when they receive the visit of charity, are temples, upos which the object of worship looks down with more complacency, than upon any other temples. The sphere of usefulness is the chief church of man: this is the most "holy place:" the "holy of holies:" the most sacred court in the temple of God: those that minister here are the highest priests, whose office has most sanctity in his sight. Devotedness to society is the truest dedication to God. Generous offices are the noblest sort of religious exercises. He that teaches the sighing "heart to sing for joy," awakes the harp which best befits the fingers of devotion. He that tunes this animated instrument, he that raises this holy hymu, he that sends up this sacred music, he is the psalmist that, in the ear of heaven, excels all others in sweetness. Whoever wipes another's tear, lifts another's head, binds another's heart; performs religion's most beautiful rite, most decent and most handsome ceremony. To go on an errand of mercy, is to set out on the only holy pilgrimage.

All other worship, with whatever height of solemnity, with whatever sublimity of circumstance, with whatever comeliness of form, it be accompanied, considered independently of this, and as terminating in itself, contains no degree of recommendation to the divine being. All the voices of assembled mankind, joined together in a chorus of praise to God; all the musical instruments in the world, united in a sacred concert; all knees of all the nations, bent together before the throne of high heaven; this sort of praise, ascending from all the earth at once, in itself considered, would yield no satisfaction to the object of worship, any more than all the frankincense of the earth, ascending in one cloud to heaven, or all the fruits of the earth, presented upon one spacious altar-but peace prevailing among all nations; equity reigning all around the globe; all mankind concurring to promote the general good, and dwelling in fraternal amity together; this social order, this moral harmony, this concord of faculties, this music of minds, were an anthem that would enter the ear of him who " is a spirit:" of him who hearkens to the silver chime of the spheres, and who set the silent harmonies of nature.

II. Instance of self-deception.

Ax instance in which the heart of man discovers its deceitful character towards himself, is seen in the friendly veil, with which it covers from his eye the vice of those actions, when committed by himself, of which, when exhibited to his view in the conduct of others, the vice is sufficiently obvious to him, and which, as he then examines without fear, he censures without mercy. The very same sort of criminal actions, differing in circumstance, but perfectly agreeing in spirit, wear very different colours, when presented to us in the practice of others, and in our own.

Hark, how loudly that man complains of oppression in the rulers of his country! With all the vehemence of political enthusiasm, he harangues upon the holiness of liberty, and the sacrilege of them that dare to invade it. Follow him to his own house. Behold him acting the tyrant there; setting his foot upon the neck of his fa mily; causing the domestic circle to fear and tremble before him; pushing paternal authority into oppression; invading the filial rights; exacting a slavish submission to his will, from minds mature in reason, upon points, on which to that reason alone their obedience belongs. Of them that tread down a people, he can clearly discern, and heartily execrate, the turpitude; but in this conduct of his own, the domestic despot sees nothing to censure.— Another is vehement in his imputation of guilt to them, that break into his house, or infest his roads, who is guilty of the equally glaring, though the more elegant injustice, the more modish dishonesty, and politer robhery, of exposing at the table of chance, or squandering in the house of feasting, the provision of an impoverished family, and the property of defrauded industry.-Many who omit innumerable opportunities of doing good, which though they are poor, are presented to them, (for silver and gold are far from comprising all the good. which is to be given and received by human creatures,) are yet eager to upbraid, and bitter in their accusation of the opulent and powerful, for omissions of munificence and protection; for feeding so few of the hungry; for cloathing so small a number of the naked; for defending no more that are oppressed.--The poor man that steals

