believing on Christ Jesus? Surely then you are furnished with the chance of getting eternal redemption.

II. The passage exhibits a limited opportunity.

The period of harvest and of summer soon passes. Neither sowing-time nor reaping-time waits for any farmer. Both begin, pass on, and terminate without the slightest pause or dalliance. If the agriculturalist seize upon and improve seedtime and gathering-season as they commence, proceed, and close, he is pretty certain of some produce. Should he let them come, advance, and end unnoticed and unimproved he will have no crops. This every wise husbandman knows perfectly well, and is most anxious not to be too late either in sowing or reaping. Seldom or ever do we find any prudent tiller of the ground failing of a crop through neglecting to sow, or reap at the proper season.

Life, the time for obtaining mercy, glides away. It does not stand still or tarry a moment. Our present existence begins, goes on, and ends. Childhood and youth, manhood and old age we enter upon, pass through, and bid adieu to. No portion of our being remains stationary even for a little while. Its first stage directly it begins proceeds at a regular and an unslackened pace to the next, and so on, till the last has come and gone. Of this scarcely any are ignorant. Yet, how very many act as if the reverse were really the case. Their life, they seem to imagine, delays its course whilst they delay their spiritual concerns. At least, so says their conduct. Cer

tainly they are not as careful to embrace their passing season for making sure of Heaven's saving grace as the cultivators of the soil are to take advantage of theirs for insuring the earth's needed increase. Well would it be with them if they were. When on their death-bed we should not hear, as we now do, the distressing exclamation "I am dying, I am dying, and am unprepared to meet God." No: they would be ready, and in the joyful anticipation of shortly seeing Jesus as He is, and of being with Him in unfading glory. Be ye not so unwise as to lose sight of the fact that your opportunity to be saved begins, advances, and closes with beginning, advancing, and closing life; and as you know not the time nor the manner of your departure, only that you must die, be in earnest for Jesus to save you at once, and rest not day or night until He has delivered you from your sinful, defiled, and undone condition.

"One thing demands our care;
O be it still pursued!
Lest, slighted once, the season fair
Should never be renewed.

To Jesus may we fly
Swift as the morning light,
Lest life's young golden beams
[should die

In sudden endless night." III. The text sets forth a lost opportunity.

and negligent

Inexperienced farmers sometimes let the right time for getting or gathering crops go by unembraced. Either in putting in the seed, or in housing the fruit thereof, they are behindhand. Calculating on future fine weather, they do not avail themselves of present dry days. Hence, when they should

be sowing, cutting, or ricking they are about that which may be safely left until the other be done. The consequence is they scarcely have any crop, or their produce is seriously injured. To such the text is exceedingly applicable. Harvest is past, and summer is ended and they have got little or no productions, or their hay is spoiled, or they have grown out wheat. A long and dreary winter is before them without the comforts of an improved growing and garnering season.

Ignorant and careless sinners, in not a few instances, allow "the time of their visitation" to pass unseized upon. Blind to their lost state, in love with sinful pleasures, engrossed with worldly things, deaf to the glad tidings of the Gospel, regardless of the Divine threats, reckoning on prolonged life, or hopeful of the prevalency of their own fancied righteousness, they live their allotted period without securing the grand object for which it is granted, and are surprised on being in expiring circumstances to perceive that the day of salvation is passed and that they are unsaved. How awful! Yet multitudes of the ungodly are thus situated. The Jews, with hosts of foes ready to cut them down in their wickedness and hurry them to the bar of God unjustified and unsanctified, could in truth say, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." Numbers who are now beyond the tomb in their iniquities are doubtless saying, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." Before long, some of you who have hitherto listened to the glorious

Gospel in vain, will, it is feared, be exclaiming, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." Most of you have spent your youth and are not saved, though, perhaps, you were often urged by your godly parents or pious teachers to seek the Lord early, with the assurance, that if you did, He would be found of you. But youthhood, as regards yourselves, is gone, no more to return, and you are not saved. Many among you are no longer young men and young women. During that interesting period you were called upon to be sorry before God, on account of your follies and sins, to trust in the Redeemer for pardoning and renewing grace, and to spend your best days in the Lord's honourable and pleasant service. The call you have not responded to, and young manhood or young womanhood, so far as you are concerned, has for ever passed away, and you are not saved. A few of you have ceased to be middle-aged. Whilst passing through that vigorous stage of your existence you were frequently reminded of your ruined state, and of Christ's ability and willingness to save you, and often entreated to accept of proffered mercy. Still you have not done so and your prime of life is terminated, never to be recommenced, and you are not saved. With here and there one, old age is drawing to a close with no signs of repentance, faith, and amendment, although repeatedly prompted thereto. Already you, my aged friends, have one foot in the grave, and yet you are still unsaved. A little while, and both

feet, yea, your whole body will be in the sepulchre, and your poor soul will, I fear, be in hell. Your youth, your young manhood, your middle age, are all past. Ah! and your old age is going fast, and you are not saved. O, how perilous is your condition! At once hasten to Jesus, whose arms of compassion are yet open to receive you, lest the night of death should overshadow you and introduce your spirit to black despair.

IV. The verse expresses a regretted opportuuity.

No farmer, however slow to discern and make the best of his season for sowing and reaping, can help regretting when he begins to experience the sad results of his tardiness in perceiving and improving his capital chance. As he looks upon his thin failed crops, his spoiled hay, or his melted corn, and thinks that the period is gone for setting and gathering afresh, he cannot but grieve that he should have been so unwise as to let his opportunity slip unimproved. Yes: and he does regret too. Nevertheless his grief is not hopeless; another and another season, in which to sow and reap is coming, which, if he be only wise to improve, may yet raise him above chill penury and crushing destitution.

