quillity, the chaos, and conflict, and agitation of your minds. Coming to Him who offers rest to the weary and oppressed-to Him who is the great and only peacemaker between your souls and God, you will find him breathing a pure, a calm, a subduing influence through all their faculties. Coming to Him, you will find his blood, so long despised and trampled upon, has an atoning and cleansing efficacy, which alone can still the clamors of a guilty conscience, and pour into the bosom the purity and peace of Heaven.

And will you come? Will you accept of peace? Will you let your souls have rest? Or must they be the seat of conflicts and restless anxieties forever? I cannot but intreat you to spare yourselves such an end. There is peace for you, if you will cease to be wicked. You can know peace, if you will know and trust in Christ. O, make the experiment. You cannot add to your wretchedness by such a course. You cannot but gain peace. Come, and you shall hear

Him whose voice erst reared creation's frame,
Say to the troubled bosom-Peace. Be still.
He'll still the loud raging waves of passion,
Long foaming out their shame. He'll give thee rest
From burning, restless, and impure desires.
He'll end forever your long war with Heaven.
While Heaven's own peace and loveliness
Shed through all your soul, shall rise to view,
And show to man, sin-darkened here below-

How great their peace whose thoughts delight in God;
How fair the new-born soul which grace creates;
How pure the bliss that reigns in minds renewed.

SERMON V.

The Wicked urged to forsake his Way.

ISAIAH LV. 6, 7.

SEEK YE THE LORD, WHILE HE MAY BE FOUND, CALL YE UPON HIM WHILE HE IS NEAR. LET THE WICKED FORSAKE HIS WAY, AND THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN HIS THOUGHTS; AND LET HIM RETURN UNTO THE LORD, AND HE WILL HAVE MERCY UPON HIM; AND TO OUR GOD; FOR HE WILL ABUNDANTLY PARDON.

ISAIAH has been called the evangelical prophet. The person and kingdom of Christ are his grand pervading theme. His mind seems to have been engrossed with most vivid and accurate discoveries of the then approaching ages of the gospel's promulgation and triumphs. He writes, as one standing amidst the light shed upon the world by the full disclosures of the new dispensation. He evidently had his eye fixed on the age, in which it is our privilege to live. And, moved by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, he is now speaking to us from the far remote period of nearly three thousand years ago, in the words I have just repeated. At that distant age, and on the very summit of that elevation to which the spirit of prophecy raised him, he stood and spake to coming ages, to distant nations, to Jews and Gentiles, to all those, who, in the progress of events, should be brought to hear or read the volume of heavenly grace. However appropriate may have been the call to his own nation, in view of the dawn of gospel days,

it certainly comes to us with an appositeness and force, which could not have been accidental-which could not but have proceeded from the knowledge and goodness of Him, to whom all times, and circumstances, and persons are present and fully known. The tone and manner of address, too, here adopted, are in such perfect accordance with the calls of our Saviour in the days of his flesh, that the same Spirit must have dictated both. He who, while on earth, stood and cried, saying, if any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink, could have been no other than He who, in the beginning of the chapter containing the text, cries to the thirsty, and hungry, the poor and perishing-Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money: come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money, and without price. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.

The text, then, is the Saviour's call to the wicked and to the unrighteous-to the impenitent and unbelieving. He calls them to duty and to happiness. Three things are chiefly urged as duty; and three principal considerations are suggested as motives or encouragement to perform them. To some observations on these, permit me to ask the attention of my hearers; especially such of them as may yet be in a state of unconver

sion.

I. The duty here enjoined upon the ungodly. The terms, WICKED and UNRIGHTEOUS, are here doubtless used as synonymous. A wicked man is an unrighteous man, and an unrighteous man is a wicked man. It is enjoined upon them,

1. Earnestly to seek, and call upon the Lord. They

are in a state of revolt from their allegiance to God. In heart and conduct, they have withdrawn from those devoted servants of the Lord, who obey him through love, and have combined with his enemies, who rebel against his law and administration, because they disrelish his control. Their first duty is to seek him, as one whom they have willingly and wickedly left-as one, whom by their conduct they have induced to depart from them, and to withhold from them his special favor. They are to endeavor to become reconciled to him; to take such views of his character, as may show them the reasonableness and privilege of being in a state of harmony with him; to look with solicitude to the way of reconciliation; to become acquainted with him as revealed in the gospel; and to begin to seek their happiness in him. They are anxiously to inquire after him as their chief good, their portion, their rest, their end. For direction in their inquiries, they are to search the volume of his word. This testifies of him, and reveals him. This is the light given to guide their steps to him. There can be no correct notions of him gained without recourse to this unnerring guide. Men sometimes search the book of nature alone, to gain an acquaintance with God. But they always search in vain. The God of nature, or the God whom men come to think of and believe in, without examining revelation, would be a terrible God to men in any measure acquainted with their condition and wants as sinners. That God knows no mercy, exercises no acts of pardon, and affords no influence to new-create and purify the unholy and unclean. That God has nothing to tell the anxious mind about the world beyond the grave. He reveals no pure and unearthly joys above the sky. He offers no support amidst the gathering woes of life. He has nothing to give the weary soul, as it hovers on the utmost verge of time, that strengthens its pinions and guides its flight through the dark valley. They that would seek God, then, must seek him in his wordwhere his grace and mercy shine.

The earnest pursuit of God here enjoined, includes CALL UPON HIM. prayer. No pursuit of God, as our portion and rest, will prove availing, if it be not attended with prayer. This is an anxious direction of the thoughts and desires towards God. There is nothing like this service to enable the dark-minded sinner, to acquaint himself with God. Every such act, must make the sinner feel more and more his own guilty departure from him-his need of help from him, and his entire unworthiness of the smallest favor. If he has a strong desire of one thing, the expression of that desire to God, will excite other desires. Be it then the first endeavor of all, who are yet in their sins, to seek and call upon the Lord. Let them seek, that they may pray, and pray, that they may seek. No one ever found God, who did not seek him. No one ever obtained the blessings of salvation, that did not call upon God for them.

2. Another thing enjoined on sinners, is the abandonment of their ways of sin. LET THE WICKED

FORSAKE HIS WAY AND THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN HIS

THOUGHTS. It is sin that constitutes the sinner's rebellion against God. Every act of sin is the rising up of a worm of the dust against Jehovah. It is this, which estranges creatures from their Creator. The duty here commanded, is that the wicked cease to practice every outward, known, gross sin, and cease to neglect any outward known duty. They are at once to turn from the way of sin-to abandon it-to leave it off-to put it away from them. They must forsake the way of sin, as the way that can conduct them to no good—as a false way, that will not lead to the good it may seem to promise, but to every species of evil. They must abandon sin, as they abandon the company of persons, who have proved themselves deceitful, injurious, and altogether unworthy of confidence or regard. They must throw it off, as a loathsome, offensive, and oppressive burden, that they cannot, and will not any longer suffer