ator, your fellow creatures, or your own souls? Remember, I beseech you, that every person of this character is " a stranger to the covenant of promise; an alien from the commonwealth of Israel;" hitherto " without hope, and without God, in the world." Were the great day of disclosure now to arrive; what would be your appearance? How changed from the sloth and indifference, the sport and gaiety, which you now exhibit? What new thoughts would you form? What new wishes would you exercise? With what amazement would you hear the last trumpet sound; the Archangel call; and the shout of the saints rend the heavens? With what amazement would you see the graves burst; the dead arise; the living changed; and yourselves among the living; the Judge descend; the throne set; and the books opened? With what terror would you wait, while "the righteous" rose "to meet the Lord in the air;" and hear yourselves summoned to the left hand of the Judge? How would you be overwhelmed, when the sentence of reprobation was pronounced; and yourselves were "banished to everlasting destruction, from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power

If this would be your miserable condition, were all these things now to take place; have you not the most fearful reason to expect the same anguish and dismay, when they shall actually take place at the day of judgment? You are now quietly enjoying “the pleasures of sin for a season ;" and that season is life. You have formed no plan, you have entertained no purpose, of turning to God. With the world you are completely satisfied as your portion; and say to it daily, "Deliver us; for thou art our God." All your past thoughts, affections and privileges, have issued only in increasing hardness of heart and blindness of mind; a more entire devotion to sense, and sin, and Satan; and in a greater and greater alienation from holiness, and from GOD. Nothing has hitherto been attempted by you, which has done you the least good; or for a moment withdrawn you a single step from sin. Even now you are not willing to do so much, as soberly to ponder these infinite subjects. Much less are you solemnly begin. ning a new course of life, and earnestly labouring to escape from perdition.

What hope, then, can you indulge of escaping at all? Youth, the best of all seasons for the attainment of eternal life, you are deliberately squandering away. Your hearts are now too hard to receive any saving impressions from the Gospel. What will they be in the torpor of riper years? "Wicked men and seducers," we are told, "will wax worse and worse; deceiving, and being deceived." Are not you evidently wicked? Are you not mutual seducers? Are there not distressing reasons to fear, that in this same course of increasing corruption you will go on as you have begun, finish life, and enter eternity?

Among the things, which peculiarly contribute to render your case an object of deep anxiety and dread, this consideration ought solemnly to alarm you. You have uniformly despised and abused the invaluable privileges, mercifully given to you by your Maker. To you the word of God has spoken, the Sabbath dawned, and the Sanctuary opened its doors, in vain. Your Parents have taught, and governed, and lived, and prayed, before you in vain. In vain has the voice of Mercy called; the Redeemer poured out his blood; and the Spirit of truth striven to bring you to repentance. Unamended, unwarned, unmoved, you still go on, despising instruction, and rejecting reproof. What reason then can you allege why the Judge should not address to you the awful language of his Word? "Because you hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord; because you would none of my counsel, and despised all my reproof: Therefore shall ye eat of the fruit of your own way, and be filled with your own devices."

Remember, that these things have been declared to you a thousand times; and that they have been a thousand times disregarded. You hear; but without even sober attention. You are reminded from Sabbath to Sabbath; but voluntarily forget. You are warned; but slight the admonition. You are invited and urged, to faith, repentance, and reformation; but your only answer is, "I pray thee, have me excused." In the very house of God you harden your hearts. At the foot of the mercy-seat you refuse to pray. In the immediate presence of your Maker you refuse to hear his voice. Before the table of Christ you despise his

sufferings; and cast contempt on that love, which he manifested to your souls, and which has amazed both heaven and hell. Of all this God has been a witness every sabbath which you have. spent in his house. The all searching eye has looked directly into your hearts; and the book of remembrance has recorded them all against the reckoning of the final day.

Even this is far from being all the guilt which you have incurred. Look into your hearts and lives; and you will see a multitude of sins of many kinds, burrowed in your hearts, and creeping out into your lives. Think how many private debasements have polluted you "from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot." Call to mind the profaneness with which you have dishonoured your Creator, and digraced yourselves; with what irreverence you have regarded that glorious and fearful Name, JEHOVAH your GOD. Think how often this irreverence has been manifested, not only in the language appropriately styled profane, but in that also which is decent and chastened; which was not directed immediately against GOD himself, but against his Word, his Ordinances, and his Church; because you thought it safer to attack them, than HIM.

