Satan was your task-master, sin your service, and death your wages? He paid the full ransom of your deliverance. He made a way for you to escape, when you were beset with difficulties, as impassable in your own strength, as were the mountains and forts, the Red Sea, and the Egyptians, when Israel was shut up among them in the wilderness. The pillar of the cloud has led you in the day of prosperity, and its light of fire in the gloom of affliction. The bounty of a gracious God has largely ministered to your spiritual need, in sacramental mercies, as he poured manna from heaven, and made water gush from the rock of Horeb, to follow his fainting heritage through the desert. Ye have engaged with your enemies, while your great Intercessor was praying for you on the hill-while infinite love and almighty power held up his hands, that ye might conquer. Often endangered, and even worsted, ye have not been destroyed. The same hand which took you forth from the captivity and death of sin, has still led you onward, cheered with increasing hope of reposing in the kingdom and glory of Jesus Christ. As your day, so has your strength been. When ye have been disposed to faint beneath your warfare, and to shrink from the difficulties of the combat, have ye not heard within your hearts the animating voice of that God and

Saviour who appoints your station in this holy war, "To him that overcometh will I give to sit upon my throne; even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father upon his throne?" Now is your salvation nearer than when ye believed. While ye are in the midst of the spiritual blessings which the gospel opens to the need of lost and dying transgressors-while the scriptures and the public ordinances of religion are as widely opened to your approach, as the porches of the pool of Bethesda to the sick of old, will ye refuse to profit by the mercy? While your Redeemer stands at the door of your hearts, and knocks for admission-while the pardon of God, his peace which passeth all understanding, the sure and certain hope of a resurrection to eternal life, and the unfathomable depths of joy and glory which it will open to the soul, are placed within your reach by the rich bounty of your heavenly Father, will ye be contented to remain at a distance, as strangers and foreigners, instead of becoming "fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God?” The feast is spread, the voice is spoken, "All things are now ready, come ye to the marriage." Is there then, in the little circle of perishing enjoyments around you, is there, even among the present spiritual privileges, with which divine love has invested you, any thing sufficiently

great to satisfy the aspirations of one who looks for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life? Blessings temporal and for ever await your acceptance; and will ye rest short of their full possession? Will ye not aim to obtain an interest in them for both worlds? Will ye not appropriate them to yourselves; and say of him, in whose goodness they originate, "This God is my God, for ever and ever?” Others have already entered into present rest, by believing the gospel, and fulfilling the demands of that spiritual kingdom which is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. Behold the fair inheritance which they possess, in the abundant mercies of your common Saviour; and hasten onwards to the same distinctions. A great cloud of witnesses encompasses you. Having fought the good fight of faith, they are now surrounding the throne of their Leader and Saviour, with ceaseless songs of adoring love and wonder. Will ye linger here, when the mansions of their rest are also thrown open for your reception: and when you like them, may join the armies of the living God, in the service of his eternal temple? We desire that every one of you do shew the same diligence, to the full assurance of hope unto the end-that ye be not slothful, but followers of them, who, through faith and patience, inherit the promises. You

march beneath the banner which led them to victory. You have resources in the same allsufficient Spirit which supplied their necessities. By the grace of God they only are what you may be. Arise then and behold the land, for it is very good and are ye still? Be not slothful to go, and to enter to possess the land.

II. In order that this indifference may appear yet more inexcusable, I ask, wHETHER THE AT

TAINMENT OF SALVATION BE NOT THE GREAT BUSINESS OF LIFE, TO WHICH YE SHOULD BE DEVOTED? Little indeed, would the Israelites have profited by the glowing descriptions of Canaan-little, by what their eyes had seen of its excellence-little, by the perils they had undergone, the dangers they had escaped, and the manifest interference of God in their behalf, if, after all these encouragements, they had refused to continue their exertions a short time longer; and had bartered away, for present ease and enjoyment, the rich and ample heritage which the Most High designed for their possession. They had longed ardently to behold it, while they traversed the howling wilderness. They had chided with Moses, because it was withheld from their unbelief and sin.

Great then, would have been the inconsistency, great the guilt, and great the eventual disappointment, if they had "sat down to eat and to drink, and had risen up to play,"

when every power of the body, and every energy of the spirit should have been employed, to secure the appointed land for themselves, and for their children.

My brethren, life and death, blessing and the curse, are set before you; and the alternative depends upon your own choice. You are engaged in a warfare which leaves no middle path between victory and defeat, triumph and disgrace, happiness and woe. If all the mercies, of which you have partaken, and which you are still invited to partake, have not produced such an advancement in the divine life, as carries the soul heavenward, with increasing vigour if you are not "using all diligence to make your calling and election sure "—if, with so much to excite and compel, ye are resting short of the goal, never was danger more great, or self-deception more alarming. It may be, that you are let and hindered in running the race that is set before you, by the cares or pleasures of this world. It may be, that the good fruit of the word of God is choked within your hearts, by the love of riches, the desire of splendour, or that pleaded and plausible necessity of providing for those who depend upon your exertions. Give any, or all of these attractions their full importance place them in the opposite balance to that in which your eternal salvation lies-weigh them against this