his

power. The blessing once gone was gone for ever and tears, and prayers, and exclamations, were in vain employed to recover it. Let us then learn caution in the concerns of life, and never engage in any undertaking of importance without due deliberation. A false step once taken, how soon soever it may be discovered, how earnest soever the desire and the labour to retract it, may be irrecoverable, and the consequence of it may embitter the whole of life.

This caution applies with double force to the commission of crime and the contraction of guilt. Regret, however bitter, repentance, however sincere, can never replace the offender on the high ground of innocence on which he before stood. Miserable self-deceivers are they who yield to temptation, and fall into sin, in the fond expectation of recovering themselves by early repentance. They will soon learn

their fatal error. They will find that repentance is no easy task, nor always either in their will or in their power. Much less

will the deepest repentance avail to remove the bitter consequences of deliberate guilt. In vain will they look for their former peace of mind, conscious innocence, and pleasing hope. They may seek for it with tears, but they will seek in vain. "Let him then, who thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall."

SERMON XIII.

REFLECTIONS UPON THE VICISSITUDES OF THE

SEASONS.

OCCASIONED BY THE EXTRAORDINARY PREVALENCE OF FROST AND FOG IN THE COMMENCEMENT OF A. D. 1814.

GEN. viii. 22.

While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease.

THE extraordinary weather with which not only this metropolis and its vicinity, but the whole country, has been visited for some time past, cannot but suggest some useful reflections to a serious and attentive mind.

A fog of vast extent, of unusual density, and uncommon duration, has been succeeded by a season of frost and snow, still more uncommon and universal; which has interposed a temporary obstruction to the

usual communication with distant parts of the country, to inland navigation, to the pursuits of agriculture, to trade, manufactures, and commerce, to a degree and extent unprecedented in the memory of any one now living.

In the metropolis it is attended with extreme inconvenience and much danger; and it excites no inconsiderable degree of alarm. It has occasioned many distressing accidents, it has caused many severe falls, painful bruises, dislocated limbs, and broken bones. It has rendered the supply of water, that article of prime necessity, inconvenient and precarious. It has obstructed the regular supply of the market : it excites apprehension from the increased danger which would accrue in case of fire, from which hitherto the metropolis has been in a considerable degree mercifully preserved; and much apprehension exists with respect to the consequences of a sudden thaw, if that should happen to take place. In the mean time, the price of fuel is enormous, and rapidly advancing. And the

severity of the season is very prejudicial to the health of those who are exposed to its inclemency, and particularly to persons of feeble and delicate habits, or who are advanced in life, and suffering under the infirmities of age. And finally, while the rigour of the season is felt by persons of every condition in life, it presses liar weight upon the

poor, many

with

pecu

of whom

are thrown out of employment, whose wants and distresses are increased and increasing to an incalculable degree.

1. This extraordinary state of the season leads us to reflect upon the wisdom and goodness of God in the original constitution of nature, and in the general steadiness of its course.

The course of nature is the succession of phenomena in the external world. These are the result of the laws of nature, which are the wise appointment, and, as some of the greatest and best philosophers have believed, the immediate energy of the divine Being.

The course of nature consists in the re