and perpetually dread the detection of your real character? Thirdly, you may ferve two mafters unequally. While devoted to the one, you may occafionally attend the other; but you cannot be engaged to him also, you cannot serve him constantly, you cannot make his service your business, cannot be entirely at his difpofal. But nothing lefs than this does God require of all those who ferve HIM. Fourthly, you may serve two masters when they are on the fame fide, and differ only in degree. Thus you obey parents and magistrates, and God too; for in obeying them, you obey him; he has commanded it. he has commanded it. But it is otherwife when two parties hoftile to each other, require you to espouse their jarring interests, and each says,

My fon, give me thy heart." Now this is the cafe with the masters here mentioned. For mammon is not fubordinate to God, nor does it enjoin the fame things. Their orders are diametrically opposite. The one commands you to walk by faith; the other, to walk by fight; the one, to be proud, the other to be humble; the one, to cleave to the duft, the other to have your converfation in heaven; the one, to be all anxiety, the other, to be careful for nothing; the one, to be content with fuch things as you have, the other, to enlarge your defire as hell; the one, to withhold, the other, to give, to be ready to diftribute, willing to communicate. Now what is to be done in a cafe like this? If the mind be full, it can hold no more. Human faculties are not infinite. The operations of the foul are limited. We cannot remain in a state of equillibrium between contrary attractions, without preferring one to the other. Hence we always take a

part; and the part chofen becomes the mafter of the heart, and obliges us to feparate from the reft as much as they oppofe each other or interfere. Here then, my dear Hearers, you are furnished with a criterion, by which to judge of your state and your character, The conclufion is obvious and undeniable. If you love and ferve the world, you cannot love and ferve God. And the exclufion is ferious and dreadful; for you are here reminded that worldly attachments, dependencies, and purfuits, are not only injurious to real religion, but entirely incompatible with it; that they are not fome of those inferior mistakes and infirmities which we deplore in good men; but a deadly evil which overfpreads all the powers of the foul, infects all the principles of action, gives the whole life a wrong bias, the whole man a direction towards hell. "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, faith the Lord, and touch not the unclean

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thing; and I will receive you." "Love not the "world, neither the things of the world; for if any "man love the world, the love of the Father is not "in him." "Ye adulterers and adultreffes, know

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ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity "with God? Whofoever therefore will be a friend of "the world is the enemy of God ?" "No man can "ferve two mafters: for either he will hate the one, "and love the other; or elfe he will hold to the one, "and defpife the other. the other. Ye cannot ferve God and "mammon."

II. You cannot ferve both; but one of these you will unavoidably serve. The fecond propofition is as

true as the first. It is as impoffible for a man to be without fome master, as to ferve more masters than one. Man is an active being, and must be employed; he will always be engaged in the purfuit of fome thing either by exertion or defire. Man is a dependant creature. Like the vine he must lean for fupport; and if the elm be not near, he will embrace the bramble. He thirfts; and if he has forfaken the Fountain of Living Waters, he will repair to broken cifterns, or kneel down to the filthy puddle. A fenfe of his wants and weaknesses produces an uneasiness which urges him to feek after affistance and relief. Hence man cannot be without attachment. Not finding in himself the good he defires, he paffes forth and adheres to fomething external; but this object neceffarily governs him; for it is the very nature of love to fubject us to that which we love; and it fastens us by various ties; for defire and averfion, hope and fear, joy and forrow, zeal and revenge, are only modes of affection.

There is nothing of which men are fo tenacious as independence and liberty; and even when they are deftitute of the fubftance they glory in the fhadOw. The Jews are an example. In reply to our Lord they faid, "We are Abraham's feed, and were "never in bondage to any man." What! Have you forgotten the land of Egypt? did you never ferve the Philistines, the Moabites, the Ammonites? were you not seventy years in Babylon? Whofe foldiers are these stationed among you? Bring me a piece of money, "whose image and superscription is it?" Are you not even now wearing the yoke of Cæfar? Yes; and

you are wearing another yoke far more difgraceful than even this, and which enflaves the mind; for "he "that committeth fin is the fervant of fin."

And does not this exemplify the folly and delufion of finners? They imagine themselves to be their own masters, especially when they have fhaken off what they deem the prejudices of education and the fcruples of fuperftition. Then they are free indeed; they live without controul; and with affected pity confider Christians as fubject to the most humiliating restraints. But what if thefe advocates for independence fhould be found flaves themselves, and all their boastings of freedom be only great fwelling words of vanity? "While they promise them liberty, they themselves "are the fervants of corruption; for of whoma man is "overcome, of the fame is he brought into bondage." "Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves fer"vants to obey, his fervants ye are to whom ye obey, "whether of fin unto death, or of obedience unto righ"teoufnefs." What! is there no other master than God? Because you refufe allegiance to your lawful fovereign, does it follow that you are your own? May there not be ufurpers? Instead of being under the government of one, may you not be under the tyranny of many, "each feeking his gain from his quar"ter?" Inftead of paying a regular and reafonable tribute, may you not become the victims of illegal exaction, and the tools of arbitrary power? Hear what Shemaiah faid to Rehoboam and the princes of Judah ; "Ye have forfaken the Lord; therefore have I left you “in the hand of Shishak king of Egypt; and they shall be his fervants, that they may know my fervice, and

"the fervice of the kingdoms of the countries." To the fame purpose is the language of God by Mofes to the Ifraelites; "Because thou fervedst not the Lord thy "God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, "for the abundance of all things; therefore fhalt "thou ferve thine enemies which the Lord fhall fend against thee, in hunger, and in thirft, and in naked"ness, and in want of all things; and he fhall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck until he have destroyed "thee." All this is fulfilled in the unhappy experience of every tranfgreffor. For his rebellion he is doomed by a law of inevitable neceffity to serve divers tyrants. Yes, if you are not the fubjects of humility, you will be the vaffals of pride; and what a life will ambition lead you! If you are not the fervants of meeknefs, you will be the flaves of paffion; and is the man to be envied, who is governed by the impulfes of fuch a fury? See a man who has fold himself to covetousnefs; what African flave ever drudged for fuch a tafkmafter as he, compelling him to rife early, to fit up late, to eat the bread of forrows, to affume every form of falfehood, to ftoop to every inftance of meannefs, forbidding him the luxury of refreshing the bowels of the poor and of bleffing the orphan and the widow, often denying him the accommodations and fometimes the neceffaries of life, and thus forcing him to live in beggary, to die in wealth! Difclaiming the service of God you ferve the devil, who employs you in drudgery and rewards you with damnation, "for "the wages of fin is death." Discarding the Saviour's yoke, which is eafy, and his burden which is light, you wear the galling and heavy chains of vice,