3. The last great lesson which this sense of dependence should teach us, is that of piety to God. Man is entirely dependent upon God; in the most literal, immediate, and complete sense. God is to man what no other being is to him. To man God is every thing. Man lives in him. What he has, all that he has, all which he has ever had, all that he can have, must come from God. Separate himself from him he cannot. Live without him he cannot. God's providence encircles and sustains him. When God pleases, he lives; when God pleases, he dies at once. What he does, he does with the power which God gives him; what he possesses or enjoys, God permits him to possess and enjoy. Our duty is to cherish deeply and habitually, the sentiment of this near relation to God. Piety requires, in the language of the scriptures, that "we walk with God, and acknowledge him in all our ways."

The first duty of rational piety, is to obey God. He has prescribed to us a rule of life. We are bound to follow it. The life which he enkindled, the powers which he entrusted to us, should be devoted to his will. The second duty of piety is gratitude. Our blessings all come from him. His bounty should be seen and felt, and gratefully acknowledged by us. What is more odious than ingratitude; and in what case can ingratitude be so base, and so utterly without excuse, as from man towards God; towards the being who gave him existence, and formed that existence for happiness.

The third duty of piety is submission, or rather, resignation to the will of God. We are in his power; if he sends suffering upon us, he seeks only our good; and he sees that the sufferings, which he sends are needful, and may be salutary. But the great duty of piety, and that which the text in its connexion was

mainly designed to teach, is that of entire confidence towards him, the surrender of the soul to him. Divines have sometimes denominated it, the absorption of the human in the divine will; so that we may be wholly satisfied with what God appoints; seek wholly what God approves; desire only what God may see fit for us; bow down in humble submission, in meek confidence, in profound reverence before him, and pray that his "will may be done on earth, as it is done in heaven." This is the perfection of Christian piety. Those who do not understand it, may call it mysticism or fanaticism ; but they call it so, only because they do not understand it. It is a temper most elevating to the human mind, most purifying and improving to the human heart; the richest spring of benevolence in the soul; of activity in doing good to the human family, because they are God's family; and the most powerful instrument of virtue and improvement. The life regulated by such a principle, is the life of heaven; the heart, which glows with such a sentiment, is armed against every corrupt influence, and is rapidly advancing in that purity, which qualifies man for the presence of God.

IV. Consider the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Contemplate the lilies of the field how they grow; they neither labor nor spin; and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his magnificence, was not arrayed like one of these. If God so clothe the grass of the field, shall he not much more clothe you?

You, who have eyes to see, and hearts to feel, at this animating and quickening season, when God makes his creation anew, look round upon the beautiful world in

which he has placed you. He reneweth the face of the earth. Consider the countless forms of beauty and splendor, which his works present to your sight. Look at the myriads of animated beings now living and starting into existence, for whose subsistence and happiness, his unlimited and exhaustless bounty provides. Then say, if you can feel any distrust of his paternal goodness; if you will not dismiss all anxious fears in regard to his government; say, if you can then doubt, that he has made all things well; and can have a fear that his intellectual and moral creation, will be ever alike the object of his care and kindness; that in the end, the dark spots which now disfigure it, will be removed; and it shall be seen, like the revival of the year in the natural creation, in all that beauty, glory, splendor, and promise, to which we believe God has ultimately destined this his noblest work.

SERMON XXIV.

THE SINS OF MEN CHARGEABLE TO
THEMSELVES.

JAMES i. 13, 14, 15.

LET NO MAN SAY WHEN HE IS TEMPTED I AM TEMPTED OF GOD, FOR GOD CANNOT BE TEMPTED WITH EVIL, NEITHER TEMPTETH HE ANY MAN; BUT EVERY MAN IS TEMPTED, WHEN HE IS DRAWN AWAY OF HIS OWN LUST AND EN

TICED. THEN WHEN LUST HATH CONCEIVED, IT BRINGETH FORTH SIN, AND SIN WHEN IT IS FINISHED BRINGETH FORTH DEATH.

NOTHING is more general than a disposition to free ourselves from the blame of our sins, and to ascribe it to some one else; sometimes with great presumption to God. This is not a modern device. When our first parents had sinned, and their guilt was charged upon them, the answer of the man was, "the woman, whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat ;" and the woman, in her turn, was as prompt to reply, "the serpent beguiled me and I did eat.” Men do this with the expectation of relieving themselves from the responsibility; but it is vain; it is a pretence, which cannot shield them. The sins of men are