Sermon I. (Heb. iii. 12.)-Preached before The King, at the Chapel Royal, 6th April 1783; and at Landaff, 28th June 1807-with an APPENDIX, on the Abolition of the Slave Trade. II. (John iii. 16.)-Preached before The King, at the Chapel Royal, 11th April 1802. III. (1 Cor. xv. 22.)-Preached before The King, at the Chapel Royal, in 1791. IV. (1 Cor. v. 7.)-Preached before The King, at the Chapel Royal, 15th February 1807. V. (Prov. xxii. 2.)-Preached before the Stewards of the Westminster Dispensary, at their Anniversary Meeting, in Charlotte-street Chapel, April 1785.-With an APPENDIX, 1793. VI. (2 Tim. i. 10.)-Preached before The Bible Society, at St. Bride's, 9th February 1800. VII. (Gal. vi. 9.)—Preached before the Society for the Suppression of Vice. VIII. (Gal. i. 7.)-Preached in the Chapel of the London Hospital, 8th April 1802. SERMON I. Preached before The KING, at the Chapel Royal, 6 April 1783; and at Landaff, 28 June 1807. HEB. iii. 12. TAKE HEED, BRETHREN, LEST THERE BE IN ANY OF YOU AN EVIL HEART OF UNBELIEF. IT is not an easy matter to institute such a comparison between the manners of past and present times, as may enable us to draw a just conclusion concerning their relative excellence or depravity. The moral character of a Nation is an intricate thing, not to be unfolded with certainty by those who have taken most pains in it's investigation; hence there is great reason to suspect the accuracy of all general observations tending to shew that we are either better or worse than our Ancestors were. They had their vices and virtues, their temptations to sin, and their opportunities of moral improvement, and we have ours; but God alone can tell whether, all circumstances considered, their demerit was greater or less than our own. But though it be next to an impossibility to make such a just estimate of the whole of their character, or indeed of our own, as to authorize us in giving a decided general preference to either them or ourselves, yet in some particular things we may distinguish a diversity as to the degree of excellence; and if we should say that our Forefathers held the Christian Religion in an higher degree of estimation than we do, I think we should say no more than the truth; they did not, perhaps, understand it better, but they generally received it with a sincerer stedfastness of belief. Infidelity is with us a rank weed; it's root is principally fixed amongst the great and opulent, but the baleful influence of it's branches is extended over all the classes of the community. Many causes have contributed to this increase of Infidelity, but I shall at this time wish to direct your attention only to two, which mutually beget and support each other-The bad education of Youth, and the bad lives of grown-up Men. Parents are usually more anxious to make their sons accomplished Gentlemen and good Scholars, than honest Men and good Christians. They take great care to provide for them the first masters to polish and form, after the most approved models, their exterior demeanour; whilst the quality of the mind is neglected, or, if attended to, is formed on a wrong principle. The young man is instructed to set a great value on many things which morally speaking are of no worth, and lightly to regard others which are of the greatest weight; to admire certain virtues and to reprobate certain vices, not because they are commanded or forbidden by |