3d, Endeavour to grow in goodness. Vanity will fubfide in proportion as love and good works increase and multiply. It is of the first and feeble acts of virtue a man is apt to boast; owing to felf-ignorance, and ignorance of the law of God, which is exceeding broad. As he grows in goodnefs, other fentiments will arife. "How manifold the evils "around me which excite compaffion! how "few of them can I remove or alleviate! how "inadequate to my powers have my exertions "hitherto been! I am grieved for miferies "beyond my help. I am humbled for ne"glecting what I might and ought to have "done." Thefe fentiments, which indeed are evidences of growth in grace, impel him to leave the things behind, and to prefs forward in the path of mercy and humility.

4th, Mingle devotion with alms. In our intercourfe with fellow-creatures, thoughts of vanity are apt to arife, but they difappear in the prefence of God. Come into his courts, and bring an offering with you. Your offering there is a memorial of gratitude, an expreffion of gratitude for favours received, an evidence of love to him who loved you. While divine mercy is celebrated in the affembly of the faints, they feel the pureft and the highest motives to be merciful. In the exercife of mercy, their fellowship is with the Father and with the Son.

5th, Look to the recompence of reward.

Your

Your Father, who feeth in fecret, fhall reward you openly. Sufpend and elevate your love of praife. Jefus will confefs you before his Father, and acknowledge your kindneffes to his brethren as done to himself. "In that "day, the prifoner and the afflicted, the poor "and the comfortlefs, the widow and the or

phan, who have been in every generation, "fhall rife up and acknowledge before the "general affembly of created beings, all who "fympathifed with them, and took them up, "and cared for them in this wilderness, will "plead in their behalf, and call them bleffed. "The Judge of all the earth will confirm the "bleffing, Come, ye blessed of my Father, in "herit the kingdom prepared for you.”

SERMON

VIII.

The Reputation of the Righteous.

By JAMES FINLAYSON, V. D. M. and Profeffor of Logic in the Univerfity of Edinburgh,

Preached at Borthwick, Dec. 23. 1787, being the first Sunday after the interment of the Right Honourable Robert Dundas of Arniston, Efq; Lord Prefident of the Court of Seffion.

PSALM cxii. 6.

The Righteous fhall be in everlasting remem

brance.

THE

HE defire of reputation is natural to man. It is a part of the focial conftitution which God has given us; and, when properly directed, has a powerful tendency to promote our moral perfection. By uniting the approbation of our brethren to the teftimony of our confcience, it heightens the reward of righte oufness, and imparts to virtue an energetic vigour, which enables her to defpife the allurements of indolence, to refift the tempta. tions of interest and of pleasure, and to guide

hen

her votary, through fcenes even of danger and death, to great and honourable conduct.

This principle, which has fo extenfive power in forming the character of men, is infeparable from their nature. It appears in the mind at a very early period, furnishing to the fkilful inftructor an important inftrument of difcipline and education. It feems to collect force as our faculties advance towards maturity. In a generous breaft it continues to burn with encreafing ardour through the whole of life: And though bafer minds, hardened by habitual guilt, may become lefs fenfible to its influence; yet, even in them, it cannot be totally extinguifhed. In the lowest stage of their degeneracy, they still retain some regard to the judgement of the world. They have still fome friends whofe opinion they refpect, fome affociates whofe contempt they are unwilling to provoke, fome eftimable qualities, on which they hope to build their fame, and to fecure a portion of applause.

But a portion of applaufe from our immediate neighbours will not fatisfy the ambition of our minds. We defire not the esteem of our cotemporaries alone. Extending our profpects through a wider fphere, we feek to be approved by the fpirits of the juft who adorned the ages that are paft; and look forward, with fond expectation, to the reverence that awaits us, after this mortal frame fhall have mouldered into duft. As if actuated

actuated by a prefage of our immortal deftination, and of the intereft which we shall yet take in future fcenes, we often difcover greater anxiety to fecure the applause of posterity, than of those who are our immediate fpectators in the bufinefs of life. How often has the patriot, trusting to the judgement of futurity, proceeded with his work of reformation, in oppofition to the combined prejudices of his cotemporaries, unable as yet to appretiate the reasons of his conduct? Even when he falls, in the caufe of freedom, a martyr to the ignorance or corruption of the times, how often do we see him fmiling on death with a generous triumph, looking forward through the infamy which now covers him to the approbation of a more enlightened age, and bleffing his enemies for their malevolence, which but confummates the glory of his virtue, and tranfmits his deathlefs fame with a fuperior luftre to the lateft generations.

But though the defire of reputation be natural to man, and though it operates with peculiar force in the nobleft minds; yet it is not to be followed as the guide of our conduct. In itself it is a blind impulse, and produces effects that are either good or bad, according to the direction which it receives. If it leads us to seek the esteem' of our brethren by methods which our confcience condemns, to court their applaufe by flattering their follies or their paffions, to cultivate only the accomplishments