1. We are led by the foregoing remarks to reflect, How obvious and how strong the obligations on all to make a profession of religion! By making a profession of religion, we mean, appearing and acting pubJickly on the Lord's side. It is, more particularly, attending with solemnity on those Sacramental Seals which Christ has instituted to mark the line between those who are within, and those who are without the visible Church. The duty of making this profession is obvious. If we are bound to BE on the Lord's side, we are surely bound to APPEAR on that side-to be SEEN to be there. Thus the same authority which requires us to believe in Christ, and to love Christ, has commanded us to confess him before men; and to let our light, as his followers, shine before men. Nay, he distinctly gives us to understand, that declining, or neglecting to confess him before men, is equivalent to denying him; and such he declares, He will deny before his Father, and before the holy angels. Nor let any imagine that this obligation to confess Christ, is not binding on them. Thousands appear to fall into this mistake. They say, and say truly, that to confess the Saviour, by making a public profession, while they have no faith in him, no love to him, would be to commit sin: but they appear to have no serious impression whatever, of the dreadful sin of NOT confessing Christ; in other words, of DENYING HIM before men. You are afraid, you say, of the sin of a hypocritical profession; but you are not afraid, it seems, of turning your backs upon the Lord of life and glory! O ye who are at ease in the commission of this sin, how great is your guilt! Be not deceived, God is not mocked.

2. How solemn a transaction is making a profession of religion! We are under the most solemn obligations, as you have heard, to make a profession-obligations which we can neither renounce nor disregard with impunity. To refuse to do it is to deny the Saviour. And yet, we are not at liberty to do it with rashness, with levity, or with an impenitent and unbelieving spirit. O how much does such a profession import! It implies coming forth from the camp of the enemy, and declaring ourselves on the Lord's side. It implies joining ourselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant, never to be forgotten. It is a deliberate, public enlisting under the banner of the Captain of salvation; taking, as it were, a solemn oath to be His, in soul and body, for time and eternity. Surely a transaction so serious, so momentous, so irrevocable; a transaction connected with so many important consequences to ourselves and others, is not a mere ceremonial, and ought not to be regarded or treated as such. It ought to be entered upon with intelligence, with solemn deliberation, with the sacred decision of one who remembers that he is acting for eternity, and that, after putting his hand to the plough, he can never look back.

Why will you die, The great Sovereign,

3. How deplorable the situation of those who are not on the Lord's side! O that I could give to such persons if it were but one glance of their guilt and danger, as they really are! You are engaged, my friends, in a warfare with Omnipotence. Can you hope to prevail against Him? This is a hope which insanity itself cannot cherish. No; this hostility can end only in one of two ways. Either by your repenting, and abandoning the contest; or by your utter defeat and destruction. Which alternative will you prefer? Will you stand out, defy Jehovah, and brave the heaviest inflictions of his wrath? Surely you cannot deliberately resolve to take so infatuated a course. when life is so freely and mercifully offered you? against whom you have so unreasonably risen up in arms, is willing to be reconciled. He invites, he beseeches you to come in, and accept of a free pardon. Will you submit and live? You must be at peace with Him, or perish. If you ever intend to make peace with Him, for what are you waiting? Are you expecting more easy terms of reconciliation hereafter? Alas! my friends, Jehovah must change before you can be taken to heaven while you continue in love with sin, and enemies of his glorious character. Besides, what can be more condescending and gracious than the terms now offered you? You are not called upon to bring a price in your hands. Only lay down your arms, be sorry for what you have done, and become reconciled to the character, the government, and the Gospel of God; and all that is past will be pardoned, and remembered against you no more. Are you waiting for a more convenient season, to be reconciled? I ask, will continuing longer in your rebellion render it easier for you hereafter to repent and reform? As reasonably might a sick man say to one who offered at once to heal him-" Let me become a little worse; let my disease take a little firmer hold, and my weakness become a little greater, before you apply the remedy." But, ah, you act not thus in reference to the health of your bodies: it is only in regard to the interests of your immortal souls that you yield to such unspeakable infatuation. Do you ask, what you shall do? I answer, Repent, and believe the Gospel. Take not another step in your present unhallowed course. THIS HOUR lay down the weapons of your rebellion, and be reconciled to Him who alone can avail you as a Friend. I say, THIS HOUR, for you know not that you have another to live. Now, then, in the day of your merciful visitation, while the door is open, and the voice of mercy is heard in kindest accents,-enter without delay the sanctuary of salvation, which the Saviour has purchased and prepared by his most precious blood; and you will find peace-eternal peace: but turn away from it, and all will be dark, and miserable, and accursed for ever!

