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indeed of every description who cherish their passions and obstinately pursue a sinful course, cannot be recalled to duty and to God without constraint and violence. But salvation being an affair of choice and examination, the terms of it they never will accept as long as they prefer worldly and sensual enjoyments which are the works of darkness, to righteousness and temperance which are the works of light. The sun shines and the showers descend in vain upon the sandy waste. The Sun of Righteousness shines to no purpose, and the healing dews of his wings are shed in vain upon those whose " eyes the God of this world hath blinded" and hardened their hearts, that they "should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts and be converted and he should heal them." Converted they cannot be, unless God should force their wills, for they are fallen under that awful condemnation, "that light is come into the world, and they loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." The fear of the Lord then is the proper source of those dispositions which are adapted to receive the grace of the gospel. Humility and simplicity of heart are the good ground which only requires the divine grace to shine upon it, in order to bring forth abundantly. No

sooner do the beams of the Sun of Righteousness warm and penetrate this well-prepared and grateful soil than the seeds of virtue, goodness, and piety become flourishing plants, striking root deeply in the heart, and abundant in all the blessed fruits of the creative spirit, "love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." To cultivate these fruits of the christian profession in our hearts and show them forth in our daily conversation, this is the work, this is the labour appointed us by the God of our salvation, and to excite our diligence in performing it by reminding us of the mercies of redemption and of the vows that are upon us, as devoted by baptism to the service of him who came into the world "to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself," the church ordains this joyful but holy festival. Whilst then we celebrate the rising of the Sun of Righteousness, whilst we bless God for the light of the gospel revelation, full of grace and truth, let us dread to receive this grace in vain. But in vain we shall receive it, if we are not led by it to a conversation becoming the gospel of Christ. If we bless God for the great luminary in the firmament of heaven, whose beams fertilize and enrich the earth with such variety of exquisite productions, filling our

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hearts with food and gladness," how can we with sufficient gratitude acknowledge and adore "the tender mercy of our God, whereby the day spring from on high has visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace." Deprived of this Sun of Righteousness, "darkness would again cover the earth and gross darkness the people." Were Christ no longer with us in the ordinances of his worship and the influences of his spirit, soon would the now civilized world be "filled with violence, and become a vast aceldama or field of blood. But worse than enemies and destroyers of each other, we should be the enemies of God without the means of reconciliation to him, without hope in death, because without a Saviour in judgment. Thanks be unto God, then, for his unspeakable gift, eternal life by Jesus Christ. Unspeakable indeed and inestimably precious are christian privileges and hopes. But the momentous inquiry is, do we ourselves, my brethren, really account them so? With regard to the good things of this life, it were needless to ask such a question; by our conduct we evidently show the value we set upon them. By rising up early, late taking rest, and eating the bread of carefulness, we manifest the ardour of our devotion

to the worldly mammon, our eager unremitted solicitude to lay up for ourselves treasures upon earth, and secure them as an inheritance to our children. Half the ardour of attachment, half the care and application we bestow on these pursuits, if bestowed upon our spiritual concerns, on securing to ourselves the bequest of our Redeemer, an incorruptible inheritance, would make the duties of his religion our chief delight, his precious promises our comforters and supporters in distress and poverty, in heaviness and sorrow, in sickness and age. The exercises of prayer and praise would be sweet and refreshing to our souls, and grateful offerings to the God of our salvation. But alas! how cold are our devotions, how heartless our thanksgivings! Warm and anxious and sanguine as we are in every worldly pursuit, how dull and languid are we as followers of Christ and candidates for life eternal. How little of a religious nature enters into the usual joy of this season; alas! what numbers of professing christians are equally insensible to the blessings of redemption and unmindful of the obligations which it

lays upon them. them. Born of christian parents, they

learnt their catechisms in their childhood, and occasionally attend on public worship to show themselves members of the church by law esta

blished. But their christian profession being the result of accident not of choice, has of course no foundation in the heart; and that concern to which of all others they show the greatest indifference is the care of their own souls. "But what communion hath light with darkness?" "If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." All sinners indeed are children of darkness, who under the light of the gospel live as pagans lived in darkness and "the shadow of death." But pagans have an excuse: christians have none. How shall Christ address them on the day of judgment? "If I had not come and spoken unto you, ye had not had sin: but now ye have no cloak for your sin." But I trust I am addressing many who "obey from the heart that form of doctrine" in which they were educated, and in whose bosoms the engrafted word is by divine grace effecting the grand purpose of our Saviour's Advent, their sanctification.

To them there is little occasion for my enforcing the duties of this holy season. I need not

exhort them that it is a time to celebrate with grateful hearts and temperate festivity their Redeemer's gracious entrance into the world, or to show themselves regardful of his last injunction on his leaving it, "Do this in remembrance of

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