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Shame! Ineffable shame! is it to you Christian, that you are so sluggish, and take so little interest, in a cause that ought to call forth all your zeal, all your activity, and all your energies. O, forget not, that you are "bought with a price, even the precious blood of the Son of God:" and that you ought therefore to "glorify God both with your body and your spirit which are his." "I beseech you, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies, a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service."

From what has been said, it appears that the longer you delay to keep God's commandments, the further you are departing from happiness-the deeper you are sinking into ruin. By every individual sin, by every hour's delay, you are " heaping up wrath against the day of wrath." Like a man building a pile, on which to burn himself to death, every time you commit a sin, you are bringing another faggot, to enlarge the heap, and increase the flame-you are only multiplying the arrows, with which divine justice will transfix your heart! Whereas, the sooner you begin to keep God's commandments, the farther you may rise towards that perfection of happiness, which Jesus, in mercy, reserves for his saints.

If this be the case, how dangerous, nay how fatal, is delay! And will you still postpone your religious duties to a more convenient season? Do you talk of convenience, and by and by, when the question is, whether you will rise into the happiness of Heaven, or sink into the misery of Hell? When life is so short and uncertainwhen the work of salvation is so great-when it only becomes more and more difficult, the longer you put it off —when it is scarcely ever well done, or even half done, if delayed to the last years of life-when every day's delay, removes us farther and farther from God and happinessand when almost all, who do thus delay, die without having

it in their power to repent-how can you, dying immortals! how can you, children of reason! how can you, lovers of happiness! how can you continue to trifle and procrastinate? When will you be wise-when will you consider your latter end? Will it be time enough at what you call the eleventh hour, on the bed of death? O consider, Lastly, what will you do, if at, or before that time, God withdraws his grace-ends your day of trial-and gives you over to destruction? His spirit will "not always strive" with rebellious man: and you may, by your obstinacy, provoke him, to give you over to your own devices." And should he cast you off as reprobate, alas! alas!" Hell will be a refuge, if it hide you from his "frown."

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Oh! then, be wise in time, and "give all diligence," to work out your salvation. "Make haste and delay not "to keep God's commandments." Trust me, there is not a glorified Saint in Heaven, who, while on earth, did not labour to make his "calling and election sure." And could we put the question to those miserable exiles from happiness, who dwell among the Apostate damned; could you ask them, what brought them to that state of misery; millions of voices, from the infernal pit, would rise in peals of thunder, roaring out delay! delay! delay!

SERMON III.

ON KEEPING THE HEART.

PROVERBS IV. 23.

"Keep thy Heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of Life."

BY the heart, in the language of the sacred Scriptures, is very commonly to be understood not only the affections, according to the sense of the term, as it is usually received with us, but the whole mind, with all its faculties, its thoughts, emotions, inclinations, and desires. When it is said of the Gentiles, "They became vain in their

imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened," the import evidently is, that their understanding was obscured and misguided. They used their reason amiss, wandered from the truth, and became involved in ignorance and error. When we read in the epistle to the Hebrews, "Wherefore, as the Holy Ghost saith, to-day "if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in "the provocation, in the day of temptation in the Wilder"ness," it is manifest that St.Paul speaks not with immediate reference, as before, to the understanding, but to the frowardness of the will, prompting the Israelites to disobedience. Yet the Apostle, who well understood the language of the Spirit, and of the people also to whom he wrote, presently afterwards uses the same term with a view to their reason and their knowledge perversely misapplied. "Wherefore I was greived with that gene"ration, and said, They do always err in their heart, and G

"they have not known my ways." The same word is used by St. John, speaking of the conscience. "For if "our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, "and knoweth all things." With reference to the memory it is said by Luke, "He went down with them and came "to Nazareth. But his mother kept all these sayings in "her heart." Nor will it probably fail to occur, that this sense is still retained in an idiom of our own, when to signify that our remembrance of sentences is so perfect that we can repeat them without hesitation, it is said that we have them by heart.

When it is enjoined upon us then in the text, to keep the heart with all diligence, because out of it are the issues of life, the usage of the Scriptures teaches us to have reference, not only to the affections and emotions, in all their variety, and in regard to their objects and degrees of intenseness, but to the whole mind as the source of thought and conduct. The understanding, imagination, conscience, memory, will, the influence of the mind and body upon one another, are at once set before our view in the comprehension of the heart. When we reflect upon this complication of our nature; when we consider that upon its present state in respect to all these, depends our true character in the sight of God, and of our fellow men too; in short all our prospects of prosperity here, and of happiness hereafter; the precept of the wise man must appear worthy of our regard.

It is almost unnecessary to remark to Christians, that proper virtue of character must commence within us. In every individual the mind is the fountain of good and evil. "Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; "or else make the tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt." This is the first and distinguishing precept of Christ, and it is explanatory of the effect produced upon his hearers, marked by the Evangelist when he tells us, that "He

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taught them as one having authority, and not as the "Scribes." It was in the same spirit, derived from him, that John the Baptist tells the Jews, that "Now the axe is laid at the root of the trees." Others it is true, have admitted and even strenuously asserted that virtue and a claim to its rewards in every one, must commence within, and must depend for success in subduing himself to correct principles. But how shall a man be able to obtain a conquest over himself? If his pride be conquered, he will frankly acknowledge that it is impossible. This is a perfection in truth and moral goodness, which the wisHe who dom of this world never thoroughly taught. discovers this, and who abides continually in the result of his discovery, must either sink into despair, or he must find his hope in God alone, and in his communication of spiritual strength, renewing grace, and pardoning mercy. Men may persevere in avoiding the outward exhibition of their failure, but this prevents not the failure from being real and continual within.

I mention this now, that while we are engaged in the prosecution of the discourse, should a difficulty occur from the perfection of the precept in its import and application, we may see the mercy in Christ which provides for our necessities. If we cannot fulfil the precept in its perfection, through the corruption or the infirmity of our fallen nature, the remedy is not in God's surrender or abatement of the command, but in the provision which himself in his mercy has made at an infinite expense in favour of our repentance and faith, and our improvement of the light and strength which he graciously bestows.

Let us consider in what the keeping of the heart consists, what are its obligations and advantages, and what are the means of success: first when ourselves are alone, or prin cipally concerned; and secondly, when we are connected with others; and then conclude the discourse.

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