by increasing the anger of the contending parties nothing, indeed, can justify or extenuate a shameful habit, wantonly contracted, and impiously indulged.

Stop then, unhappy christians, the course of a practice so pernicious to yourselves, so scandalous to your neighbour, so offensive to God. Consider the injury that is offered to the harmony of civil society, and the union of domestic life, by a vice which is at once the seed and the fruit of dissension, the parent and child of strife, and which makes the earth resemble that dreadful abode of misery, where resound continual curses, execrations, and blasphemies. Let the dread of the evils which await those who profane the name of the Lord, and with impious presumption and wild fury hurl the thunders of God's vengeance on themselves and their fellow creatures, make impression on you. Beware of the consequences of unrestrained anger, which often produces injuries, curses, blows, and murder. Behold, (says St. James iii. 5.) how small a fire, yet how great a wood it kindleth; and the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity...It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison: by it we bless God and the Father, and by it we curse men, who are made after the likeness of God. My brethren, (continues the apostle) these things ought not so to

be! no, my friends, indeed, things ought no so to be! therefore if you have been so unfortunate as to yield to the slavery of this dreadful vice, think no exertion too great, no labour too difficult, which may emancipate you from its oppressive tyranny. Let the tongue which was given you to praise and bless the Lord, both here and for ever, be directed henceforth to that noble, that delightful end let a constant vigilance guard your lips, that no profane, no licentious word escape from them: pray to God to inspire you with a due respect for his tremendous majesty, to inflame your hearts with his divine love, to fill your understanding with a just sense of his sacred presence, and to give you his gracious aid, without which all your endeavours must prove ineffectual; that humbling yourselves before him, and acknowledging your total dependance upon him, you may be grateful for all his mercies, and may bless and magnify his holy name for ever and ever.

SERMON XXXVIII.

SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST.

ON THE OBLIGATIONS INCUMBENT ON CHRISTIANS.

Dead indeed to sin, but alive to God, in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom. vi. 11.)

THE epistle which I have read to you from St. Paul's to the Romans, calls to your recollection, the obligations which you took on yourselves, when you received the grace of God, in the sacrament of baptism. It was written to the faithful of the Church of Rome; and having in the preceding chapters of the epistle, instructed them in the dogmata of faith, the apostle enters upon the subject of their moral conduct, endeavours to inspire them with a lively horror of sin, and strongly urges them to lead lives worthy of Jesus Christ, whose faith they had embraced, and in whose name they had been baptized. Having established on solid grounds the necessity of faith, by

which Abraham was justified, and his good works rendered meritorious; by which too the Gentiles were adopted children of God, and called to partake in the inheritance of his kingdom; he immediately informs them respecting the duties which their christian calling imposes upon them; that the old man must be crucified with Christ, that the body of sin must be destroyed, and that as Christ rose again from the dead, so they must walk in newness of life. If then, my brethren, we who have been baptized, were baptized in his death, we were buried with him in baptism, that we might die unto sin. It greatly imports us to consider well our obligations, incumbent upon us as Christians, if we have really embraced the faith of Christ, if we really entertain a hope of obtaining in him and through him, everlasting life. Let us make a few reflections on what the apostle has generally insisted upon in this short lesson: let us discover what is required of us in order that we may be dead to sin, and alive unto God in Jesus Christ our Lord.

My brethren, such is the grace received in baptism, so great, in a spiritual point of view are its consequences, so valuable the privileges which it confers, that we ought daily to pour out our souls in acts of thanksgiving to the Lord, who gave us this second birth, by cleans

ing us from all defilement of sin. But we' ought to remember that we then made the most solemn promises to God, before his holy altar, in the presence of the host of heaven, who witnessed our engagement: we then promised to die to sin, to hold it in everlasting horror, and to shun it more than death: we renounced every kind of sin, without exception of any; and we renounced it in every situation and circumstance of life: we promised to die to sin, knowing that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin may be destroyed, and that we may serve sin no longer. (Rom. vi. 6.) Christ has died but once, death hath no more dominion over him; in like manner the body of sin should be wholly destroyed in us, and all iniquity be renounced for ever. For this did your sponsors in the sacrament of baptism, stand forward, and in your name declare that you embraced the faith and law of Christ; while the minister of God informed you that in order to enter into life, you must keep the commandments. Remember, says St. Ambrose, the answer you then made: you renounced the devil and his works, the world, its pomps, and pleasures; and heaven witnessed your promises. How have we fulfilled our engagements? Alas! have we not violated these baptismal vows? are we not, as if we had dedicated ourselves to the