2. The love of God includes all affections due from man to Him, and resting in Him as their end, 172.

3. Affections may rest in God as their end, 172.

4. The subject is not an unreasonable one, 173.

5. Affections do rest in their ends without thought of further advantage, 173.

6. The happiness of a future life must be different from our interest here, 175.

7. There are some affections, the having which implies a love of them, 175.

8. We can conceive a creature absolutely good, and in proportion the object of love, 176.

9. A perfect human being would excite great love, and a great desire to be approved by him, 176.

10. The higher attributes any creature may have, especially if our peculiar guardian, the more necessarily will he be the object of affection, 178.

11. The same qualities in God must excite similar affections, 179.

12. Religion does not demand new affections, but only the direction of those we now feel, 181.

13. Love of God does not imply forgetting our own interests, but our love to Him is increased by His benefits to us, 182.

14. God, though one, may be the Object of several and varying affections, 182.

SERMON XIV.

15. Religious affections are peculiarly suitable to our mortal state, 184.

16. Resignation to the Divine Will is the general temper becoming our state, 184.

17. The principle of resignation is natural in man, 185. 18. It would add to our happiness, 186.

19. Religious resignation is the natural consequence of our having a just conception of Almighty God, 187.

20. Devotion is this temper exerted in act, 187.

21. What will it be to see face to face, and know as we are known? 188.

22. If a man reflects he will be conscious of a want, 189. 23. The amusements of the world cannot satisfy this want, 189.

24. There is a possibility of something to supply it, 190. 25. God may be this supply of the capacities of our nature, 190.

26. We shall have capacities of happiness after death, 191. 27. Order, harmony, proportion, and rectitude do give us pleasure, 191.

28. An infinite Being Himself must be a higher object to the understanding than the things He has made, 192.

29. As the skill of the artificer is a higher thing than his work, 193.

30. Perfect goodness would leave nothing to be desired, 193.

31. The presence of a friend is the highest enjoyment, what must be the full perception of God's presence? 194. 32. The Scripture represents the happiness of the future state as seeing and knowing God, 195.

33. If a man feel that God alone is the adequate supply of his longings, the words of the Psalms will be the natural utterance of his feelings, 195.]

SERMON XV.

UPON THE IGNORANCE OF MAN.

Eccles. viii. 16, 17.—When I applied mine heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done upon the earth: then I beheld all the work of God, that a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun: because though a man labour to seek it out, yet he shall not find it; yea farther, though a wise man think to know it, yet shall he not be able to find it.

[1. The character and conclusions of Solomon's writings, 197.

2. 1. The ignorance of man, 198.

3. II. The consequences of knowing his ignorance, 198. 4. I. Creation is beyond our comprehension, 198.

5. The government of the world is equally imperfectly known, 199.

6. We have not faculties for the whole scheme of Providence, 200

7. Some things may be purposely hidden from us, 201.

8. Ignorance is in a manner necessary to a state of probation, 201.

9. Our knowledge is adapted to our business in the world, and to nothing beyond, 203.

10. II. The consequences of knowing our ignorance, 203. 11. 1. We must expect to find difficulties, 203.

12. We must be content with any real evidence, whatever its amount, 204.

13. 2. It answers the objections to religion from apparent evils and irregularities, 204.

Note. In a system its perfection depends upon the reference of the parts to its end, 205.

b. Right appearances evidently intended, wrong appearances probably not.

14. 3. We should apply our minds to what is our proper business and concern, and not to the mere acquiring of knowledge, 206.

15. Virtue and Religion, Life and Manners are our province, 207.

16. 4. That we should adore the infinite wisdom, power, and goodness, which is above our comprehension, 209.

17. And be lowly in regard to our ownselves, 209.]

"For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office; so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another."-ROм. xii. 4, 5.

HE Epistles in the New Testament have all of them a particular reference to the condition and usages of the Christian world at the time they were written. Therefore, as they cannot be thoroughly understood, unless that condition and those usages are known and attended to, so further, though they be known, yet if they be discontinued or changed, exhortations, precepts, and illustrations of things, which refer to such circumstances now ceased or altered, cannot at this time be urged in that manner and with that force which they were to the primitive Christians. Thus the text now before us, in its first intent and design, relates to the decent management of those extraordinary gifts which were then in the Church,1 but 1 I Cor. xii.

B

which are now totally ceased. And even as to the allusion that we are one body in Christ, though what the Apostle here intends is equally true of Christians in all circumstances, and the consideration of it is plainly still an additional motive, over and above moral considerations, to the discharge of the several duties and offices of a Christian-yet it is manifest this allusion must have appeared with much greater force to those who, by the many difficulties they went through for the sake of their religion, were led to keep always in view the relation they stood in to their Saviour, who had undergone the same; to those who, from the idolatries of all around them, and their ill-treatment, were taught to consider themselves as not of the world in which they lived, but as a distinct society of themselves, with laws and ends, and principles of life and action, quite contrary to those which the world professed themselves at that time influenced by. Hence the relation of a Christian was by them considered as nearer than that of affinity and blood, and they almost literally esteemed themselves as members one of another.

It cannot indeed possibly be denied, that our being God's creatures, and virtue being the natural law we are born under, and the whole constitution of man being plainly adapted to it, are prior obligations to piety and virtue, than the consideration that God sent his Son into the world to save it, and the motives which arise from the peculiar relation of Christians, as members one of another under Christ our head. However, though all this be allowed, as it expressly is by the inspired writers, yet it is manifest that Christians, at the time of the revelation and immediately after, could not but insist mostly upon considerations of this latter kind.