and consume it in spiritual burnt-offering. Sacrifice to him the infernal pleasure of slander. Sacrifice to him the brutal passions, that enslave your senses. Sacrifice to him that avarice, which gnaws and devours you. Sacrifice to him that pride, and presumption, which swell a mortal into imaginary consequence, disguise him from himself, make him forget his original dust, and hide from his eyes his future putrefaction.

But also sacrifice your good things to God. You have genius. Dedicate it to God. Employ it in meditating on his oracles, in rectifying your own ideas, and in diffusing through the world by your conversation and writing the knowledge of this adorable Being. You have the art of insinuating your opinions into the minds of men. Devote it to God, use it to undeceive your acquaintances, to open their eyes, and to inspire them with inclinations more worthy of immortal souls, than those which usually govern them. You have credit. Dedicate it to God, strive against your own indolence, surmount the obstacles, that surround you, open your doors to widows and orphans, who wish for your protection. You have a fortune. Devote it to God, use it for the succor of indigent families, employ it for the relief of the sick, who languish friendless on beds of infirmity, let it help forward the lawful desires of them, who hungering and thirsting for righteousness, wander in the deserts of Hermon, and pour out these complaints on the hill Mizar, As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God! My soul thirsteth for God, Psal. xlii. 6, 1, &c. My flesh crieth out for thine altars, O Lord of hosts, my king, and my God, Psal. lxxxiv. 2. 3.

Having observed the nature of that offering, which God requires of you, consider next the ne

cessity of it. I will not load this article with a multitude of proofs. I will not repeat the numerous declarations, that the inspired writers have made on this subject. I will neither insist on this of Samuel, To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams, 1 Sam. xv. 22. Nor on this of the psalmist, Unto the wicked, God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth seeing thou hatest instruction? Psal. 1. 16, 17. The sacri fices of God are a broken spirit, Psal. li. 17. Nor on this of Isaiah, To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me, saith the Lord? I am full of the burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes, chap. i. 11. 16. Nor on this of Jere-. miah, Put your burnt-offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh. But I commanded not your fathers, in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings, or sacrifices: but this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and trust not in lying words, saying, The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these. Behold ye trust in lying words. Do not steal, Do no murder, Do not commit adultery, chap. vii. 21-23, 4. 9. Nor will I insist on many other declarations of this kind, with which scripture abounds: I have no need of any other testimony than that of your own consciences.

To what purpose do you attend public worship in a church consecrated to the service of Almighty God, if you refuse to make your bodies temples of the holy Ghost, and persist in devoting them to impurity? To what purpose do you hear sermons, if, as soon as the preacher has finished, you forget all the duties, that he has recommended? To what purpose do you spread your miseries in prayer be

fore God, while you neglect all the means, by which he has promised to relieve them? To what purpose do you approach the table of the Lord, if, a few days after you have partaken of the sacred elements, you violate all your vows, break all your promises, and forget the solemn adjurations, which you made there? To what purpose do you send for your ministers, when death seems to be approaching, if, as soon as you recover from sickness, you return to the same kind of life, the remembrance of which caused you so much horror, when you were sick, and afraid of death?

The sacrifice required of us is difficult, say you. I grant it, my brethren, accordingly, far from pretending to conceal it, I make one article of the difficulties and pains that accompany it. How extremely difficult, when our reputation and honor are attacked, when our fidelity, our morals, our conversation, our very intentions are misinterpreted, and slandered; how extremely difficult, when we are persecuted and oppressed by cruel and unjust enemies; how hard is it to practise the laws of religion, which require us to pardon injuries, and to exercise patience and mercy to our enemies! How difficult is it to imitate the example of Jesus Christ, who, when he hung on the cross, prayed for them who nailed him there; how hard is it thus to sacrifice to God our resentment and vengeance! How difficult is it to sacrifice unjust gains to God, by restoring them to their owners; how hard to retrench expences, which we cannot honestly support, to reform a table, that gratifies the senses, to diminish the number of our attendants, which does us honor, to lay aside equipages, that surround us with pomp, and to reduce our expences to our incomes! How difficult is it, when all our wishes are united in the gratification of a favorite passion, O!

how hard is it to free one's self from its dominion! How difficult is it to eradicate an old criminal habit, to reform, and to renew one's self, to form, as it were, a different constitution, to create other eyes, other ears, another body! How hard is it, when death approacheth, to bid the world farewell for ever, for ever to part from friends, parents and children! In general, how difficult is it, to surmount that world of obstacles, which oppose us in our path to eternal happiness, to devote one's self entirely to God in a world, where all the objects of our senses seem to conspire to detach us from him!

But, is this sacrifice the less necessary, because it is difficult? Do the disagreeables and difficulties, which accompany it, invalidate the necessity of it? Let us add something of the comforts that belong to it, they will soften the yoke that religion puts upon us, and encourage us in our arduous pursuit of immortal joy. Look, reckon, multiply, as long as you will, the hardships, and pains of this sacrifice, they can never equal the pleasures and rewards of it.

What delight, after we have labored hard at the reduction of our passions, and the reformation of our hearts; what delight, after we have striven, or, to use the language of Jesus Christ, after we have been in an agony, in endeavoring to resist the torrent, and to survive, if possible, the dreadful storm that involves the christian in his passage; what delight to find, that heaven crowns our wishes with success !

What delight, when, on examining conscience preparatory to the Lord's supper, a man is able to say to himself, "Once I was a sordid, selfish wretch; now my happiness is to assist my neighbor. Formerly, my thoughts were dissipated in prayer, my devotions were interrupted by wordly

objects, of which the whole capacity of my soul was full; now, I am enabled to collect my thoughts in my closet, and to fix them on that God, in communion with whom I pass the happiest hours of my life. Once, I relished nothing but the world and its pleasures; now, my soul breathes only piety and religion." What high satisfaction, when old age arrives, when our days are passing swifter than a weaver's shuttle, to be able to give a good account of our conduct, and, while the last moments fly, to fill them with the remembrance of a life well spent! When our sins present themselves before us in all their enormity; when we find ourselves in the situation mentioned by the psalmist, My sin is ever before me, Psal. li. 3. the image of bloody Uriah haunts me every where, then how happy to be enabled to say, "I have wept for these sins, in the bitterness of penitence I have lost the remembrance of pleasure in sin; and I trust, by the grace of God, I am guarded against future attacks from them."

Such are the pleasures of this sacrifice: but what are its rewards? Let us only try to form an idea of the manner in which God gives himself to a soul, that devotes itself wholly to him. Ah! if we love him, is it not because he first loved us? Alas! to what degree soever we elevate our love to him, it is nothing in comparison of his love to us! What shall I say to you, my brethren on the love of God to us? What shall I say of the blessings, which he pours on these states, and on the individuals who compose them, of the restoration of peace, the confirmation of your liberties, the preservation of your lives, the long-suffering, that he exercises towards your souls? Above all, what shall I say concerning that great mystery, the anniversary of which the church invites you to celebrate the next