A Goodly Heritage

 Consider the UNCERTAINTY of your time! You may die the next year, the next month, the next week, the next day, the next hour, or the next moment! I once knew a minister who, while he was making this same point was made a striking illustration of it and instantly dropped down dead in the pulpit! When you look forward through the year now begun, you see what may never be your own. No, you cannot call one day of it your own! Before that day comes, you may be done with time and have entered upon eternity! Men presume upon time, as if it was guaranteed upon them for so many years; and this is the delusion which ruins multitudes! How many are now in eternity, who begun the last year with as little expectation of death, and hopes of long life as you have at the beginning of the present year? And this may be your doom!

REV. 15, 16. —  I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot; I would thou wert cold or hot. So then, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth. THE  soul of man is endowed with such active powers, that it cannot be idle; and, if we look round the world, we see it all alive and busy in some pursuit or other. What vigorous action, what labour and toil, what hurry, noise, and commotion about the necessaries of life, about riches and honours! Here men are in earnest: here there is no dissimulation, no indifferency about the event. They sincerely desire, and eagerly strive for these transient delights, or vain embellishments of a mortal life. And may we infer farther, that creatures, thus formed for action, and thus laborious and unwearied in these inferior pursuits, are proportionably vigorous and in earnest in matters of infinitely greater importance? May we conclude, that they proportion their labour and activity to ...

"The LORD reigns; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of islands be glad!" Psalm 97:1 Wise and good rulers are justly accounted an extensive blessing to their subjects. In a government where  wisdom  sits at the helm; and where  justice , tempered with  clemency , holds the balance of retribution; where  liberty  and  property  are secured; where  encroaching ambition  is checked; where  helpless innocence  is protected; and where  universal order  is established—then, consequently, peace and happiness diffuse their streams through the land. In such a situation, every heart must rejoice, every countenance look cheerful, and every bosom glow with gratitude to the happy instruments of such extended beneficence. But, on the other hand, "Woe to you, oh land, when your king is a child," Eccles. 10:16. That is—weak, injudicious, thoughtless and peevish. This is the denunciation of Solomon, a sage philosopher, and...

1. How essential and important the doctrine of divine influence is to the church of God. The very life, and the whole success of the gospel depend upon it. And since this necessity supposes the utter depravity and spiritual impotence of human nature in its fallen state, that doctrine also must be frequently and plainly inculcated. Alas! the great defect of the system of theology too fashionable in our days, and one great cause of the languishing state of religion in our age, and of the prevalency of vice and impiety! Since it has been the mode to compliment mankind as able to do something very considerable in religion, religion has died away. Since it has been the fashion to press a reformation of men's lives, without inculcating the absolute necessity of divine grace to renew their nature, there is hardly such a thing as a thorough reformation to be seen; but mankind are evidently growing worse and worse. Since men think they can do something, and scorn to be wholly dependent ...