they fade and vanish, before we have fastened on them an enduring hold. If earthly beauty comes to solicit our gaze and woo our hearts, we see it withering beneath the fingers of corruption, just as we begin to look to it for some permanent good. And were it not so; if these circumstances were more substantial in their nature, yet we have no power to drive off the array of diseases, that are ever gathering about the city of our habitation. We cannot shield our bodies from their assaults. We cannot recover them from their attacks. We cannot arrest the commission of death, and force the terrific king to allow us our eternity on earth. No, these unstaying accompaniments of our present abode, and our powerlessness to evade the laws of human destiny below, are ever reminding us, that HERE We have

NO CONTINUING CITY.

5. Let me just add in the last place, that we are expressly and perpetually reminded of this in the scriptures of God. God has not only disclosed the fact in the evolutions of his providence; has not only written on every object in the city of our abode, that it is not A CONTINUING CITY; but he has written it on the tablets of heaven, and spread them before us. He has sent abroad all over the earth the heralds of his truth to make known to all its dwellers, that this world is only the birthplace of their being-the starting point of their course that a passage is opened between it, and everlasting mansions by the atonement and mediation of his Son. These are truths written on each page of this holy volume. They are ever echoing through these his earthly courts. They come to us in the soft whispers of the dawn of each successive Sabbath day. Yes, from the excellent glory of his throne in the heavens, from which will one day issue the sentence against his enemies of everlasting banishment from his presence and the glory of his power, he now condescends to teach us by ten thousand voices, that HERE WE HAVE

NO CONTINUING CITY,

II. The second general topic to which I am to advert for a moment, is, that notwithstanding the numer ous and impressive mementoes of this fact, which are ever before us, we are astonishingly insensible to it. There can be no more need of proof of this, than of the other fact to which it directly relates. And a recurrence to evidence of either, would be unnecessary, if convictions of their truth were the object in view. The hope is, that by looking at some evidence that we are very insensible to the fact of which we are so variously and strikingly reminded, we shall so deepen our impressions of it as to render our convictions more decidedly practical.

One sign of our indifference to the fact of our having HERE NO CONTINUING CITY, is, that it does not habitually employ our thoughts. We are beings distinguished and dignified among the creatures of God by our faculty of thinking. Indeed, we are gifted with an intellectual constitution, which forbids that we should live without thinking. Now many of us have had minds active and busy with thoughts for twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty years. We are enabled also to follow back our trains of thought. We have the faculty of summoning home and gathering before the mind its past exercises. Now when we collect our thoughts which have for years been coursing through our minds, and look at them, do we find that the class which may be termed our habitual thoughts, have had much to do with the consideration of our short continuance here, and of our swift approaches towards an eternal state? Have not our thoughts on these subjects been rather transient, unwelcome, and uncherished intruders? When we have seen the time drawing near, in which we were to change the place of our temporary residence for another, where we expected to spend years or perhaps the whole of mortal life, did not the fact take up many of our thoughts? And if, while we have known assuredly, that we are speedily to leave our present associations, employments,

and residence for an everduring scene of things, we have thought but little of it, is it not a sign, that we are very indifferent and insensible to the momentous fact?

Another token of our disregard of it, is that it has not been the chosen and delightful theme of our conversation. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. We have been intimately connected in the city of our abode with many who were actually, if not professedly transient sojourners with us below, and on the point continually of taking their departure into a future invisible and everduring world. We have been in habits of free and familiar conversation with them on topics of mutual interest. We have not been wanting in the use of words, whether with or without knowledge. But could we call to remembrance our conversations-how much of it would be found to relate to this confessedly most interesting of all subjects? Could we minutely recollect the words we have used, how many of them would be seen to have been employed on the single fact, that WE HAVE HERE NO CONTINUING CITY ? Perhaps even fewer than might have been so used as to deserve to be classed among idle words. Perhaps some of us, professed pilgrims on earth, have never been heard to speak of that circumstance which makes us such.

Our want of feeling in relation to the fact of our short continuance here, shows that we are indifferent to it. We are beings who feel as well as think and speak. Even the merest trifles are known to have awakened in us the most intense feeling. We have been thrown into raptures or into agonies, by circumstances that deserved not the expense of a single slight emotion of the mind. When some little interests have been pending or approaching a crisis, the feelings of our minds have been such, as to take away our rest and to enfeeble our health. But if we glance at the past train of our feelings, how many of them will be discovered to have been awakened by, and clustered around the circumstances

of our present condition and future prospects? Will it not appear, that while we have been "warm on other subjects, we have been cold on this?" Will not such a glance reveal to us much zeal expended on vanities, much strength of desire in the pursuit of things which perish in the using, much fervor of attachment to forbidden objects, and yet but slight and transient sensibilities to this? O, does not such a retrospection present the astonishing truth, that while time has been careering away and eternity hastening on, that while earth has been developing its short lived and unsubstantial character, and eternal realities have been soliciting our regard and inviting us away, we have had little or no feeling on the subject?

that

Finally, that we have been blind and indifferent to the momentous fact of our having HERE NO CONTINUING CITY, appears from the little we have done in the business of a preparation for our final departure into an eternal state. Though no efforts can detain us long in our earthly abode, we cannot be prepared to exchange it comfortably and safely for one to come without much exertion. The only safe passage from this world to the next, is through a strait gait and a narrow way, cannot be entered and pursued without a constant agony of effort. There is the work of repentance, of faith, of selfdenial, of charity, all lying between the gate of the city of our earthly residence and the gate of the city of our God. Now is it not true of most of us, that we have been standing in a posture of comparative idleness, although we have been standing on the brink of eternity? We have done much to unfit us for heaven, but what have we done in the work of preparation for those pure and everlasting mansions? Will not an impartial review of our efforts in this direction, testify that we have as yet been astonishingly regardles of the speedy entrance we are confessedly to make upon the amazing scenes of a boundless range of retributions?

III. As a brief improvement of the subject, -let us contemplate the wisdom of the apostles and christian Hebrews, who in view of the fact that HERE WE HAVE NO CONTINUING CITY, Sought ONE TO COME. Though from our thinking, and saying, and feeling, and doing so little in reference to this great fact, it is but too evident that we have been astonishingly regardless of it, yet true wisdom dictates a very different course. If our indifference to the fact made it cease to be one, the case would be otherwise. But our city of residence here is not abiding. We must speedily leave it. NEAR

LY A HUNDRED THOUSAND MILLIONS OF OUR RACE HAVE

ALREADY LEFT it. We see how utterly vain are any attempts to prolong our abode here. We see that we are hurrying onward to the point where we must bid it a long adieu. The very city of our habitation, is falling to ruins around us. Time in his unstaying flight is touching and crumbling every thing to which we can lay hold of here. In this state of things-just as we are on the eve of escaping from expiring time-of leaping from a sinking world, we are presented with the offer of an enduring residence in heaven. To seek that, is to make our present unabiding condition most subservient to our best good. To seek that, is to strip the present city of our abode of all its most uncomfortable accompaniments. To seek that, by using this as not abusing it, and by improving our opportunities and privileges, is to give us something of the peace and rest of the future, in the present. To seek it in this way, is to gain a present assurance that we shall not seek in vain. To seek it in the only successful way, by not abusing this, will enable us without a pang of regret or fear to leave this. Our treasure will be laid up in THE ONE TO COME, and we shall welcome the message that calls us away to its enduring inheritance. Seeking it by a faithful use of our privileges, and a constant discipline of our hearts, we shall be habitually ready to take our final leave here, and to receive the gladsome wel