and the care which they take of their animal frame will rise up to condemn them for not labouring for the meat that endures to eternal life. Their conduct respecting their bodies shows the emptiness of their excuses about their souls. True it is, without Christ you can do nothing, you are dead in trespasses and sins, but this is your guilt and not your excuse. The real cause is, because you will not come to Christ that you may have life. It is because you hate that good which you ought to love, and you delight in that evil which you ought to hate. John v. 40-44. God has done every thing for you that he could do for a moral and responsible being to make clear to you your duty, your interest, your safety, and your happiness. God has done every thing for you as a sinful creature to make your return to him practicable, and so your neglect of him is entirely your own fault, and attributable only to yourself. The mediation of the Lord Jesus Christ has removed every impediment on the part of God to receiving you, though a sinner. The gift of the Holy Spirit will remove every impediment on your part to return to God, and he has promised to give that Spirit on your asking. Light is come into the world. Oh reject it not through love of sin. No human being perishes or can perish, but entirely through his own wilful fault, As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live ; turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways, for why will ye die, O house of Israel?

Ministers are commissioned to speak with the full glow of affection to every human being living on the face of the earth, whatever their rebellions, whatever even their blasphemies against God and his Christ; they may tell them, God made you, God so loved you that he gave his only begotten Son for you, that Son died on the cross in your nature, God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself not imputing their trespasses unto them,―be ye reconciled to God. Only believe; only turn to God; only receive his love; only seek him in the name of Jesus. Oh taste and see that the Lord is good, blessed is the man that trusteth in him.

CHAP. IV.

THE PRESENT DUTIES TO BE FULFIlled.

THE more pressing and extended evils are, the louder is the call on the children of God for exertion. We may see this exemplified in the directions of St. Jude. He had been shewing in many affecting features the character of the perilous times in the last days, when the ungodly should be full of ungodly deeds and hard speeches against the Lord. In the view of this evil he charges the people of God to special diligence and zeal in their own duties, and special exertions to save others. Jude 3, 17-23. When evil is urgent, all lawful means,

usual or unusual, are to be employed for its remedy and removal. God far more approves true and fervent zeal for his name, even were it irregular in its track, than a spirit of cold, heartless calculation, which does nothing for those perishing in ignorance and wickedness.

God has appointed AN ORDER OF GENERAL MEANS, attention to which is a duty of unspeakable importance and of constant obligation. Such are the faithful preaching of the word and administration of the sacraments by Christ's ordained ministers, that is, according to the Articles of the Church of England, by those who have public authority given unto them in the congregation to call and send ministers into the Lord's vineyard. By their public ministry, and by their pastoral visits and instruction, God has chiefly hitherto carried on and maintained his truth in the world. The prayers also of all Christians, and their holy and heavenly example, letting their light so shine before men that they may see their good works, and glorify our Father which is in heaven: these are means universally acknowledged and to be always employed for God. These great standing means must ever be kept foremost in our view. God works in nature by providence always, but by miracles only rarely; and so it is in grace. God works by his standing ordinances always.

But let us consider more in this chapter, OUR PRESENT DUTIES with respect to the dangers of these

times. As a quickening motive and encouragement let us bear in mind that extraordinary times like the present, seasons of great excitement like that through which we are now passing, are the very seed time of a future harvest, and furnish extraordinary helps for great usefulness and blessedness.

1. GAINING A FULLER KNOWLEDGE OF GOD'S TRUTH, I would place among our first duties. Placed at the head of the nations for the diffusion of truth, the fountain should be full and plenteous at its source, if the streams are to be diffused far and wide with rich abundance. There is in God's word a full storehouse of truth to meet every exigency. Just as before the fall of Babylon of old, God testified, The Lord hath opened his armoury, and hath brought forth the weapons of his indignation, Jer. 1. 25; so against the spiritual Babylon there is a full armoury in the Bible yet unopened. I doubt not the dangers of the times will occasion, through the loving kindness of our God, fresh unfoldings of truth that the well-instructed scribe may bring things new and old out of his treasury. As Pelagianism led to the opening of the doctrines of grace through Augustine, and as Popery led to the full opening of justification by faith through Luther, so the dangers of the present day will lead the Church back to the treasures of the Old Testament and the blessedness of the Law as well as of the Gospel, and of the first table as well as the second, and to a full view of the

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application of Scripture truth to all the social relations of life and to rest in nothing short of the universal sovereignty, the speedy coming and the happy, holy, and everlasting kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Robinson's address to the first pilgrim fathers embarking as the first colony to New England in 1629, is full of profitable instruction to every Christian now, as to the fulness, supreme authority, sufficiency, and yet unexhausted treasures of the sacred volume. He said, "I charge you before God and his blessed angels that you follow me no farther than you see me follow the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord has more truth yet to break forth out of his holy word. I cannot sufficiently bewail the condition of the Reformed Churches who are come to a period of religion and will at present go no further than the instruments of their Reformation. Luther and Calvin were great and shining lights in their times. Yet they penetrated not into the whole counsel of God. I beseech you to remember it as an article of your Church Covenant that you be ready to receive whatever truth shall be made known to you from the written word of God."

Yet a word of caution is here needful that we may separate the precious from the vile. Jer. xv. 19. We have seen men, trusting to their imagination and leaning on their own understanding, yield themselves to awful delusions. We must therefore not believe every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they be of God. It is a great art