what it means, and refuse to enter; but the humane and compassionate all fly impetuously to the banquet given for a son who was dead and is alive again, who was lost and is found.' Gentle spirits light up the pavilion with a sacred fire; and parental love and filial piety lead in the mask with riot and wild festivity! Was it not for this that God gave man music to strike upon the kindly passions; that Nature taught the feet to dance to its movements, and, as chief governess of the feast, poured forth wine into the goblet to crown it with gladness?

The intention of this parable is so clear from the occasion of it, that it will not be necessary to perplex it with any tedious explanation. It was designed by way of indirect remonstrance to the scribes and Pharisees, who animadverted upon our Saviour's conduct for entering so freely into conferences with sinners in order to reclaim them. To that end he proposes the parable of the shepherd, who left his ninety-and-nine sheep that were safe in the fold to go and seek for one sheep that was gone astray-telling them, in other places, that they who were whole wanted not a physician, but they who were sick; and here, to carry on the same lesson, and to prove how acceptable such a recovery was to God, he relates this account of the prodigal son and his welcome reception.

I know not whether it would be a subject of much edification to convince you here that our Saviour, by the prodigal son, particularly pointed at those who are sinners of the Gentiles, and were recovered by divine grace to repentance; and that by the elder brother he intended as manifestly the more froward of the Jews, who envied their conversion, and thought it a kind of wrong to their primogeniture in being made fellow-heirs with them of the promises of God.

These uses have been so ably set forth in so many good sermons upon the Prodigal Son, that I shall turn aside from them at present, and content myself with some reflections upon that fatal passion which led him-and so many thousands after the example-'to gather all he had together, and take his journey into a far country.'

The love of variety, or curiosity of seeing new things, which is the same, or at least a sister passion to it, seems woven into the frame of every son and daughter of Adam. We usually speak of it as one of Nature's levities, though planted within us for the solid purposes of carrying forward the mind to fresh inquiry and knowledge. Strip us of it, the mind (I fear) would doze for ever over the present page; and we should all of us rest at ease with such objects as presented themselves in the parish or province where we first drew breath.

It is to this spur, which is ever in our sides, that we owe the impatience of this desire for travelling. The passion is no way bad, but, as others are, in its mismanagement or excess.

Order it rightly, the advantages are worth the pursuit: the chief of which are to learn the languages, the laws and customs, and understand the government and interest of other nations; to acquire an urbanity and confidence of behaviour, and fit the mind more easily for conversation and discourse; to take us out of the company of our aunts and grandmothers, and from the track of nursery mistakes: and, by showing us new objects, or old ones in new lights, to reform our judgments; by tasting perpetually the varieties of Nature, to know what is good; by observing the address and arts of man, to conceive what is sincere; and, by seeing the difference of so many various humours and manners, to look into ourselves and form

our own.

This is some part of the cargo we might return with; but the impulse of seeing new sights, augmented with that of getting clear from all lessons both of wisdom and reproof st home, carries our youth too early out to tura this venture to much account; on the contrary, if the scene painted of the prodigal in his travels looks more like a copy than an original, will it not be well if such an adventurer, with so unpromising a setting out-without cartewithout compass,-be not cast away for ever? and may he not be said to escape well, if he return to his country only as naked as he first left it?

But you will send an able pilot with your son-a scholar.

If wisdom can speak in no other language but Greek or Latin, you do well; or, if mathematics will make a man a gentleman, or natural philosophy but teach him to make a bow, he may be of some service in introducing your son into good societies, and supporting him in them when he has done; but the upshot will be generally this, that in the most pressing occasions of address, if he is a mere man of reading, the unhappy youth will have the tutor to carry, and not the tutor to carry him.

