futile tributes of regret; but take warning by the bitterness of this thy contrite affliction over the dead, and henceforth be more faithful and affectionate in the discharge of thy duties to the living.

A

NEGLECT OF WARNINGS.

[DR. PALEY.]

SERIOUS man hardly ever passes a day, never

a week, without meeting with some warning to his conscience; without something to call to his mind his situation with respect to his future life. And these warnings, as doubtless was proper, come the more thickly upon us, the further we advance in life. The dropping into the grave of our acquaintance, and friends, and relations, what can be better calculated, not to prove, for we do not want the point to be proved,—but to possess our hearts with a complete sense and perception of the extreme peril and hourly precariousness of our condition; namely, to teach this momentous lesson, that when we preach to you concerning heaven and hell, we are not preaching concerning things at a distance, things remote, things long before they come to pass; but concerning things near, soon to be decided, in a very short time to be fixed one way or the other? This is a truth of which we are warned by the course of mortality; yet with this truth confessed, with these warnings before us, we venture upon sin. But it

will be said, that the events which ought to warn us are out of our mind at the time. This, however, is not so. Were it that these things came to pass in the wide world only at large, it might be that we should seldom hear of them, or soon forget them. But the events take place where we ourselves are, within our own doors, in our own families; amongst those with whom we have the most constant correspondence, the closest intimacy, the strictest connection. It is impossible to say that such events can be out of our mind; nor is it the fact. The fact is, that, knowing them, we act in defiance of them; which is the neglect of warnings in the worst sense possible. It aggravates the daringness; it aggravates the desperateness of sin; but it is so nevertheless. Supposing these warnings to be sent by Providence, or that we believe, and have reason to believe, and ought to believe, that they are so sent, then the aggravation is very great.

We have warnings of every kind. Even youth itself is continually warned, that there is no reliance to be placed either on strength or constitution or early age that, if they count upon life as a thing to be reckoned secure for a considerable number of years, they calculate most falsely; and if they act upon this calculation, by allowing themselves in the sins which are incidental to their years, under a notion that it will be long before they shall have to answer for them, and before that time come they shall have abundant season for repenting and amending:—if they suffer such arguments to enter into their minds, and act upon them, then are they guilty

of neglecting God in his warnings. They not only err in point of just reasoning, but they neglect the warnings which God has expressly set before them. Or, if they take upon themselves to consider religion as a thing not made or calculated for them; as much too serious for their years; as made and intended for the old and the dying; at least as what is unnecessary to be entered upon at present; as what may be postponed to a more suitable time of life; whenever they think thus, they think very presumptuously. They are justly chargeable with neglected warnings. And what is the event? These postponers never enter upon religion at all, in earnest or effectually. That is the end and the event of the matter. To account for this, shall we say, that they have so offended God by neglecting his warnings, as to have forfeited his grace? Certainly we may say that this is not the method of obtaining his grace, and that his grace is necessary to our conversion. The neglecting of warnings is not the way to obtain God's grace; and God's grace is necessary to conversion. The young, I repeat, want not warnings. Is it new? Is it unheard of? Is it not, on the contrary, the intelligence of every week, the experience of every neighbourhood, that young men and young women are cut off? Man is, in every sense, a flower of the field. The flower is liable to be cut down in its bloom and perfection, as well as in its withering and its decay. So is man; and one probable cause of this ordination of Providence is, that no one of every age may be so confident of life as to allow himself to transgress God's laws: that all of every age may live in constant awe of their Maker.

PREPARATION FOR HEAVEN.

[DR. KAYE, BISHOP OF LINCOLN.]

HE representation which the Scriptures give

THE

us of our present life is, that it is merely a passage to another state of being, in which we shall exist for ever. We ought therefore to confess ourselves strangers and pilgrims on the earth, and to declare plainly, in the whole of our conduct, that we seek a better, that is, a heavenly country. The most important duties which a man has to perform, are those, the performance of which has an immediate tendency to fit him to become a partaker of the inheritance of the blessed saints in light. It is at once their perpetual employment and delight to contemplate the perfections and celebrate the glories of their Maker. We ought to imitate them, as far as the circumstances of our condition will permit, during our residence here below, and thus to prepare ourselves for their society. We ought to lose no opportunity of offering up the tribute of our gratitude and our love; of discharging those duties of prayer and thanksgiving, which, when rightly discharged, cannot fail to purify our thoughts and our affections, and to bring us nearer unto God.

Nor let it be supposed, that by cultivating the serious and devout frame of mind of which I am now speaking, we shall unfit ourselves for the punctual fulfilment of the obligations which our different stations in life impose upon us. These obligations it

is equally incumbent upon us to fulfil; for though the relation in which we stand to God is infinitely more important than that in which we stand to our fellow creatures, yet Christ himself, when asked which was the great commandment, declared, that the love which we owe to our neighbour is second, and only second, to that which we owe to God. While, indeed, we are fulfilling our duty to man, we are fulfilling our duty to our Maker. But herein consists the error into which mankind too frequently fall. They make that the first commandment which Christ pronounced the second. They think too much of the duties which they owe to their neighbours, and too little of those which they owe to God. When they awake in the morning, their first thoughts are directed not to Him, whose blessing alone can prosper their undertakings, but to their worldly schemes and labours; when they retire to rest at night, the cares and business of the world still distract their minds, and either cause them to neglect their devotions, or render their devotions languid and heartless. Thus they pass through life, satisfied for the most part with themselves, because they think that they are doing all that Religion demands of them. they, too, as the period of their departure from the world draws near, will contemplate their past conduct with altered feelings. Their case will, it is true, be widely different from that of men who have lived in open and habitual violation of God's commandments; they at least have endeavoured to fulfil the duties which they owed to society, and to promote the happiness of their fellow creatures. Still they

But