Remember how many idle words you have spoken, and continually speak; words flowing from a vain, empty, worthless mind, thoughtless of GOD, forgetful of your duty, and regardless of your salvation; words answering no good, and therefore always accomplishing a bad purpose.

Call next to mind the impure thoughts which you have indulged. Think how often your imaginations have wandered after objects, and sated themselves on images and scenes, which you never dared to mention. How little did you think at the time, that God was looking on, and beholding the progress of pollution in your hearts. Recall next the polluted books, which you have read with eagerness and delight; the polluted pictures, at which you have gazed with the same spirit; and the polluted words, to which you have listened with pleasure, or which with equal pleasure you have uttered to others.

To these things add your indulgence of other evil passions. Remember, particularly, your sloth in the service of GOD. Can

you find in your whole lives a single act, cordially intended to glorify him? If you cannot; how great must be the number of those actions, in which you have dishonoured him? Feel how destitute your lives must have been of all duty; and how entirely you have sustained the character of "unprofitable servants." "Love not the world," says St. John, " neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." In what manner have you loved the world? Has it not hitherto been your God; and engrossed your affection, obedience, and worship. To this general idol have you not bowed daily in humble prostration; and sacrificed your time, your services, and yourselves. What costly sacrifices are these? How unworthy of such oblations is the god, to whom they are devoted?

Riches, honours, power, and pleasure, have engaged all your thoughts, and all your time. Riches, perhaps, you have not coveted for their own sake; but you have coveted them for the sake of the reputation, splendour, and luxury, which they procure; and, in this sense, have worshipped Mammon with a devotion not less real, than that of the veriest miser. With honour and power you have been delighted. With pleasure you have been fascinated to frenzy. "The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life," have reigned over you with a despotism, which, from any other source, would have broken your hearts, and made you cry out of wrong, without measure. Still you have hugged

your chains; and licked the hand of your oppressors.

Call, next, to mind the eagerness, with which you have sought the haunts of sin, and courted the means of corruption. Recollect the times and the spirit, with which you have gone to those places where sin was known by you to be practised; where it was made easy, convenient, and safe; where temptations were gathered and hoarded up with a careful hand, lest they should fail of their ruinous efficacy, and lest otherwise the young should not in sufficient numbers be destroyed. Think of the midnight hours, which you have spent in seeking and perpetrating iniquity. Think of the companions whom you have loved and chosen ; and with whom you have united in crimes, which neither you nor they would ever have dared to commit alone.

With these things before your eyes remember also how often, and in what distressing degrees, you have set an evil example before others. Of all means of corruption an evil example is the surest and among the bitter objects of regret seen by the mind on a dying bed, our own corruption of others is one of the most bitter. To think, to feel, that we have encouraged others to sin; that we have contributed to fix their evil habits; have lessened or destroyed their conscientiousness, have led them to evil thoughts, principles, and actions, of which, but for us, they would never have dreamed; have, under the name and guise of friendship, taken them by the hand, and led them to perdition, or prevented them from turning back to the path of life: is to think, and feel, one of the most distressing combinations of guilt which will ever agonize the soul. Yet alas how often are mankind, even in early life, forced to think and feel, unless they are torpid, these melancholy things.

The time would fail me to proceed farther in this employment of remembrance. From what has been said, it will be easy for you all to pursue this solemn subject to any extent. How well does it deserve to be pursued to the utmost extent, by every man living?

With these most interesting objects in view, I ask again, What will be the appearance of this Congregation before the Judge of all the earth? How different from that, which we would fain believe; from that, which we cannot but fervently desire!

7thly. Let me exhort every person present solemnly to ask himself, how he will appear at the great day.

The sole use of preaching is to make the mind better. To the accomplishment of this end it is indispensable, that those who hear should make the case their own; and consider themselves as primarily concerned in that which is said. If then you, who have heard these awful considerations, would derive from them the least benefit; you must severally bring them home to your own hearts. Every one of you must realize that he himself will hereafter appear before the bar of God; and that "every work with every secret thing" which he has done," will be brought inVOL. II.

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