within these walls, (it must not be concealed, my brethren,) even within these consecrated walls, there have been recorded a few examples of remorseless inflexibility. They were banished, painfully, solemnly, but inevitably, banished from this sanctuary; they are, long since, gone to their account; unless, perhaps, one and another be still increasing the measure of their iniquity; still scattering degradation and abandonment, throughout the community; still

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treasuring up wrath, against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God." Oh, may all that remain, within the shelter of these walls, be continually mindful of that day, when the books of eternal judgment shall be opened, and the conscience of every accountable being shall be most thoroughly awakened; and every thought, word, and deed, of this life, shall pass in terrible review; and every aggravation, mercy, chastisement, and warning; every good suggestion of the Holy Spirit, every secret whisper of some better principle within, every stifled emotion of penitential sorrow, every unrighteous act of wilful perseverance, shall be proclaimed, before an assembled universe, and registered, in characters that will not fade; and sentence shall be pronounced; and the words of that sentence shall be ratified,

and recorded, never to be cancelled, never to be repealed; irrevocable, immutable, so long as there shall exist a Heaven, a Hell, an Eternity, and a God!

These assuredly, are truths of no limited importance; of no partial application. We are, every one of us, most intimately concerned; we must all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ; we must, each individually, participate in that great account, which all flesh, in the last great day, must render to the God of all spirits. To prepare, for that account, and for that day, should be the present, instant, perpetual business of our lives; to prepare wisely and effectually, should, in all reason, be the first object of our minds, the immoveable purpose of our hearts. And yet, my brethren, in this momentous concern, do you guard against delusion, with any. portion of that caution, vigilance, and manly exercise of reason, which you bring into the ordinary affairs of life? Religion is the most rational thing in the world; and is it from religion alone, that sound reason shall be systematically excluded? To be deceived, in any concern, great or small, is to be defrauded of our first privilege, as thinking beings; to be wilfully deceived, is a voluntary relinquishment of reason; but to employ reason against reason, a spurious reason,

against the true; and thus to employ it, in the most important of all imaginable concerns, where deception is ruinous for the present, where it must be fatal throughout a long, an interminable future, what madness, what frenzy, can furnish an adequate image and resemblance of this wild, this desperate, this remediless delusion? And, at this day, can it be justly said, that such delusion does not lamentably prevail? For how is it, that the vast majority, I will not say of the profane and profligate, but of the grave, the decent, and decorous, are preparing for eternity? Active and ardent, in all secular pursuits, by what mental opiate are they lulled asleep, in the pursuit of everlasting life? To answer this question fully, would be to exhibit the interior history of our species; for the sources of illusion are innumerable, its characters no less diversified, than the dispositions, habits and circumstances of mankind. But, whether from the absence, or misdirection, of thought; whether, from the prevalence of passion, or from the cold indifference of a worldly, calculating spirit, no delusion is more prominent or pernicious, under various forms, and in multiplied disguises, than a flattering, but fatal undervaluation, of that Christian holiness, "without which no man must see the Lord." On this important subject, I

would intreat your attention, to a few words; I shall not exceed that brevity, which the time, and the occasion, imperiously demand.

Multitudes are willing to persuade themselves, that an exemption from gross and scandalous offences, is a sure passport to eternal life. But it is worthy of our most serious consideration, that, as if to guard against this very delusion, the most awful of our Lord's denunciations, the most awakening of his parables, the most tremendous of his appeals, to an eternal judgment, are most pointedly directed against those, who rarely suspect, and never perhaps reprove themselves; against cold, careless, indolent, sleeping Christians; against many such, as, at this very day, stand high in self-esteem, and in the esteem of the public; many, that would now be accounted virtuous, and praiseworthy, and hopeful candidates for heaven. Let us not, therefore, deceive ourselves. For, if the Scriptures be true; and if the testimony be available, of the best and ablest Christian writers, ancient and modern; and if that impartial reason, which guided the moral researches, even of the wiser heathen, be a competent arbiter and judge, then, assuredly, we must pronounce, that many subtle, impalpable, impenetrable mysteries of iniquity, are noted in the book of God's remembrance; and, at the last

day, will draw down the terrible sentence, of exclusion from his blessed presence, to regions of sorrow, darkness, and despair.

Our

Nor, let us vainly imagine that it was, in any measure, any part, of our divine Redeemer's purpose or performance, to lower that standard of moral and spiritual attainment, uniformly described, in the law and the prophets, as an indispensable pre-requisite for the enjoyment of his everlasting kingdom. Far otherwise. blessed Lord was never divided against himself. His own inimitable discourses, and the writings of his inspired followers, and the universal sense of his universal Church, all, most harmoniously, and most invariably, proclaim the nature of that holiness, which he is ever solicitous to communicate, and which when he appears as our Judge, he will most assuredly require. And, indeed, if the case were otherwise; if Christianity were an expedient, for reducing the demands of moral rectitude, how could we soberly pronounce, that the Son of Man is "come to seek, and to save, that which was lost?" Would it not be more accordant with this monstrous supposition, to say, that the Son of Man is come, to perpetuate misery and vice, to prohibit the spiritual restoration of his creatures, to subject his own world unto the powers of darkness, and to