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that God was more willing to give the Holy Spirit, with all his transforming influences, than a father is to give bread to his hungry child. All the redeemed of the Lord, now upon earth, will unite in this testimony. Ask your companions in the broad road, if their sincere prayer for pardon was ever rejected. All will reply, No; we never offered such prayer to God. Consider, then, this fact; all who have asked, have received; all who have not received, have not asked. Does this fact encourage you to pray, or to neglect prayer? Can you neglect it when your danger is so near, and so rapidly approaching? This day, this hour may be all the time for prayer that is intended for you. Another day, another hour, and the door may be shut; the door of mercy, never again to be opened!

4. Finally, it is your duty to BELIEVE IN THE LORD JESUS CHRIST; for he that believeth not the Son, shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. Your reading, your meditating, your praying, will never save you. These are but the workings and desires of your own minds; they are not the Saviour. While you read, and meditate, and pray, you should remember that you are under condemnation, till you come to Christ. Until you are pardoned, your guilt and danger remain and increase. It is only for Christ's sake that God will forgive sin; and it is by faith alone you can be united to Christ, and thus be interested in the merit of his death. The moment you believe in this Saviour, who died on the tree, your iniquities are blotted out; you pass from death to life; from a state of condemnation to a state of favor with God.

But, take heed that ye be not deceived. Mistake not the workings of imagination, however vivid and touching they may be, for the exercises of faith. Mistake not the mere excitement of your passions for the evidences of a new heart and a right spirit. Your imagination and your passions may be excited by other causes than truth. That faith which is the work of God, is the knowledge and hearty belief of the truth. The word, believe, implies this. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. That which you are to believe is the truth of the gospel; the doctrines, promises, and invitations, relating to Christ, and revealed by his authority. By this truth, thus received, you are to be sanctified; for faith worketh by love, purifieth the heart, and overcometh the world. Pardon and holiness are inseparably connected. The Saviour not only delivers from the guilt, but also from the love and the power of sin. By mistaking the workings of the imagination, or the mere movement of the passions, for the evidence of faith, you may adopt the dangerous and erroneous opinion that faith is something so vague and so mystical, so different from the common operations of the mind, and especially from the cordial belief of any other state

ment, that it cannot be understood, or any definite idea be formed of it. But if you remember that faith is the knowledge and hearty belief of the truth, then, of this truth you will see the necessity of forming distinct ideas, otherwise you cannot receive it into your heart. This truth, thus received, will be the seed of God which remaineth in you; will be the root, the productive principle to which you may trace the rise and vigor of all those spiritual and devout affections which characterize the children of God, and which, through their influence, if not instantaneously, will yet gradually and certainly, weaken and destroy the sinful propensities of the heart,

Therefore, it is your duty to believe in Christ, and to believe now; this hour, this moment. Your danger is great, is increasing, and is approaching with the speed of thought. You need this Saviour; he is graciously offered to you; with kind solicitude he is urged on your acceptance. In proof of his willingness to save, he has died for you; in proof of his power, he declares that he is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by him. Why will you not, then, believe in this almighty Saviour? You can assign no reason, you can offer no excuse that is not sinful, for not believing this moment. And will you excuse one sin, by pleading another? If you should thus excuse and satisfy yourselves, will God, your Judge, sustain the excuse? You are not only invited, you are commanded to believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. If you refuse, it will be a sin of the most aggravated guilt; of all sins, the most provoking to God. How interesting then is the crisis. to which you have come! By believing in Christ, your safety is secured ; by refusing, you disobey the command of God, greatly increase your danger, and perhaps provoke his injured Spirit to depart for ever from your soul,

REMARKS.

1. Nothing can be clearer than that the destruction of sinners will be charged to themselves; it will be because they would have it so. The reward, and nothing more than the reward, of their own hands shall be given them. Their ignorance is without excuse; for the Bible is constantly open and within reach, for their instruction. Their unbelief is without excuse; for they believe other statements far less interesting, and accompanied with far less evidence of truth, than the gospel. More numerous or more powerful motives cannot be presented to the human mind than those which press upon them the necessity of faith in Christ. These motives are derived from the greatness, the certainty, the nearness, and rapid approach of their danger; from the sufferings and death of a divine Saviour; from the rich and boundless mercy of God. But pow.

erful as these motives are in their nature, the love of sin counteracts their influence. Their unbelief is not accidental, but designed. They will not come unto Christ that they might have life. When, therefore, they are condemned by the Judge; when they go away into everlasting punishment; not a single look of compassion will follow them; not one emotion of sympathy will be felt for them! Wilfully they have sinned, and wilfully they have rejected the Saviour; and now, unpitied they perish! They have made themselves vessels of wrath; they have fitted themselves for destruction!

