prospect; it neither pleases nor refreshes them. In trouble they turn away from such thoughts; guilt and darkness and hardness of heart keep them at a distance from God. Their stubborn knees rarely bend. They are meditating on worldly things; and, though perpetually deceived in their expectations of happiness, even in the midst of successes, yet there are still their hopes, there their endeavours after comfort and relief. This is an infallible test, by which they may know their condition; viz. that their heart never glows with desires after heaven, but is constantly bent upon earthly objects.--Brethren, you cannot think that this is the character of disciples of Christ. What! to pant after the gaiety, the pleasures, and the riches of the world? What! the Master to be content in poverty, and the servant to place his bliss in wealth? the Master to endure patiently shame and ill-usage; and the servant to be high-minded, to resent affronts, and return evil for evil? Try if you can recollect one single feature of likeness in your own intellectual character and his. Such an inquiry, and such a selfexamination, may prove of immense consequence to your eternal interests. If you find all his con

versation to have been heavenly-all yours earthly; his temper humble, forgiving, and gentle-yours haughty, assuming, and self-willed; him all contentment, and ever bent on doing good-you, all murmuring and dissatisfaction, and ever selfish; surely under these circumstances you cannot be at a loss to draw the just conclusion. To you, this is the appropriate exhortation: "Repent, and believe the Gospel ;" and, like the blessed Apostle in my text, "determine to know nothing save Christ crucified."

Believe me, beloved brethren, my object is not to produce despair; but only to be the blessed instrument of awakening fears before it be too late and the door of mercy be shut against you. That door is now open, and the call is as yet,

To-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts" against advice, against conviction. Beware of resting in your present awful condition! Give no sleep to your eyes nor slumber to your eye-lids, till you find yourselves fully determined to know nothing save Christ crucified. -Brethren, it would ill become me to conceal your danger; and, moreover, I too well remember the woe pronounced by Jeremiah against the priest that dealeth falsely, and heals only slightly

the wounds of God's people: and so the prophet Ezekiel; "If thou dost not warn the wicked of his way, to save his life, the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at thy hand." The prophet goes on; " Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, he shall die in his iniquity, but thou hast delivered thine own soul." And when to all this I add, that unfaithful instructors of the Gospel cannot fail to be the subject of eternal imprecation among the hopeless souls who suffer the dreadful sentence of "Depart, ye cursed;" I would ask ye, whether ye can think that preachers have only slight motives to induce them to open fairly and honestly the whole counsel of God, and so to acquit their consciences of having discharged their important duties? "Turn "Turn ye, turn ye!" therefore, must be our never-ceasing cry: "Turn ye! why will ye die? God has no pleasure in the death of him that dieth: Turn ye, therefore, and live."

Brethren, that ye may listen with profit, is my fervent prayer; and thus will ye save your own souls, and prove my abundant and grateful rejoicing in the day of the Lord.

251

SERMON XXI.

ROMANS xii. 2.

And be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed, by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

THE world in which we live is, by reason of the corruption of our nature, calculated to be a constant snare to such a being as man. It has objects adapted to our senses, and which continually promise us gratification. While man was innocent, those objects were the constant means of promoting his intercourse with his Maker. Every object of sense reminded him of his Creator: for God beheld every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good: there was no evil in any created thing. Every enjoyment which man

in innocence received by the impression of his senses from things outward, gave him some lovely idea of his Maker, and exercised his gratitude towards him. The blessings which he was continually receiving did not turn away his affections. from his Creator, nor induce him to set his heart on created objects; but, on the contrary, drew him nearer to his God: and if the world appeared fair and beautiful,

Thyself how wondrous then!"

was the natural meditation of his heart; and his affections became the more closely and the more intensely fixed on the Author of all good, "who crowneth the year with his goodness, and whose tender mercies are over all his works."

A garden therefore, like Eden, blooming with a varied profusion of beautiful productions, and possessed of every thing calculated to gratify the senses with a perpetual flow and succession of delights, was doubtless the proper seat of innocence. There, a creature like man, formed after the image of God, saw, and heard, and tasted, and smelled, and felt, nothing but what led him to God, and furnished his capacious mind with constant imagery of the goodness and wisdom and bounty of his