abundance. Never had a people gratitude more lively, piety more fervent. The Red Sea had been passed; Pharaoh, and his insolent court were buried in the waves; access to the land of promise was opened: Moses had been admitted to the holy mountain to derive felicity from God the source, and sent to distribute it amongst his countrymen: to these choice favours, promises of new and greater blessings yet were added; and God said, "Ye have seen what I have done unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought youunto myself. Now, therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people, although all the earth be mine." The people were deeply affected with this collection of miracles. Each individual entered into the same views, and seemed animated with the same passion; all hearts were united, and one voice expressed the sense of all the tribes of Israel;- "all that the Lord hath spoken we will do." But this devotion had one great defect-it lasted only forty days. In forty days, the deliverance out of Egypt, the catastrophe of Pharaoh, the passage of the Red Sea, the articles of the covenant; in forty days, promises, vows, oaths, all were effaced from the heart, and forgotten. Moses was absent, the lightning did not glitter, the thunder-claps did not roar, and the Jews made a calf in Horeb, worshipped that molten image, and changed their glorious God into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass."

Here, my children, was a most melancholy instance of transient devotion. Alas! that such

instances should be so common. Alas! that Jehovah should so frequently have to repeat the ancient reproach, and his ministers have to echo, in sorrowful accents, the painful complaint, "O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee! O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? For your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it passeth away." Nothing, however, is more common than such fugitive impressions. Disappointment of the bitterest kind, is very frequently experienced, both by parents and ministers, in consequence of the sudden turning aside of those young persons, who for a while seemed to run the race that is set before us in the word of God. At one time they appeared to be inflamed with a holy ambition to win the prize of glory, honour and immortality; we saw them start with eagerness, and run with speed; but after a while we met them returning to the barrier, leaving us in the bitterness of our spirits to exclaim, “Ye did run well, what did hinder you?"

The religion I am now describing is not the hypocrisy of the pretending Christian, nor is it the backsliding of the real one; it goes further than the first, but does not go so far as the last. It is sincere of its kind, and in that it goes further than hypocrisy : but it is unfruitful, and in that it is inferior to the piety of the weak and revolting Christian. It is sufficient to discover sin, but not to correct it; sufficient to produce good resolutions, but not to keep them; it softens the heart, but does not renew it; it excites grief, but it does not eradicate evil dispositions. It is a piety of times, opportunities, and circumstances, diversified a thousand ways,

the effect of innumerable causes, but it expires as soon as the causes are removed.

Inconstans was a youth who had enjoyed a pious education; he discovered many amiable qualities, and was often impressed by the religious admonitions he received; but his impressions soon wore off, and he became as careless about his eternal concerns as before. He left the parental roof, and was apprenticed; and his parents having taken care to place him in a pious family, and under the faithful preaching of the word, he still enjoyed all the external means of grace, and still, at times, continued to feel their influence. His attention was oftentimes fixed when hearing the word, and he was sometimes observed to weep. On one occasion in particular, when a funeral sermon had been preached for a young person, a more than ordinary effect was produced upon his mind. He returned from the house of God pensive and dejected, retired to his closet, and with much earnestness prayed to God, resolved to attend more to the claims of religion, and to become a real Christian. The next morning he read the Bible, and prayed, before he left his chamber. This practice he continued day after day. A visible change was produced in his deportment. His seriousness attracted the attention and excited the hopes of his friends. But, by degrees, he relapsed into his former state, gave up reading the Scriptures, then prayer; then he reunited himself with some companions from whom for a season he had withdrawn himself, till at length he was as unconcerned about salvation as ever. Some time after this Inconstans was seized with a fever.

The disease resisted the power of medicine, and baffled the skill of the physician; he grew worse and worse. His alarm became excessive. He sent for his minister and his parents, confessed and bewailed his fickleness. What tears he shed! What sighs he uttered! What vows he made! "Oh if God would but spare me this once; if he would but grant me one more trial; if he would but indulge me with one more opportunity of salvation, how would I improve it to his glory, and my soul's eternal interest." His prayers were answered: he recovered. What became of his vows, resolutions, and promises? The degree of his piety was regulated by the degree of his malady. Devotion rose and fell with his pulse. His zeal kept pace with his fever; as one decreased, the other died away, and the recovery of his health was the resurrection of his sins. Inconstans is at this moment, what he always was, a melancholy specimen of the nature of mere transient religion.

What is wanting in this religion? You will of course reply, "Continuance." This is true. But why did it not continue? I answer, there was no real change of the heart. The passions were moved, the feelings were excited, but the disposition remained unaltered. In the affairs of this life, men are often led by the operation of strong causes, to act in opposition to their real character. The cruel tyrant, by some sudden and most affecting appeal to his clemency, may have the spark of pity smitten from his flinty heart but the flint remaining, the wretch returns again to his practices of blood. The covetous man might, by a vivid description of

want and misery, be for a season melted to liberality; but like the surface thawed for an hour by the sun, and frozen again immediately after the source of heat has retired, his benevolence is immediately chilled by the prevailing frost of his nature. In these cases, as in that of religion, there is a suspension of the natural disposition, not a renewal of it. All religion must be transient, by whatever cause it is produced, and with whatever ardour it should for a season be practised, that does not spring from a regenerated mind. It may, like the grass upon the house-top, or the grain that is scattered in unprepared soil, spring up and flourish for a season, but for want of root it will speedily wither away. Do not then, my dear children, be satisfied with a mere excitement of the feelings, however strong it might happen to prove; but seek to have the general bias of the mind renewed.

You cannot suppose, if you consider only for a moment, that these fugitive impressions will answer the ends of religion, either in this world or in that which is to come. They will not honour God, they will not sanctify the heart, -they will not comfort the mind, they will not save the soul,-they will not raise you to heaven, they will not save you from hell. Instead of preparing you at some future time to receive the gospel, such a state of mind, if persisted in, has a most direct and dangerous tendency to harden the heart. What God in his sovereign grace may be pleased to effect, is not for me to say; but as to natural influence, nothing can be more clear than that this fitful