tention to the prayers of the afflicted. If we feel a fpirit of prayer awakened by affliction, this is a hopeful token of God's favour; for thus far affliction answers its purpose.

4. The death of a friend is an admonition from God, to withdraw our hearts from the world.

What is the world now to him who has left it? What will it be to us, a few days hence, when we shall have left it? Juft the fame, as it is now to him. "We brought nothing into the world; and we shall carry nothing out of it. Naked fhall we depart to go as we came." The removal of our friend has extinguished more than half of the joys of life. It has spread a gloom over the world's brighteft fcenes. Every earthly object is as uncertain, as was the one which we have loft. Shall we fet our hearts on things fo precarious?-on things which so foon may leave us, or lose their power to please us? Let us look for fome more fubftantial and permanent good. Let us choose for our portion the favour of the allfufficient God. There is nothing on earth to be compared with this. It is better than the life of a friend ; it is better than our own life. When flesh and heart fail, this may be our ftrength and portion forever. Let our affection and conversation be in heaven. There is our God and our Redeemer; there are holy angels and the spirits of juft men made perfect; there are the godly friends, who have died before us, and thither will come the pious fouls, who shall leave this world after us. If our friends had continued on earth for the prefent, we could not have enjoyed them long, for we are strangers here, and there is no abiding. If we meet them in heaven, we shall be parted from them no more. They were amiable here; they will be more amiable there. We here faw in them fome imperfec

tions, and felt more in ourselves; there we shall fee in them nothing to offend us, and fhall fhew nothing to offend them. The connexion here was intimate; but the beft part of it was that which arofe from fimilarity of tempers and affections. The friendship of heaven will be wholly of this sacred kind; it will therefore be perfect, uninterrupted and permanent,

5. The death of a friend urges upon us religion in all its various duties; for it folemnly teaches us the neceflity of religion to our comfort in life, hope in death, and happiness in eternity.

If fuch an affliction have its proper influence, we shall commune with God in our clofets, worfhip him in our families, converfe daily with his word, educate our children in his fervice, honor his name before men, compaffionate the afflicted, contribute in our places to advance the intereft of the gospel, and affift our fellow mortals in their preparation for death and the future world.

Thus we fhould endeavor to make our own affliction a benefit to thofe around us. Then may we hope, it will do them good, when we make it manifeft, that it has done good to us.

UI. This introduces our third obfervation, That any affliction, which befalls men, especially the death of the head of a family, calls for the attention of all around, as well as of the immediate fufferers.

The death of the prophet's wife was appointed, in providence, to be a fign to the people in general, as well as an admonition to him. They were commanded to do the fame things, which were required of him. The event was a warning to them of impending calamities; the prophet's behaviour was a pattern to them of their duty under thofe calamities.

When we fee a neighbor deprived of the defire of his eyes by a stroke, and left with the care of a family, who needed her nurturing and guiding hand, we feel a tender compaffion for him and them; we give him fome condoling words; we with him divine confolation and direction; we hope he will be wife. We obferve his fubfequent behaviour, to judge whether he derives any religious advantage from his painful affliction. If we fee him grave, ferious and heavenly-minded, we rejoice in his wife improvement of the folemn admonition. But if we fhould fee him quite the reverfe, we fhould cenfure his inattention to the voice of God, and should wonder, that he could fo foon forget fo loud a warning-fo foon forget his firft feelings and refolutions.

But let us remember, that our afflicted neighbor is a fign to us; that the voice, which speaks to him, fpeaks to us; that the ferious attention, which becomes him, becomes us; that the im provement, which ought to be made of the afflietion by him, ought to be made by us; that we have no more right, than he, to difregard fuch a warning. The fame view of the vanity of the world and of the uncertainty of life; the fame piety and prayerfulness; the fame felf-examination and ferioufnefs; the fame diligence in preparing for death, cultivating religion in the heart and promoting it in fociety; the fame prudence and fidelity in family education, which we would recommend to him, or which we expect from him, are, by the fame providence, urged upon us all. In his cafe, we fee that our friends are mortal, our connexions uncertain, our families appointed to change. The time is at hand, with refpect to us all, when a cloud will be spread over our houses by the hand of death; when fome will

mourn the lofs of thofe, who go before them, and when these who are left, will follow those who are gone. In refpect of mortality, there is nothing peculiar to one family or another. Every change, which we fee, is an admonition to us all. And if thoughtlessnefs would be criminal in the family, in which a change took place the laft week, it is also criminal in the families, in which a fimilar change may take place this week.

As a common expreffion of condolence to the afflicted, we fay, "We wish their affliction may be fanctified to them." But we ought to make the fame use of it ourselves, which our benevolence wishes them to make. We pray for them, that they may be guided in the path of duty. If our prayer be fincere, we fhall walk in the fame path, in which, we think, they ought to walk. Can we really pray, that they fhould walk in it, when we turn from it? Our very prayers for the afflicted at a funeral, and in the house of God, reprove our neglect of religion, and our inattention to the daily warnings of providence. The cenfures, which we bestow on fome, who make light of their own afflictions, fall back on ourselves, when the fame afflictions are unimproved by us.

We live in a mortal world; we often see changes and deaths; the providence of God, in various ways, is renewing and repeating its admonitions, fome of which are more painful than others; but all equally plain and intelligible. Let us hear and obey the exhortation, which speaks to us, "What your hands find to do, do it with your might; for there is no work, nor wisdom, nor device in the grave, to which you are going."

SERMON XXV.

The Univerfal Obligation of Religion.

II. KINGS xvíi. 40, 4t.

Howbeit, they did not hearken, but they did after their former manner. Sør these nations feared the Lord and ferved their graven images, both their children, and their children's children: as did their fathers, so did they unto this day.

AFTER

FTER the king of Affyria had conquered the kingdom of Ifrael, and had carried away captive the greater part of the inhabitants, he repeopled the country by colonies fent from his own empire. These new inhabitants were idolaters. They worshipped their own deities, who, they imagined, had given them the country, and against whom, they fuppofed, Jehovah, the God of the land, had not power to defend it. As the country, after they were fettled in it, was much infefted with lions, they began to conceive more exalted thoughts of the God of Ifrael. They apprehended, that he might have fome power in the country over which he prefided, and that, to keep at good terms with him, it might be beft to obferve the particular ceremonies which he was pleafed with, but which, at present, they did not un