peace with God, with man, and with their own bosoms. To do this they must cease to be impenitent. The peace which God offers to them, is proposed on no conditions involving any change in the divine law or government; but on the sole condition of their being essentially changed. They must change their attitude of hostility against him. They must become penitent and lowly in heart. They must love their fellow sinners as themselves. They must avoid those courses which never fail to stir up in their bosoms the corrodings of remorse. To this change God calls them, when he says PEACE, PEACE TO HIM THAT IS FAR OFF, AND TO HIM THAT IS NEAR. He assures them of pardon and acceptance on his part, the moment of their penetential return to him. He is ready to receive them, the moment they are disposed to seek his favor. As soon as they yield their hearts to him; he will accept them as righteous through the merits of his son. How thankfully should they accept this offered peace. How unhesitatingly should they close in with the gracious overture! You cannot, my fellow sinners, without great criminalness and danger, continue any longer to neglect this proclamation of peace. You are placed amidst most solemn circumstances. The gospel of peace comes to you now, clothed with a restoring and healing power. It is preached with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. Many are healed by the word. Will you, by your enlightened resistance of the truth and power of the gospel, convert it into the means of aggravating your disease, and placing you beyond the reach of cure? You will do this, unless you attend with heartfelt interest to the gospel-unless you feel a deep concern in its disclosures-unless you have some just sense of your dependence on the attendant special efficacy of God's holy spirit-unless you seek with great earnestness of heart the gift of that spirit to newcreate your soul—unless you are inclined with a broken and believing heart to cast your whole selves on the sovereign mercy of your offended, and yet gracious Creator. And when he condescends to make to you such proposals of peace when the infinite God engages to heal your diseased souls, and to restore unto you the joy of salvation, how can you stand out in stern and desperate resistance? How can you go on to rob your souls of peace now, and to increase the fearful certainty, that you will remain strangers to peace eternally? The message I bring you this morning, is a message of peace. And though I have used my own language and adopted my own manner of presenting it, yet so far as the truth is concerned, God has created my message. If it were otherwise, if it were my own invention to awaken and impress, and convert you, you might innocently treat it with contemptuous indifference. But as it is, if you treat it thus, you will do it at the peril of your soul's salvation. If you will not give the most earnest and obedient heed to these things which you have now heard, you will by this occasion be only the more prepared for that just recompense of reward, which consists in everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his power. SERMON XIV. Transitory Nature of earthly Things. HEBREWS XIII. 14. FOR HERE HAVE WE NO CONTINUING CITY, BUT WE SEEK ONE TO COME. Ir the journey of ancient Israel, from Egypt to Canaan, is not to be viewed as intended to convey instruction, as an emblem or type of the believers earthly sojourn, it must be acknowledged to be, in many points, a very happy representation of it. Christians, it is well known, are accustomed to recur to particulars detailed in the inspired history of that transaction, as strikingly illustrating many circumstances in their religious condition and progress, while in this world. Nor can I see why they may not obtain much profit in reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness from noticing analogies between the literal pilgrimage of the ancient people of God, and their own spiritual course. Certainly they are not forbidden to be warned and encouraged by such a view, though they are not fully assured that the one is strictly typical of the other. Such a use of it is abundantly justified by the apostle's evident allusion to it in the text, and some verses connected with it. We have an altar, (speaking of the christian Hebrews) whereof they have no right to eat, who serve the tabernacle. For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the priest for sin, are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us go forth, therefore, unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach. FOR HERE HAVE WE NO CONTINUING city, BUT WE SEEK ONE TO COME. This epistle was written many centuries after the nation of Israel had been established in the towns and cities of Palestine, and only a few years before they were, by a series of most appalling visitations driven from them, and made to wander among the different nations of the earth, without any permanent abode. It was for the purpose of consoling the christians among them in prospect of these calamities, and of reconciling them to the abandonment of their dearest earthly possessions, that the apostle assures them, that their condition on earth was essentially like that of their ancestors, when passing through the wilderness by a succession of temporary encampments.They had a no more abiding residence than their fathers. They were passing through a wilderness. But it was their peculiar privilege, to have their ardent desires and confident expectations, placed on a future enduring abode beyond the reach of earthly incidents and disappointments. The fact which the apostle states for the comfort and encouragement of his brethren according to the flesh, is universal in its character. It is as true of us as it was of them, that HERE WE HAVE NO CONTINUING CITY. The fact is so much a part of our daily experience, that it is never seriously called in question, or considered as requiring a single word of proof. Mementoes of it have met us from earliest childhood, as constantly as the successive days that have come and gone. But though we are in no need of being convinced of this fact, we are always in need of being reminded of it. For our convictions of it are too commonly of a nature to have litile to do with our habitual thoughts, feelings, or conduct. It is scarcely possible we should not be astonished at the little influence, which the consideration of it, has hitherto had upon us. Scarcely is it possible that any one of us should not be led to perceive, and imitate the wisdom of the apostles and christian Hebrews in earnestly seeking a future, permanent, and heavenly abode. If this be so, I shall not proceed without the interested attention of my hearers to some cursory observations on each of these several topics alluded to. I. I advert to some things fitted to remind us, that WE HAVE HERE NO CONTINUING CITY. Individuals in conversing with the past, hear this truth uttered in deep and impressive tones by the ten thousand events, which have filled up and diversified the few and swift succeeding years of their earthly course. The field of their memory is scattered thick with facts illustrative and confirmatory of this. It is not my wish to silence or lessen the force of such evidence, or to withdraw the mind of a single individual from personal reminiscences of this nature. Let individuals review their own history in reference to this fact. Let the voice of their own experience come to deepen their impressions of it. What I shall add respects evidences of a more general character, and somewhat apart from such private recollections. 1. We meet with mementoes of man's transitory earthly abode in the works of those, whose life and efforts shed a disastrous influence on the best interests of their species. It belongs to the moral constitution of the world, that man shall have an influence on his fellows. Owing to the general depravation of his moral nature, a bad influence is more readily extended and perpetuated. It finds an element in which to live and diffuse itself. There is constantly running a current to take it and bear it onward through the lapse of ages. So that while "The good is oft interred with their bones, |