Nor can any sinner, be he ever so unobservant and neglectful of his time for the obtainment of salvation, scarcely do otherwise than lament when he is beginning to feel the disastrous consequences of not discerning and embracing his gracious opportunity. As he sees the heaven of glory and bliss he has missed,

and experiences the hell of shame and misery he might have avoided, and remembers that the season has elapsed for escaping the latter and gaining the former, he can hardly keep from bewailing his foolishness in misimproving his day of grace. Ay: and he certainly will give vent to the most woful lamentations. The Jews, on seeing nothing before them but utter destruction, and thinking of their neglected opportunity, exclaimed in the deepest distress "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not! saved." "There shall," says Jesus, "be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out." More than probable some, that once sat where you are now sitting, and listened to the saving truths you are now listening to, are at this very instant in the bottomless pit, and saying, in the bitterness of their souls, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." Why, even you, if only seriously reflecting on your long disregard of God's offers of mercy, cannot refrain from grieving that you should have permitted so much of your being to pass without availing yourselves of Jehovah's merciful proposals. Not saved! and you know you are not. Not saved! and with some of you youthhood is ended, with others of you young manhood or young womanhood has passed away, with not a few of you middle age is no more, and with several of you old age is hastening to a termination. O how is it pos

sible for you to ponder this, and not be filled with the bitterest regrets. You who are no longer young, can you recollect that you have lived out he first part of your life in sin, imDenitence, and unbelief, and not be Constrained with tears to exclaim, My early days are closed, and I am ot saved!" You too, who have got eyond life's meridian, are you able o reflect, that you have up to the present moment been living in ebellion against God and slighting His kind and easy terms of reconiliation with Him, without very egretfully exclaiming, "My youthHood and the prime of life with me re both past, and I am not saved!” You especially, who are tottering on The brink of the grave, can you consider that throughout your protracted Existence you have been violating God's holy law, slighting His proffered grace, and provoking His just lispleasure, and not cry out in the greatest anguish," My youthhood and my manhood are terminated, and my old age is ending,and I am not saved!" Surely you each must, on due reflection, be overwhelmed with regret. Soon all regretting will be utterly useless. Let but your saving opportunity once end unheeded and misimproved and you will never be favoured with another. There will be naught before you except an eternity of conscious self-imposed wretchedness.

Finally, you may yet be saved.-The harvest is not yet past, the summer is not quite ended with any of you. All of you are still out of hell and in the place of hope. Young people, you may yet be saved. Middleaged persons, you may yet be saved.

"BE NOT RIGHTEOUS OVER MUCH."-ECCLES. vii. 7.

MANY urge this text of Scripture in order to discountenance that serious and habitual religion, which it is the grand aim of revelation to promote and establish. According to these men, the glory of God, solicitude for the soul, impartial respect to the divine commandments, &c., are only objects of secondary concern. Let a Christian resolutely adhere to his Bible, and fear to violate his conscience, and he must, according to their sentence, speedily incur the unpardonable guilt of being righteous over much. But can we seriously imagine that some may be so scrupulously attentive to their duty towards God, or man, as to exceed the requisition of the law? or do more than is contained in that abridgment of its holy precepts, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, &c., and thy neighbour as thyself?" Alas, from the danger suggested, the best of men feel themselves but too remote.

O Christian! still walk circumspectly and humbly with thy God

nor fear the revilings of such whose hearts are enmity against God and His ways. But let the rigorous and unyielding observer of another's fault, let the superstitious devotee to traditional distinctions and observances; let the ostentatious who delight to parade through the external forms of piety; and, above all, let the Pharisee who trusts in himself that he is righteous, refusing to submit to the righteousness of God revealed in the Gospel for the justification of sinners-let those listen to the friendly caution, "Be not righteous over much." Let these renounce the error of their way, and hasten for shelter, salvation and holiness to the righteousness, atonement and grace of Jehovah Jesus.

"Jesus said, It is finished; and He bowed His head, and gave up the ghost."-JOHN ixx. 30.

THE work of human redemption was a work of infinite importance and of everlasting consequence :

"T'was great to speak a word from nought:

T'was greater to redeem,"

and better had it been that the world had never been created at all, than that it should have been created, and lost, and never been redeemed.

But how vastly great was that work of the world's redemption! To finish transgression, make an end of sin, and bring in an everlasting righteousness-to magnify the law and make it honourable-to satisfy the claims of justice, and pay down

the price of man's salvation, was a work too great for man or angele to perform, but for it the Lord Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh, was well qualified, and all-sufficient. He said, "Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God;" and when the fulness of time was come He came to do what the law could not do, because of the weakness of human flesh; and this was His language when He came, "I must work the works of Him that sent Me, while it is day." He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, in the prospect of which He prayed, "I have finished the work Thou gavest Me to do," and upon which, in His last moments, He bowed His head, exclaiming "It is finished."

Yes, the work of redemption by Jesus Christ is gloriously complete, accepted of the Father, and effectual for the acceptance and salvation of all that believe in Him; not one sin remaining to be atoned for by all the tears of man, and not one meritorious work required in order to his justification before God. "Only believe," in the simple requirement, and "he that believeth shall be saved" is the authoritative assurance for every poor, burdened, doubting, desponding sinner.

Nevertheless, the finished work of Christ for us does not supersede the great and necessary work of the Holy Spirit within us. "Repentance towards God" is alike indispensable with faith in Jesus Christ, and always accompanies the faith that is genuine. A slumbering world of salvation-slighters, therefore, are not to fold up their arms, saying, "All is finished, and nothing remains