Second place, To "return unto the Lord," implies, that man is now naturally at a distance from God. This, experience, fatal experience, confirmed by the word of God, loudly proclaims; for though "God made man upright, yet he hath "sought out many inventions." "Man that was "in honour continued not." God, indeed, by reason of one of the most essential attributes of his nature, cannot be very far from any of us, for his omnipresence filleth heaven and earth, encompassing us behind and before, and on every hand-no where can we go without the extent of his dominions, to no place beyond the limits of his government; but, alas! by nature we are strangers to him, and aliens from his affection: we are indeed, and must be subjects of his government; but then we are guilty rebel subjects, traitors against the dread majesty of heaven and earth we are indeed the creatures of his almighty power; but then we are lost, apostate creatures, and altogether unworthy of his notice: we are the children of his providence; but we are stubborn," disobedient, and gainsaying children," outcasts from the family of heaven, adopted children of the devil, and heirs of hell. Here every thing is reversed. "How is the crown "fallen from our heads; how is the gold become

dim, and the fine gold changed." The present state of man is so widely different from that of primitive holiness and integrity, the constitution of his nature was so totally overturned by his fatal apostacy from his Maker; sin, like a loathsome leprosy, marring the beauty and wasting the strength of the human soul, that the once glorious and perfect child of God is hardly discoverable in the now guilty polluted slave of sin and Satan. Thus are we far removed from God. The guilty criminal naturally shuns the presence of his judge. We see the first sad effect which sin had upon our grand progenitor, Adam; it inspired him with dread and apprehension; it prompted him to fly from the face of God, whom he formerly met with humble delight: having lost the image of God, which constituted a moral nearness to him, he wanted, if possible, to create a real local distance from him, and this is the condition of man by nature to this very day. We come into the world in a state of alienation from God, for we are born in a state of pollution and defilement, with hearts and dispositions bent upon evil, and that continually, and equally averse to what is good; hence that propensity which so early discovers itself to what is forbidden, and that backwardness and reluctance to perform our duty. From the one no bridle is able to restrain;

to the other, no power can impel; and as if our natural distance were not great enough, we are by our own actual transgressions making it greater and greater every day-we are ready to do any thing rather than part with our sins, rather than return unto God. But in the

Third place, the exhortation in the text, Come, let us return unto the Lord," implies, that it is an absolutely necessary duty; and it certainly is so, if happiness be a desirable thing, and if we would wish to escape misery, for what is the fearful doom of those who are far from God? The psalmist informs us, "they that are “far from him shall perish." Our eternal interest is then at stake, our great all is depending, the life, the happiness of our precious and immortal souls. For as sure as the Lord liveth, he will punish with everlasting destruction those who obstinately keep at a distance from him; and we are no less bound by motives of gratitude, than of duty and of interest, to return unto God, for is not the condescension of Almighty God great and wonderful, who thus "waiteth to be "gracious," who is still exalted upon a throne of mercy ready with open arms to receive returning sinners, when we had the greatest reason to ap-. prehend, that he would no longer appear but in

the character of an incensed and an inexorable judge? Is it not matter of comfort to reflect that we have to do with a Being so good and so merciful, who discovers so much reluctance to punish, and such readiness to forgive? But have we not much higher ground of apprehension, if all this grace shall have been bestowed upon us in vain ? It is an awful denunciation in the first of the Proverbs: "Because I have called, and ye re

fused, I have stretched out my hand, and no "man regarded; but ye have set at nought all

my counsel, and would none of my reproof: I “also will laugh at your calamity, I will mock "when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh "as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a “whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but "I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but

they shall not find me: for that they hated "knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the "Lord; they would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof: therefore shall they "eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled "with their own devices*."-And surely "it is

a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living "God." And now it may be enquired, seeing that man once was in a state of favour with and

*Prov. i. 24-31.

near unto God, both in a natural and moral sense, seeing that he has fallen from and lost that happy state, and seeing that a return unto this great source of life and happiness is a duty absolutely necessary, it may be enquired, I say, how is this great duty to be performed? How are we, who are thus" far off to be brought nigh?" I answer in the words of our Saviour himself: "No man

can come to me, except the Father which hath "sent me draw him." By our fatal apostacy from God, we are become weak and helpless, as well as guilty and polluted creatures, and in vain should we hear addresses, such as that in the text, "Come, and let us return unto the Lord," did not the same Spirit which inspired these addresses and exhortations, likewise dispose our dead flinty hearts to comply with them. And this ought to be the ground of our joy and rejoicing before God, that we are not left to the direc tion of our own carnal corrupted reason, which, alas! is but too ready to mislead us, nor to the strength of our own natural powers, which are so miserably reduced, that we are not left to grope in the dark, to guess at what will be pleasing unto God, for "life and immortality are now "brought clearly to light." In a word, it is matter of the highest joy, that the terms of our acceptance with God, are no longer a perfect