best method is to be

prepared before hand, to consider anxiety as the rule of life, and quiet as the exception to the rule; to be thankful to God, if you have no trials, but to remember you can hardly escape them; to impress upon your mind that this is not a state of ultimate fruition, but of Christian trial. You must not dream in this life that you are in peace; you must not think of delicacy and softness; you must not say Why am I roused? why am I alarmed? You stand with arms in your hand; hasty are your meals, broken is your sleep, loud and frequent your alarms. Age, poverty, and death, thunder round the camp of the Gospel. The soldiers of Jesus look not for rest in this life; seldom, seldom is it their lot; therefore, do not you, a sincere Christian, be cast down because your mind is ill at ease. Do you imagine because other men do not publish their sorrows in the street that they have no sorrows? One has lost a beloved child, another is doomed to misery and want, a third has met in the world with the basest ingratitude, and been wounded in his best affections; in some other among us the work of death is beginning, and he feels that his days are numbered. We are all fellow-mourners, all tenants in one vast hospital, we all contribute to that solemn sound of woe, which through the day and through the night is rising up from earth to heaven.

The truth which I wish to inculcate is, that you must not make a world of your own, and then quarrel with the world in which Christians are placed, because the ways of God do not resemble the ways of men. There is no such state in this world as regular tranquillity, and constant calmness. You should accustom yourselves to anxiety without repining, to uncertainty without impatience, to fear without despair. You should cast yourselves upon God, for he careth for

you.

There are two sorts of anxiety -the one sharpens a man's wit, the other depresses his spirit. Such anxiety as puts you upon the means of overcoming evil, which

H

increases invention and multiplies resources, such anxiety as this, leads to every valuable exertion; but the unchristian anxiety, the anxiety which savours nothing of the Gospel, which appears to argue a mistrust in Divine Providence, is that barren anxiety which leads to no end, which conduces to no good, which guards against no evil, which disturbs faculties instead of sharpening them, destroys resources instead of multiplying them, turns valuable activity into diseased irritability, and degrades Christian piety into abject fear. This is what our Saviour means when he tells us (as he often does tells us) not to give way too much to the cares of this world.

And then to what purpose this extreme solicitude? Is the order of the world changed by all your cares? The wind bloweth were it listeth; the great events of life have their course; the ship which in some distant climate carries the objects of your hopes and fears, is it more in danger, is it less in danger, because you stand listening to the winds, and say, Alas, for my brother! or, Alas, for my son? A man who is in the habit, the religious habit, of accounting with himself, if he suffer the martyrdom of anxiety, should be able to state for what useful purpose he suffers it, should be able to point out some probable increase of future happiness, from the hope of which, present happiness is well and wisely deferred: he will surely labour to correct those habits of mind which produce only useless misery, and generate an impious and distrustful melancholy without object and without end.

It is a common answer to say these arguments may be true, but such desponding views depend upon temperament, they cannot be controlled, they are out of our power. Nothing, however, is more common than to call long habit, and vicious indulgence, by the name of temperament and nature. If your reason is satisfied that you ought to cast your care upon God, that God