and honours; they lay God afide, they remove heaven out of our thoughts, they banifh truth out of our mouths, they throw justice from our hearts, they cut off the sinews of faith, they extinguish every spark of love, they fill our minds with covetousness, and our tongues with guile, and teach our lips to utter lies; they kindle a thirst in us after other mens goods; they anoint our hands with the sweat of the poor; they pave our way with frauds and deceits. In the mean time, notwithstanding all this, the world will admire a fool if he be rich; or, however, he will blefs and admire himfelf.Whereas the life of true religion is on the contrary: The life of religion is a thing unfeen, unknown, obfcure, and nothing popular; for our life is hid with Chrift in God. Religion doth not fhine and glitter in the world; it doth not walk in filks, nor rattle in coaches, nor prefent it felf to be admired. and gazed on in the ftreets. It doth not prefer and advance, ennoble and elevate a man in this world; no, nor doth it speak vehemently even in its religious fervices, nor is loud and clamorous in prayer, nor is it cried up for zeal and godliness: But it is a filent,

filent, humble, hidden thing, that dwells at home, that prays in the closet, that fighs within its own breaft, that lives hard and low, mean and obfcure, teacheth a man how to eat bread, and drink water, and to give God thanks: And hence it comes to pass, that it is mean and ignoble, little and despised in the eye of the world.

THUS you have feen, how it comes to pass that we are estranged from the life of godliness:

1. We are engaged by our bodily fenfes early and betimes, in the morning of our lives.

2. We live beyond and befides the meafure and degrees of God's promifes.

3. We are not often fenfible of the neceffity of regarding future things, because we rejoice in the sufficiency of the present.

4. Religion engageth us in conflicts and difficulties, in ftrife and battle against our felves: And,

Laftly, We are imposed upon by the guise of the world, where we fee men labouring with all their might for fecular things, fuccefsful

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cefsful oftentimes in that labour, and valued for that fuccefs.

THEREFORE, in the conclufion of the whole, let us take care, that worldly glory may not dazzle our eyes, that worldly eafe may not charm our hearts, to a forgetfulness of God, of heaven, and of our felves; that we may not value the things that are feen; for the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal.

SERMON XIII.

Of the Friendship of Christ.

[From Dr. SouтH's fecond volume.]

JOHN XV. 15.

Henceforth I call you not fervants; for the Servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: But I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father, have I made known unto you.

WE have here an account of Christ's friendship to his disciples; that is, we have the best of things, represented in the greatest of examples. In others we see the excellency, but in Chrift the divinity of friendship. By our baptifm and church communion we are made one body with Chrift; but by this we become one foul.

Love is the greatest of human affections, and friendship is the noblest and most refined improvement of love; a quality of the largest compass. And it is here admirable to obferve, the gradual afcent of the love, P 3 which

which Christ did bear to his disciples. The amazing greatnefs of which will appear, from those several degrees of kindness that it hath manifefted to man, in the several periods of his condition. As,

Firft, If we confider man antecedently to his creation; while he yet lay in a state of non-existence; and confequently could have nothing to recommend him to Chrift's love, nor fhew any thing lovely, but what he fhould afterwards receive from the goodness of an almighty Creator. Yet even then did the love of Chrift begin to work, in purpofing to create a being endowed with the perfections given to mankind.

Next, let us confider the love of Chrift, as directing it self to man actually created, and brought into the world; and fo, all thofe glorious endowments of human nature, in its original ftate and innocence, were fo many demonftrations of the munificent goodness of him, by whom God first made, as well as afterwards redeemed the world. He was created with a noble and clear understanding, a rightly disposed will, and a train of affections regular, and obedient, and perfectly conformable to the dictates of