But you will avoid this extreme: he shall be escorted by one who knows the world not merely from books, but from his own experience; a man who has been employed on such services, and thrice made the tour of Europe with suc

-That is, without breaking his own or his pupil's neck; for, if he is such as my eyes have scen! some broken Swiss valet de chambre,some general undertaker, who will perform the journey in so many months, if God permit, much knowledge will not accrue ;-some profit at least; he will learn the amount, to a halfpenny, of every stage from Calais to Rome; he will be carried to the best inns, instructed where there is the best wine, and sup a livre cheaper than if the youth had been left to make the tour and the bargain himself.-Look at

our governor, I beseech you! see, he is an inch taller, as he relates the advantages!

manner, each man to his son, yet one cannot suppose that the directions should be neces

But when your son gets abroad, he will be taken out of his hand by his society with men of rank and letters, with whom he will pass the greatest part of his time.

Let me observe, in the first place, that company which is really good is very rare, and very shy; but you have surmounted this difficulty, and procured him the best letters of recommendation to the most eminent and respectable in every capital.

And I answer, that he will obtain all by them which courtesy strictly stands obliged to pay on such occasions-but no more.

There is nothing in which we are so much deceived as in the advantages proposed from our connections and discourse with the literati, etc., in foreign parts; especially if the experiment is made before we are matured by years or study.

Conversation is a traffic; and if you enter into it without some stock of knowledge to balance the account perpetually betwixt you, the trade drops at once: and this is the reason, however it may be boasted to the contrary, why travellers have so little (especially good) conversation with natives, owing to their suspicion, or perhaps conviction, that there is nothing to be extracted from the conversation of young itinerants worth the trouble of their bad language or the interruption of their visits. The pain on these occasions is usually reciprocal; the consequence of which is that the disappointed youth seeks an easier society; and as bad company is always ready, and ever lying in wait, the career is soon finished; and the poor prodigal returns the same object of pity with the prodigal in the Gospel.

XXL-NATIONAL MERCIES

CONSIDERED.'

'And when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What mean the testimonies, and the statutes, and the

judgments which the Lord our God hath commanded you? Then thou shalt say unto thy son, We were

Pharaoh's bondsmen in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand,'-DEUT. VI. 20, 21. THESE are the words which Moses left as a standing answer for the children of Israel to give their posterity, who, in time to come, might become ignorant or unmindful of the many and great mercies which God had vouchsafed to their forefathers: all which had terminated in that one of their deliverance out of bondage.

Though they were directed to speak in this

1 On the inauguration of his present Majesty.

of those who had been eye-witnesses of God's providence; it does not seem likely that any of them should arrive to that age of reasoning which would put them upon asking the supposed question, and not be long beforehand instructed in the answer. Every parent would tell his child the hardships of his captivity, and the amazing particulars of his deliverance; the story was so uncommon, so full of wonder, and withal the recital of it would ever be a matter of such transport, it could not possibly be kept a secret; the piety and gratitude of one generation would anticipate the curiosity of another; their sons would learn the story with their language.

This probably might be the case with the first or second race of people, but in process of time things might take different turn; a long and undisturbed possession of their liberties might blunt the sense of those providences of God which had procured them, and set the remembrance of all his mercies at too great a distance from their hearts. After they had for some years been eased of every real burden, an excess of freedom might make them restless under every imaginary one, and, amongst others, that of their religion; whence they might seek occasion to inquire into the foundation and fitness of its ceremonies, its statutes, and its judg ments.

They might ask, What meant so many commands, in matters which to them appeared indifferent in their own natures? What policy in ordaining them? And what obligation could there lie upon reasonable creatures to comply with a multitude of such unaccountable injunctions so unworthy the wisdom of God?

Hereafter, possibly, they might go further lengths; and though their natural bent was generally towards superstition, yet some adventurers, as is ever the case, might steer for the opposite coast, and, as they advanced, might discover that all religions, of what denominations or complexions soever, were alike: that the religion of their own country, in particular, was a contrivance of the priests and Levites, a phantom dressed out in a terrifying garb of their own making, to keep weak minds in fear; that its rites and ceremonics, and numberless injunctions, were so many different wheels in the same political engine, put in, no doubt, to amuse the ignorant, and keep them in such a state of darkness as clerical juggling requires.

That as for the moral part of it, though it was unexceptionable in itself, yet it was a piece of intelligence they did not stand in want of: men had natural reason always to have found it out, and wisdom to have practised it, without Moses' assistance.

