temperance, fortitude, probity, piety, unanimity. Great difficulties, more especially, call for great talents and great virtues. It is in times such as these that we look for those noble examples of SELF-DENIAL and PUBLIC SPIRIT, which bespeak true greatness of mind, which have sometimes saved kingdoms, and immortalized individuals. Let, then, all the wise and the good in every party and denomination of men among us (for they are in every one to be found) stand forth in the present exigency as one man, tọ advise, direct, assist, and befriend their country; and as the Roman triumvirs gave up each his friend for the destruction of the state, let every one now give up his favourite prejudices, systems, interests, resentments, and connections, for the preservation of it. Let us not, for God's sake, let us not waste that time in tearing and devouring one another, which ought to be employed in providing for the general welfare. Unjust suspicions, uncandid interpretations, mutual reproaches, and endless altercations, can answer no other purpose but to embitter our minds, and multiply the very evils we all wish to remove. From beginnings such as these arose

the

the calamities we are now met to deplore; and the conclusion was, not liberty, but tyranny in the extreme. Can there possibly be a stronger motive for us to moderate our dissensions, and compose our passions, before they grow too big for us to manage and control? On the same bottom are we all embarked, and if, in the midst of our angry contentions, the vessel perish, we must all perish with it. It is therefore our common interest, as it is our common duty, to unite in guarding against so fatal an event. There can be no danger of it but from ourselves. Our worst, our most formidable enemies, are our own personal vices and political distractions. Let harmony inspire our councils, and Religion sanctify our hearts, and we have nothing to fear. PEACE ABROAD is undoubtedly a most desirable object. But there are two things still more so, PEACE WITH ONE ANOTHER, and PEACE WITH

GOD.

SERMON XI.

LUKE iv. S2.

AND THEY WERE

ASTONISHED AT HIS

DOCTRINE: FOR HIS WORD WAS WITH
POWER.

IT

T is evident from this, and many other similar passages of the New Testament, that our blessed Lord's discourses made a very uncommon and wonderful impression on the minds of his hearers. We are told, in various places, "that the common people heard "him gladly; that they wondered at the

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gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth, and declared, with one voice, that, "Never man spake like this man *.” Expressions of this sort, which continually occur in relation to our Saviour's preaching, we

*Mark xii. 37. Luke iv. 22.

John vii. 46.

never find applied in Scripture to any other teacher of Religion; neither to the prophets who preceded, nor to the apostles that followed him. And we may be sure, that the effects of his doctrine must have been very extraordinary indeed, when it could draw such strong language as this from the Evangelists, who, in general, express themselves with much calmness and simplicity; and frequently describe the most astonishing miracles, and deliver the sublimest doctrines, without any apparent emotion, or remarkable energy of diction.

What, then, could it be which gave such surprising force to our Saviour's instructions, such power to his words? He employed none of those rhetorical artifices and contrivances, those bold figures and unexpected strokes of overbearing eloquence, which the most celebrated worldly orators have generally made use of, to inflame the passions and gain the admiration of the multitude. These, certainly, were not the instruments employed by our Saviour to command attention. The causes of these surprising effects which his preaching produced, were of a very different nature.

Some