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his purse, is pronounced a villain by him, who, in the circles of the rich, delights to defame, and who, without calling himself by any such name, or viewing himself in such light, allows himself to commit robbery after robbery upon that reputation, which "not enriches him" and leaves the object of this moral rapacity poor in. deed.”—Thousands declaim upon the impiety of the self-destroyer, and call the ground accursed where he lies, who are themselves chargeable with the slower, but sufficiently speedy suicide of intemperance. A violent and tragical termination to their days, they are not tempted to make. They have no inducement to so dreadful a deed. They labour under no depression of spirit; their situations are pleasant and gay; their history glides along in a smooth stream, and all things smile upon them. But that kind of untimely termination to life, which they are tempted, they consent to put to it.-In lifting to their lips the cup of daily excess, they drink down poison, as fatally efficacious, in the end, as that which works in the veins with more expedition. The nocturnal riot, and irregular rest, are as deadly, though not so striking and so instantaneous, in their operations, as the point of that steel, as the explosion of that tube, which brought his wretched existence to a close, whose gored bosom, or whose shattered brow, excited the shudder of horror in every spectator of his remains, and calls the blush of shame into the face of his family.They that shatter their constitution, and shorten their life, by sensual excess, are distinguished from them, to whose self-dismission from the world the laws have re fused the rights of Christian interment, and of whose act the tender interpretation of mercy is loss of reason, only by doing the same thing from a gayer motive, and by being a little longer in doing it. Allow me to add, by how many, is the murderer of another regarded as a monster, by how many, would every exertion in their power be made to deliver him into the hands of justice, who have themselves the heart, to seduce youth from that innocence and virtue, without which life is of no value; to put that soul to death, in which resides, to which is confined, that likeness of God, from the cousi deration of which the Jewish law-giver deduces the peculiar enormity of shedding the blood of man; to murder peace of mind: to occasion the death of honour; and

by means of that cruel stab, by the same barbarous stroke, to plunge a dagger into parental tenderness, and bring the grey hairs with sorrow to the grave! Strange force of self-deception! that he who stains himself with this slaughter of happiness and of honour, this havoc of all that is dear to human nature, should be able to conceive, that the man who spills the current that flows through the veins of the human body, has fouler spots upon his hand than he!

But so it is, and so it ever was. The very same thing in ourselves, which we condemn in another, we look upon with an indulgent eye. The smallest difference in the situation, in the application of precisely the same practice, is sufficient to enable self-love to see in it a totally different thing. David's anger was greatly kindled against his own cruelty, when presented to him as the action of another, and in another situation. He did not

perceive that the fable required only a change of circum stance, to be a literal narrative of what he had acted himself. He did not know himself, when he met himself, upon allegorical ground; though it was his exact image that met him there. He did not see his own shape in the shadow, that with the most perfect fidelity defined it.— There has ever been need of an expositor, to tell the spectator of himself in the criminal conduct of another, that it is himself he is looking at. The monitor that would shew, upon moral canvass, to him whose character is misshapen and unseemly, what manner of man he is, will find his lines, however true, his colours, however faithful, to the figure and complexion he copies, insufficient to explain to him the person that is meant. ever striking the likeness may be, the painter must put the name at the bottom of the portrait, or the original will not know it. The rebuke of Nathan's pencil was unfelt, until underneath the picture, strong as it was, he had written David.

How

III. On the omnipresence of God.

OMNIPRESENCE is an attribute which it is not possible for us to contemplate without the utmost amazement. We know not how to stretch out our minds to take in

the big idea of a being, who spreads himself over immentsity; who is present, at every instant, in every place.

The presence of man is confined to a little room; nor are his faculties able to fill even that at once, but are under a necessity of pervading it by successive steps of attention. He is obliged to move, and is long in moving, from one place to another; and the utmost extent of the space which it is possible for him to traverse at all, is but a speck in the vast universe around him. Although his invention has invoked the winds to waft him over the seas; although he has employed mechanical powers, and appropriated the speed of swifter feet than his own, to lend him wings on the land; yet he is a long time in passing over a little tract of this little ball: and the year revolves, and repeats its revolution, before his voyage round is completed.-How little do we look, how low should we lie, before that amazing being, whose presence, through every moment of time, occupies every point of space! who is present, at all times, in all places, in the fullest exercise of all his perfections! who perceives, with one simple attention, every side of every object; every atom of every body; every thought of every breast! who performs, with one single energy, all the countless operations that take place in the whole compass of na. ture; all the unnumbered motions that thicken through. out the unbounded and complicated machine of univer. sal government!

God is every where present as the object of worship. His presence is not confined to the temple. His attention is not limited to the great congregation. He dwells In every house; in every closet; in every heart. He hears every domestic address; every secret prayer; every silent meditation of him.

God is present every where, as the conductor of all things. The omnipresence of the almighty ruler quali fies him for the most perfect and equitable dispensations towards all the innumerable multitude of his subjects; and leads us to see, in the strongest light, how exactly executed, as well as wisely contrived, every part of the. great plan of providence must necessarily be.

God is present in all places as the witness of moral conduct. The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good." "There is no dark