Nay, possibly, in process of time they might arrive at greater improvements in religious controversy when they had given their system of infidelity all the strength it could admit from reason, they might begin to embellish it with some more sprightly conceits and turns of ridicule.

Some wanton Israelite, when he had eaten and was full, might give free scope and indulgence to this talent. As arguments and sober reasoning failed, he might turn the edge of his wit against types and symbols, and treat all the mysteries of his religion, and everything that could be said on so serious a subject, with raillery and mirth; he might give vent to a world of pleasantry upon many sacred passages of his law; he might banter the golden calf, or the brazen serpent, with great courage, and confound himself in the distinctions of clean and unclean beasts, by the desperate sallies of his wit against them.

He could but possibly take one step further: when the land which flowed with milk and honey had quite worn out the impressions of his yoke, and blessings began to multiply upon his hands, he might draw this curious conclusion, that there was no Being who was the author and bestower of them, but that it was their own arm, and the mightiness of Israelitish strength, which had put them and kept them in possession of so much happiness.

O Moses, how would thy meek and patient spirit have been put to the torture by such a return! If a propensity towards superstition in the Israelites did once betray thee into such an excess of anger that thou threwest the two tables out of thy hands, which God had wrote, and carelessly hazardedst the whole treasure of the world,-with what indignation and honest anguish wouldst thou have heard the scoffings of those who denied the hand which brought them forth, and said, Who is God, that we should obey his voice?-with what force and vivacity wouldst thou have reproached them with the history of their own nation!-that, if too free an enjoyment of God's blessings had made them forget to look backwards, it was necessary to remind them that their forefathers were Pharaoh's bondsmen in Egypt, without prospect of deliverance; that the chains of their captivity had been fixed and riveted by a suc cession of four hundred and thirty years, with out the interruption of one struggle for their liberty; that, after the expiration of that hopeless period, when no natural means favoured the event, they were snatched, almost against their own wills, out of the hands of their oppressors, and led through an ocean of dangers to the possession of a land of plenty; that this change in their affairs was not the produce of chance or fortune, nor was it projected or executed by any achievement or plan of human device, which might soon again be defeated by

superior strength or policy from without, or from force of accidents from within,-from change of circumstances, humours, and passions of men, all which generally had a sway in the rise and fall of kingdoms; but that all was brought about by the power and goodness of God, who saw and pitied the afflictions of a distressed people, and, by a chain of great and mighty deliverances, set them free from the yoke of oppression.

That, since that miraculous escape, a series of successes, not to be accounted for by second causes and the natural course of events, had demonstrated not only God's providence in general, but his particular providence and attachment to them; that nations greater and mightier than they were driven out before them, and their lands given to them for n everlasting possession.

This was that they should teach their children, and their children's children after them. Happy generations, for whom so joyful a lesson was prepared! Happy indeed, had ye at all times ! known to have made the use of it which Moses continually exhorted,-‘Of drawing nigh unto ¦ God with all your hearts, who had been so migh unto you.'

And here let us drop the argument as it respects the Jews, and for a moment turn it towards ourselves: the present occasion, and the recollection which is natural upon it, of the many other parts of this complicated blessing vouchsafed to us, since we became a nation, making it hard to desist from such an application.

I begin with the first in order of time, as well as the greatest of national deliverances, our deliverance from darkness and idolatry, by the conveyance of the light which Christianity brought with it into Britain, so early as in | the lifetime of the Apostles themselves, or at furthest, not many years after their death.

Though this might seem a blessing conveyed and offered to us in common with other perts of the world, yet when you reflect upon this as a remote corner of the earth in respect of Judea-its situation and inaccessibleness as an island-the little that was then known of navigation, or carried on of commerce-the large tract of land which to this day remains unhallowed with the name of Christ, and i almost in the neighbourhood of where the first glad tidings of him were sounded,-one cannot but adore the goodness of God, and remark a more particular providence in its conveyance and establishment here than amongst other nations upon the Continent, where, though the oppositions from error and prejudice were equal, it had not these natural impediments to encounter.

