offended God. Careless sinners may as utterly contemn the threatenings of God as they trample on the love which was so wondrous in its exhibition; they may with perfect indifference, or mad fool-hardiness, refuse to realize their present condition, as one so imminent in danger; but God hath spoken it-"The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the people who forget God."

This, then, my friends, is the first reason which I offer you why the work, in which it becomes you all to engage, is a great work. You have your escape to effect from the power of an enemy whose design is the everlasting ruin of your souls, and that escape is only to be effected on the terms of the Gospel covenant-"Repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ." Remaining in the impenitent condition in which you now are, every hope of salvation which you entertain is the miserable device of the devil to gather his chains more closely and securely round your souls. With fear and trembling must your salvation be worked out, under the high dispensation of Almighty God, who worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure, and who holds you responsible for using all the talents, embracing all the opportunities, improving by all the privileges by which you have been so graciously invested. There are some among you, probably, who suppose that this work of escape may speedily be done, when the nearness of eternity shall render it more absolutely necessary; there are others who look at it as a work of little difficulty; there are others who wish to put it off till some more convenient season; but let the excuse be what it may, multitudes of you have not yet taken one step in this

business of preparation for eternity, this great work of escape from ruin. As I shall present to you at this time no other object which is attached to this work, constituting it a great undertaking, I call upon you, brethren, to think what you at present are sinners in the sight of God, condemned as transgressors, and now under sentence of the law. I call upon you to consider what you must be, if you would be saved-penitent, pardoned offenders, through the blood of the Lamb. I call upon you to consider what you will be, if you refuse the demand of God upon your souls; and then I ask you to take this work in hand, this work of preparing for death, for judgment, for eternity; and never rest satisfied till it is accomplished in that complete submission of your souls to Jesus Christ, on which your eternal happiness depends. Under the serious impression, that in your present condition of alienation from God, you are but children of wrath, and candidates for the sentence, "Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire," set about the salvation of your never-dying souls; and to all the suggestions of your great adversary, who will strive to keep you in subjection to himself, and lead you captive at his will, give the response in word and in action-"I am doing a great work, therefore I cannot come down;" my soul is in danger of perishing; I am on the brink of a precipice; I must work while it is called to-day, or I am lost, and that for ever. May God, of his mercy, alarm the consciences of careless sinners, and make them feel the importance of that work which is so infinitely great, because its object is to rescue them from hell, eternal ruin.

SERMON XII.

THE GREAT WORK OF RELIGION.

NEHEMIAH vi. 3.

I COMMENCED a series of discourses in my last sermon on this great work, in which it is the duty of each and every one of you to be most zealously and perseveringly engaged; and my object will be to lay out the subject before you in all the length and breadth of which it may appear to me susceptible. I have already stated that it is in the highest sense a great work, by reason of the objects which it has in view; and one of those objects was largely followed out in my last discussion, viz: that one leading design of this work is to accomplish the escape of the sinner from the everlasting ruin of his soul in hell. I wish to convince you at this time, that the work in which you must engage, if you would be saved, is a great work, because it is to accomplish a change in your habits of thinking and of action; a change so great that it is called a new birth, a new creation, a resurrection, a new life from the very dead. There are

two aspects in which this subject is to be viewed; one which relates to the outer, the other which relates to the inner man; one which is well understood in the term, reformation; the other which is less distinctly understood by the term, conversion; one which relates to time, the other to eternity. The former may exist totally divested of the latter; the latter cannot exist without the former. Paradoxical as this may appear at first, I shall be able, I trust, to make it clear to your comprehensions; the great purpose of my ministry would be answered, could I make it as clear to the perceptions of the heart. I shall begin with the least important of these aspects, and lead you from the least to the greatest; from the lower to the highest; from that which relates to time, to that which centers in eternity.

The object of the work which I desire to recommend, being to accomplish a total change, I judge it a great work.

1. As it regards the mere circumstances of an outward reformation. I take it for granted you will concede the point, that it is a difficult thing for the drunkard to become a sober man. Were it not so, there would not be so many thousands who, in despite of all the remonstrances of conscience, of all the pains and aches which are incident as the curse of God upon this condition of beastliness, of all the contempt of society, of all the domestic distress of wife and children plunged into despair and ruin,-I say, were it not a difficult thing, a great work, there would not be so many thousands, who, in despite of all these things, cannot rouse themselves from this disgusting-it were an insult to the brute creation, to call it a beastly vice. Of all the animals of

God's creation, man has the sole honour of this debasing crime. It has been overcome, however; but every one knows, who has made any observation on the subject, that it must be by an effort, to which the cutting off of an arm, or the plucking out of an eye, is a very poor and inadequate comparison. I might go on with a commentary on all these crimes, which are palpable violations of the ten commandments. It is a hard work to keep the hands from picking and stealing, the tongue from evil speaking, lying, and slander; and it is a still harder work to break off these practices by reformation, even outward, when they have been long continued, and have grown with our growth, and strengthened with our strength. It is a hard work to keep the body in temperance, soberness, and chastity; and it is still harder to bring one back to this state, when once the path of virtue hath been forsaken. It is a hard work to keep from the violation of the Sabbath, when there are such multitudes of ways, ingenious contrivances and pleasing devices of the adversary, to decoy unwary souls; and it is still harder to return to a due observance of that holy day, after we have put so high an affront upon the majesty of heaven, as to have allowed ourselves in its profanation. It is a hard thing to break off the habit of swearing, when men have long and unhesitatingly taken the name of God in vain-that name, at the repetition of which angels and glorified spirits bow with the profoundest reverence. But I need not go on with this enumeration. It will not be disputed when I declare it a work of singular difficulty to break up all these habits; to turn the strong man armed out of the palace which he has so long possessed. And yet, in the very term, reforma