an immoral life.

not only abstain

With this end in view, bad men from any offensive appearance of evil in the face of the world, but even put on the semblance of virtues which they resolve never to possess; by a speciousness of exterior studying to render their evil designs less visible, in order that they may prove successful. How many profligates and libertines lurk under the disguise of men of honour! How many artful impostors and designing knaves make high pretensions to sincerity and upright dealing! How many, slaves in secret to the most infamous lusts, have the talent of passing in the world for persons respectable for the decency and regularity of their lives! How many, under the mask of plighted fidelity and friendship, lie in wait to deceive to their ruin the unsuspecting victim of their specious professions and treacherous counsels! It is painful to be obliged to add to this odious list the hypocrites in religion; those legitimate descendants of the Pharisees who make a gainful trade of godliness, who devour widows' houses by their cruel extortions; and for a pretence to cover their immoralities, make long prayers, prayers which shall only draw down on their own heads aggravated damnation. These covert and clandestine workers of iniquity prosper in the world, increase in

riches, and shine in the politest circles. For them the magistrate "beareth the sword in vain;" for well they know the limits of his power, and do not often venture to transgress them; since, without any overt violations of the law which might bring them to a condign punishment, they can securely go beyond and defraud their neighbour; they can calumniate the virtuous, and corrupt and ruin the innocent; they can grind the faces of the poor, rob the widow and the orphans of their right; and betray, if necessary to their own safety, the innocent blood. But, even when armed with all their sanctions, and executed in their utmost severity, how feeble and inefficient are penal laws to operate as a terror to evil-doers, and bring to light the hidden things of darkness. Upon men who have no fear of God before their eyes, the terror of his judgment can make no impression, and the mere fear of death, when that its greater terror is unfelt, is too weak in gross and desperate minds to stand against the pressing temptations to commit crime, combined with the hope, but too well founded, that it may escape. unpunished. Of this melancholy truth we all are daily witnesses we know, by woful experience, that the frequency of capital punishments does in no degree conduce to diminish the frequency

of the most dreadful crimes, or to break up or even intimidate the combinations of lawless and desperate men, whose combined depredations and sanguinary violence disturb our peace and security by day and by night, and almost "cause our lives to hang in doubt before us." To check these overflowings of ungodliness what power is sufficient? What but his who alone can control the unruly wills and affections of sinful men; and who has given us his sure word of promise that the dominion of sin and Satan shall in his appointed time be destroyed, and that of his Son be established upon its ruins. Let not then our faith stagger at the promise and the Providence of God, because we see audacious transgressors unstopped in the career of their enormous wickedness, wealth and honour in the hands of the worthless and ungodly, and the faithful servants of God in circumstances of distress and poverty. Rather let us relieve our minds from perplexing doubts and fears by the assurance which the infallible oracles of God have given us, that "the triumphing of the wicked shall be short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment;" that the day of revelation of the righteous judgment of God will bring prosperous villainy to open infamy, and exalt afflicted piety to glory and

triumph. On that day shall the declaration of our Lord be awfully fulfilled, that "there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, and hid that shall not be known." Countless instances of murder, cruelty, treachery, robbery, adultery, seduction, perjury, false witness, and crimes infinitely diversified, which escaped the detection of all earthly judicatures, shall then be brought in an instant out of darkness into light: and multitudes shall shrink with horror to behold for the first time in the persons of their relations and acquaintances habitual and gross transgressors of the laws of God. Then shall that scripture have a striking accomplishment, that "the hope of the hypocrites shall perish, and their trust be as a spider's web," swept away by the besom of destruction. They will have had their day, and their reign will now be at an end. They will not now be "judged by man's judgment," but by him who cannot be deceived and will no longer be mocked. And as his judgment will begin with the " searching of the hearts and reins," it will drive them out of that refuge of lies under which in this world they sheltered themselves from infamy; and, stripped of their “manifolded disguise,"* to their unutterable con

* Spenser.

fusion they will find themselves in the naked deformity of their secret sins, their schemes of fraud and villainy detected, and the whole "mysterity" of their iniquities developed and laid bare to the eyes of all the world.

In this view of the final judgment, as discovering the secret sins of men, we all are seriously concerned. If God shall then manifest the counsels of all hearts, how infinitely does it concern us, my brethren, to prepare our own for that trying and fearful inquest. If that solemn day shall discover every human being in his real character, ought we not to live as those whose hearts are then to be made manifest? "Beware," said our Lord to his disciples, "of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." Whilst those formalists kept up the specious exterior of devotion, they had rottenness in their hearts. The effectual means, with the divine grace, of purging out of our hearts this odious leaven of deceit, which God and all good men abhor, is a conscientious regard to his pure and all-seeing eye, who discovers sin under all its disguises, and will assuredly bring it into judgment. Hypocrites may hide their sins from the eyes of others, and sometimes from their own consciences, but never can impose upon an Omniscient God.