Historians and statesmen, who generally search everywhere for the causes of events but in the pleasure of him who disposes of

them, may make different reflections upon this. They may consider it as a matter incidental, brought to pass by the fortuitous ambition, success, and settlement of the Romans here; it appearing that in Claudius' reign, when Christianity began to get footing in Rome, near eighty thousand of that city and people were fixed in this island: as this made a free communication betwixt the two places, the way for the gospel was in course open, and its transition from the one to the other natural and easy to be accounted for, and yet, nevertheless, providential. God often suffers us to pursue the devices of our hearts, whilst he turns the course of them, like the rivers of waters, to bountiful purposes. Thus he might make that pursuit of glory inherent in the Romans, the engine to advance his own, and establish it here; he might make the wickedness of the earth to work his own righteousness, by suffering them to wander a while beyond their proper bounds, till his purposes were fulfilled, and then put his hook into their nostrils,' and lead those wild beasts of prey back again into their own land.

Next to this blessing of the light of the gospel, we must not forget that by which it was preserved from the danger of being totally smothered and extinguished by that vast swarm of barbarous nations which came down upon us from the north, and shook the whole world like a tempest; changing names and customs, and language and government, and almost the very face of nature, wherever they fixed. That our religion should be preserved at all, when everything else seemed to perish which was capable of change,- -or that it should not be hurt under that mighty weight of ruins, beyond the recovery of its former beauty and strength,-the whole can be ascribed to no cause so likely as this, that the same power of God which sent it forth was present to support it, when the whole frame of other things gave away.

Next in degree to this mercy of preserving Christianity from an utter extinction, we must reckon that of being enabled to preserve and free it from corruptions, which the rust of time, the abuses of men, and the natural tendency of all things to degeneracy which are trusted to them, had from time to time introduced into it.

Since the day in which this reformation was begun, by how many strange and critical turns has it been perfected and handed down, if not entirely without spot or wrinkle,' at least without great blotches or marks of anility!

Even the blow which was suffered to fall upon it shortly after, in that period where our history looks so unlike herself (stained, Mary, by thee, and disfigured by blood!), can one reflect upon it, without adoring the providence of God, which so speedily snatched the sword of persecution out of her hand, making her reign as short as it was merciless!

If God then made us, as he did the Israelites, suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock, how much more signal was his mercy in giving them to us without money, without price, in those good days which followed, when a long and a wise reign was as necessary to build up our church as a short one was before to save it from ruins!

The blessing was necessary, and it was granted:

God having multiplied the years of that renowned princess to an uncommon number, giving her time, as well as a heart, to fix a wavering persecuted people, and settle them upon such a foundation as must make them happy ;-the touchstone by which they are to be tried whom God has entrusted with the care of kingdoms.

Blessed be thy glorious name for ever and ever, in making that test so much easier for the British than other princes of this earth; whose subjects, whatever other changes they have felt, have seldom happened upon that of changing their misery; and, it is to be feared, are never likely, so long as they are kept so strongly bound in chains of darkness and chains of power.

From both these kinds of evils, which are almost naturally connected together, how providential was our escape in the succeeding reign, when all the choice blood was bespoke, and preparations made to offer it up at one sacrifice! I would not intermix the horrors of that black projected festival with the glories of this, nor name the sorrows of the next reign, which ended in the subversion of our constitution, was it not necessary to pursue the thread of our deliverances through those times, and remark how nigh God's providence was to us in them both,

by protecting us from the one in as signal a manner as he restored us from the other.

Indeed, the latter of them might have been a joyless matter of remembrance to us at this day, had it not been confirmed a blessing by a succeeding escape, which sealed and conveyed it safe down to us: whether it was to correct an undue sense of former blessings, or to teach us to reflect upon the number and value of them, by threatening us with the deprivation of them, -we were suffered, however, to approach the edge of a precipice, where, if God had not raised up a deliverer to lead us back, all had been lost;-the arts of Jesuitry had decoyed us forwards; or, if that failed, we had been pushed down by open force, and our destruction had been inevitable.

The good consequences of that deliverance are such that it seemed as if God had suffered our waters, like those of Bethesda, to be troubled, to make them afterwards more healing to us; since to the account of that day's blessings we charge the enjoyment of everything since worth a freeman's living for,-the revival of our