may awaken a salutary alarm, and dispel some portion of that lassitude which we are prone to feel in relation to our everlasting welfare. But their careful and resolute pursuit, by rendering delusion impossible, and scattering every false hope, would, more than any other cause, contribute to our security,—and settle the mind upon its only right foundation,-on that whereon we might encounter, without alarm, the shock of calamity and death.

But proportioned to the greater importance, is the greater hazard, of the ministerial character; and it demands the greater solicitude, lest at the termination of our labours we should make shipwreck of faith, and so be rejected for ever! Who can tell the anguish of that reflection,-"lest, having preached to others, I myself should be cast-way!" Or who can estimate the transport of finding, at the close of life, that "we have fought the good fight, have finished our course, have kept the faith"-and that "henceforth there is laid up for us a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give us at that day!" If, when we come to die, we can take up the language of our Master, "Father, I have glorified thee on the earth, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do;"-then, when the seductions of error are removed, and the agitations of the heart are at rest, and all our anxiety and toil are exchanged for the certainty of our acceptance, and the fruition of our everlasting reward, -with what ineffable delight and triumph shall we, while entering into his joy, partake his exultation, and exclaim, "It is finished!"

To yourself, then, in this more private capacity, such reflections are superlatively momentous. For it is in your personal character as a Christian that all your safety, or all your danger, primarily resides. It may seem a comparatively easy task to "keep your heart with all diligence," while supposed to be conversant with no other objects, and surrounded with no other cares, than such as relate to futurity; -and yet the most polluting of secular avocations is not perhaps more adverse, when prosecuted in a careless spirit, to the final welfare of the soul, than that which brings it into ceaseless contact with the things invisible and heavenly. The temptations to spiritual indolence are, perhaps, as powerful as the incitements to positive secularity;-the danger of insensibility to their impression, as great as to forgetfulness of their existence;-and our liability to suffer loss from the exhaustion of those faculties by which they are apprehended and applied, not less than to become indifferent to their recollected claims, or to subordinate them by design to the things which every moment wither in our view. If you are saved, remember it will not be as a minister, but as a Christian:—and yet it will be found unspeakably difficult to preserve the distinct and separate consciousness of your simply Christian character, while sustaining, at the same time, that responsible and solemn office, which perpetually presupposes its existence, and its full efficiency. Neither can it be believed, that your great spiritual adversary will suffer you to escape without a more abundant exercise of his malignity, when, by your

assumption of this charge, you are placed in such declared and perilous antagonism to all his purposes. Could he seduce you from your steadfastness, or entangle you in error, he would have gained a conquest worthy of the most determined effort;and against you, therefore, the deepest of his stratagems, united with the fiercest of his onsets, may be expected to be unceasingly directed. You indeed "wrestle not with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers, with spiritual wickedness in high places." "Wherefore take the whole armour of God, that you may stand fast in the evil day; and, having done all, may stand."

And consider, how great are the advantages afforded to your adversary from the many and peculiar temptations to which your office specially exposes you; all tending to undermine your principles, and endanger your fidelity. If you are successful, you will be tempted to pride; if disappointed, to murmuring. If the execution of your task be found easy, you will be assailed by criminal indolence or self-dependence; if connected with a sense of difficulty and inadequacy to its just fulfilment, to a remission of effort corresponding to the diminution of hope. If you are made the instrument of conveying to others a measure of spiritual blessings greater than you are conscious of in your personal experience, you will be open to the paralyzing suggestion, either that all is a delusion, or that yourself are a deceiver;-if, while exploring with interest the mysteries of revelation, and bringing them forth successively, with all the vividness of their impression

full upon you, they are found to fail of their effect on others, you will find it hard to retain unabated the strength of your conviction with the meekness of your forbearance,-and the danger will continually be increased, lest your religious sensibilities should be at length exhausted, and come to partake, in their turn, of the very sluggishness and languor against which they have maintained a fruitless conflict. The preservation of your mind in meekness, purity, and readiness for spiritual action, while opposed and thwarted by a thousand counteracting influences, will often resemble the efforts of a dove, struggling to reach her nest, amidst the rush of tempests and the career of eddying winds. With other men, such feelings may be casual and infrequent; with you they may be expected to form the history of every day and hour. Others may be revived by quickening impulses, and the application of unwonted stimulus, in views of truth or duty, new and unexpected, and pressed home powerfully by the voice of pastoral exhortation;-but what is to rekindle the wasted lamp of piety within your desolate bosom?" if the light that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness!"

And should we, alas! suppose you to degenerate only into formality or secret unbelief;-and that your efforts in the pulpit, though not remitted, or even sensibly abated of their fervour, should come to spring, not from the solemn sense of the things you utter or the interests you are professedly aiming to secure ;-that you should decline into no doctrinal error, but speak truth in the spirit of falsehood;

that you should commit no flagrant inconsistency, but stand as a whited sepulchre, beautiful without, but full of death within;-that your name should be pronounced with no dishonour, but your principles sink every day into deeper and deadlier slumber, and your motives become tainted with a larger and more fatal infusion first of indifference, and next of hypocrisy,-your prayers more infrequent,-your interest in the salvation of souls more languid,your consciousness of responsibility more feeble,— your watchfulness against temptation more inconstant, and your resistance to the hidden apostacies and wanderings of the heart more irresolute:-what could be paralleled with the misery of such a condition, either in earth or hell! Every spring of sanctity and vigour drying up within you, and yet the symbol of official consecration not obliterated from your brow;-every hope withering, and yet the seared and shrivelled leaves of a profession once so distinguished hanging thick about you;-the fragrance of your anointing wholly vanished and exhaled, and only its substance remaining, as it might minister an aliment to fiercer flames, and deadlier anguish :-you would present a spectacle to the world, and to angels, and to men, pre-eminent alike in guilt and wretchedness,—enshrouded with darkest omens, and signs mysteriously prophetic of uttermost destruction. Where should we look for the victim so signally prepared for the slaughter, or adorned with chaplets of such portentous bloom!

Amidst this melancholy decay of your religious feelings, what could be expected but that your min