2. Christian brethren; among those now in the broad road, you all had your conversation in times past. Lately, you were as thoughtless and as prayerless as they now are. Why are you not still with them, fulfilling the desires of the flesh, and of the mind? Who has made you to differ? Your hearts reply; it was God who apprehended us, stopped us in our progress to destruction, led us to search the Scriptures, to serious reflection, to prayer, to Christ the Saviour. Gratitude and love, practical and fervent gratitude and love to God, is then your duty and your privilege, for this unmerited kindness, this work of grace, this astonishing exercise of sovereign mercy. You are laid under infinite obligations to Him who has died for you and rose again. Let your whole life then be spent in cheerful obedience to his will, in zealous and persevering efforts to promote his glory. Christ has died for you, that you might live unto God. Delight yourselves therefore in the Lord, and he shall give you the desires of your hearts. Be not envious against the workers of iniquity; but consider and understand their end. Think of the slippery places, in which they are eagerly chasing the pleasures of sin, while the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that come upon them make haste! Taught by the sanctuary of God, see them brought into desolation, as in a moment, utterly consumed with terrors. Connect their momentary joys with those consuming terrors; think how soon their laughter will be turned into mourning, and their joy to heaviness; and you cannot but feel for them the most deep and lively compassion. Look not back on their pleasures, which you have forsaken, with an eye of regret; but continually set your ·affections on things above, and no longer on things on the earth. narrow way, into which you have been turned, may have its temptations, its conflicts, its sorrows; but it has also its quickening and purifying hopes, its animating joys, its triumphant victories. From time to time, that city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God, will appear, with all its glories, to the eye of faith, inviting you onward. There you will soon forget the labors of the way, or remember them only to increase your holy exultation, and to give louder and sweeter notes to your songs of everlasting praise. Amen.

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MATTHEW, X. 13.-And if the house be worthy, let your peace come

upon it.

THIS is among the directions which our Lord gave to his disciples, when he sent them forth to preach the gospel. On entering any village or town, they were to inquire for a worthy family; and if, after the customary salutations, they found it worthy; that is, kindly disposed to them, and willing to receive the instructions they were commissioned to communicate; they were not only to abide in that house, but to “let their peace," that is, the peace of the gospel, "come upon it." We have no particular account of any of the families thus visited, and taught, and blessed by the ministers of Jesus; but we feel assured, that their condition was most happy, for "the peace of God, which passeth all understanding," was with them.

No association of beings on earth, can be more interesting, than that denominated 66 a family." There are found the tenderest sympathies and the most endearing relations. There, the painter finds objects for the most touching exhibitions of his art; and there, the poet is inspired with the sweetest melody of song. And if there be a human being, unaffected by the nameless endearments of domestic life, he must have a heart naturally incapable of exquisite emotion, or chilled and hardened by the bad influence of the world. But alas! when we come closely to examine even this, I had almost said, the only sanctuary of earthly bliss, we find, that sin has entered to poison its joys and to mar its loveliness; we find, that the family, like the individual, must be sanc tified-must experience the purifying influences of religion-must come into possession of the peace of the gospel-before it becomes an object

on which God, or angels, or holy men can look with complacency. There may sometimes, it is true, be much that is amiable, where nothing is displayed but the natural affections, drawn forth in their native simplicity, or regulated by the forms of refined education. But compared with the Christian virtues, shedding their heavenly influence over the family circle, all this loveliness of nature is as the inanimate picture, compared with the living, thinking, and acting original. The body may be fair and well proportioned, but the soul-the living image of Godis wanting.

The Son of God came down from heaven to restore the beauty of holiness to the family, as well as to the individual, and to the larger community. And his religion is the only power which can restore it—the only power which can secure in the domestic circle, unmingled truth, and love unfeigned-the only power which can give reality and permanency to its virtues, and secure to it the abiding presence of God.

My present design is to illustrate the transcendent importance of this religion, by presenting some of the leading characteristics of the family which is governed by its influence.

1. Contemplate the general aim of its arrangements. The individuals who constitute the religious family, have learned in the school of Christ, that this world is not their home, and that the objects of this world, however splendid or attractive, are not their chief good. They see with an cye of faith, beyond these transitory scenes, an "inheritance incorruptible and unfading." They behold it as their own; and expect soon to have it in actual possession. Of course, while they faithfully discharge the duties springing from family relation, it is in reference to their Christian vocation, and to the loftier purposes of their being. The regulations which they establish, the plans which they form, the pursuits which they engage in, are all made subservient to the same great object. The spirituality of the individuals is not lost, but habitually cherished and heightened, in their social intercourse. While the blessings of domestic life are duly appreciated, the soul continually stretches onward to its more enduring inheritance. And in this respect, who does not see the immense difference between the worldly and the religious family? The worldly family is formed only for present convenience, or comfort, and is intent only on present acquisitions. Its chief solicitude is to increase its treasures and secure its respectability for time. Its arrangements, and its modes of thinking and acting are all adapted merely to the attainment of some earthly temporary good. There may be decency, there may be refinement, there may be much that is attractive, but you look in vain for any evidence that Religion is the presiding Divinity, or that heaven is the chief object of desire. You see not the domestic altar; you hear not the voice of prayer. The great interests of eternity, if not

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