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saith a voice from Heaven: hear it, despisers of the gospel; hear it, ye whom the God of this world hath blinded; hear it, sinners in Zion; hypocritical formalists, hear it and tremble: "As it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from Heaven, and destroyed them all; even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed."* Self-apologists, God leaves not himself without witness among you. In the awful reckoning which awaits you, (and how soon it may be instituted, Omniscience alone can tell) this day will be forced upon your recollection. This day, in the name of God, I again admonish you of a judgment to come--of a fiery indignation that shall devour all those who are lovers of the world and its pleasures more than lovers of God. By the mercies of God--by the love of Christ--by your immortal spirits--by Heaven and hell-I adjure you, prepare for your escape. "Flee for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before you." Embrace religion. Be the followers of Jesus. Heirs of immortal blessedness, or misery! let me once more remind you that this world of gaiety, of fashion, and of folly, is not your resting place. However you may desire it, you cannot be here forever. There is a solemn hour approaching. It is an hour of apprehension-an hour of honest and searching potency-an hour which teaches more than years had done the hour of death. At that hour, what shall become of those who know not God, and obey not his gospel? At that hour, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?

When eternity opens upon the eye ere it closes in sepulchral darkness; when wife and children cling to the dying couch; when the departing spirit casts a fond retrospect upon the loves of earth; sustain me, O! my God, in the consolatory reflection that I have been a follower of Jesus; and fearlessly I will march with thee through the terrours of

*Luke, xvii. 28.-30.

the valley--through the surging billows of the gulph--to the promised rest of Heaven: and there, where no tear is shed; no pang is felt; no groan of suffering is mingled with the hallelujahs of the just made perfect; there, will I thankfully bless, and adore, and serve thee, with every faculty of a glorified and imperishable existence.-AMEN.

SERMON XI.

ON INCONSIDERATION.

AS CHARGEABLE AGAINST THE PEOPLE OF GOD.

ISAIAH, i. 3.

"My people doth not consider."

THE external church of God, or in other words, his covenanted people, is divisible into two great classes. Those who are in sincerity and truth of heart turned to God and holiness; and those who, according to the scriptural phraseology, have a name to live while they are dead; who are, by profession, believers, and in practice, sinners. The charge of inconsideration brought against Israel of old, will lie in different degrees, and in a variety of ways, against both these classes at the present day.

My design, in the first instance, with the blessing of God, is to offer a few remarks upon it, as applicable to the generality of true believers; enlightened Christians; the cordial friends of God; the sincere friends of righteousness; men who have thought on their ways, and turned their feet to the way of Heaven's commandments."

Numbers there are who have thought with solemnity on divine things; who have been deeply impressed with the conviction, that without holiness no man shall ever see the Lord; and who, stimulated in consequence, to exertion, have laboured successfully, under the superiour workings of the Holy Ghost, to acquire habits of religion and virtue. The fault of inconsideration, however, still adhering to them in greater or less degrees, keeps them frequently far more short of

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their duty-far more beneath the dignity of their high calling in Christ Jesus, than otherwise they would be. What I have now affirmed may be illustrated several ways.

If you look with attention upon the lives and deportment of persons, in the main, good and upright, you find them at times indulging in unjustifiable practices. You find them indolent and negligent in religious matters; not rarely indevout in temper, or indisposed to religious acts and exercises; retreating before the assaults of adversity; impelled by an ignorant and immoderate zeal; sinking into a melancholy and dejection dishonourable to the gospel of Christ.

FIRST.-You find them, at times, engaged in actual sins. I do not allude to the infirmities, in a manner, inseparable from our fallen nature. I allude to improprieties which a reflection such as we ought to possess; a reflection always alive-always awake-always operative, could not but make avoidable. Persons, whose attachment to Christian purity it would be alike uncharitable and unreasonable to doubt, permit themselves occasionally to trespass upon its laws in a very unjustifiable manner, and wound their own peace by yielding to the solicitations of the world and the flesh. But to what is this inconsistency imputable? Certainly to inconsideration. They do not reflect with sufficient steadiness and seriousness upon the consequences of every deviation from the strictness of religious principle. They do not weigh with scrupulous exactitude the result of suffering which is decreed to be the recompense of every sacrifice of conscience to gratifications whose permissibility may be doubtful. It is certain, that in proportion to a man's reflection, will be the congruity and uniformity of his deportment. Levity and thoughtlessness are inimical to the Christian life. They are traitors in sworn league with temptation. Where they are admitted into the camp, alternate triumph and defeat characterize the spiritual warfare. It is carried on with various success. Persevering watchfulness alone can give decisive victory; confer ultimate success;

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