4. Finally; How important is it that those who profess to be on the Lord's side, exhibit a life and conversation corresponding with their profession. What would you think, my brethren, if an army raised by the government of your country, and an army formed by a band of traitors, were encamped in the neighbourhood of each other, and you should see many individuals of the former, while they held their heads high in professions of loyalty, frequently visiting the tented field of the rebels, skulking among their ranks, and, in short, by bowing, smiling, and every indication of cordial familiarity, making it difficult, and sometimes impossible, to ascertain to which army they belonged? would you not consider their fidelity extremely suspicious? Need I say, brethren, that there is an awful amount of this equivocal friendship in the visible church? O how many who profess to be on the Lord's side, render it most distressingly doubtful, by their daily conformity to the world, whether they really belong to Christ or Belial! Hence it is, that so many who claim to be disciples, go halting and comfortless in their christain profession; oppressed with doubts concerning their own state; strangers to the joyful assurance of hope; and operating as clogs and a burden, rather than helpers to the church. Surely it is time for such to arouse themselves, and to examine with more solicitude than ever ON WHAT SIDE THEY REALLY STAND. O ye who have subscribed with your hands unto the Lord, and have surnamed yourselves by the name of Israel, remember that the real children of God are a peculiar people: peculiar in their experience, their taste, their joys, their habits, and their pursuits. If you wish to have satisfying evidence that you are of their number, enter, with holy decision, inte their scriptural peculiarities. If you wish to enjoy peace yourselves, to edify others, or to honour your Leader, be decided: Follow the Lord fully. Let your every word and action speak on what side you are : not by noisy profession; not by sanctimonious austerity; not by saying, in every company, Stand by, for I am holier than thou; but by humility, by benevolence, by purity, by self-denial, by a holy elevation of sentiment and affection, by an unaffected taste and zeal for spiritual things, by shunning the very appearance of evil; by abounding in those works of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God. And for your encouragement remember that precious word of promise, from the Captain of salvation, which belongs to every faithful believer-HE THAT CONFESSETH ME BEFORE MEN, HIM WILL I ALSO CONFESS BEFORE MY FATHER AND THE HOLY ANGELS. TO HIM THAT OVERCOMETH, WILL I GRANT TO SIT WITH ME ON MY THRONE, EVEN AS I ALSO OVERCAME, AND AM SET DOWN WITH MY FATHER ON HIS THRONE.-Amen.

NATIONAL PREACHER.

Go....Teach all nations.....Mat. xviii. 19.

THE DUTY OF FAMILY WORSHIP.

II. SAMUEL VI. 20.-Then David returned to bless his household.

In the life of this great and good man, though we find much to lament, yet we find more to admire and love. Any one who delights to survey the developement of human worth, must be pleased to follow him in his gradual rise from the shepherd's staff to the sceptre of empire.

At the period to which the text refers, his many troubles were gone, and he was the acknowledged king over both Judah and Israel. The surrounding nations, who had long and too successfully invaded the land, had been subdued once and again; so that his name was feared and respected abroad, as well as loved and venerated by his own people.

But, in the height of his renown, David did not forget that he was a husband and a father. On the day alluded to in the text, having blessed the people in the name of the Lord of hosts, we see him, at the proper season, retiring from the midst of admiring thousands to bless his household-He offered up prayer, as a husband and a father, in the midst of his family. With this illustrious example before us, our present object will be, TO RECOMMEND AND ENFORCE THE DUTY OF FAMILY WORSHIP.

Perhaps there are few subjects that need to be treated with more plainness and tenderness than this. For not only your own welfare, but the welfare of your children and children's children through many generations, may be considered as intimately connected with your attention to this duty. Let me observe at the commencement, however, that when I urge the duty of worshipping God in the family, I do not mean, simply, asking a blessing from Him at meals. I should be grieved and surprised to know that any one before me needs exhortation on this point :-that any one who even occasionally comes into God's house, should live in such open and avowed forgetfulness of God, as to sit down several times daily, at the table of His bounty, without once acknowledging the hand that feeds every living thing. But, brethren, if you know of any such, to guard you against their example, consider that the word of God respecting them is, "Let their table become a snare before them; and that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap." No: when I speak of the duty of worshipping

God in the family, I mean, assembling them together, and as the first em ployment in the morning, and the last in the evening, unitedly reading a portion of God's word, and unitedly addressing His throne. With this explanation, let me now invite your attention,

I. TO THE OBLIGATIONS enjoining this service;

II. TO THE ADVANTAGES resulting from it.

First; The OBLIGATIONS to family worship. There are certain duties of religion resulting so plainly from the relations we bear to each other, and to our Maker, that they are perhaps not made the subject of express commandment. But these duties are often among the most sober and essential parts of Christian obedience: and we find our warrant for them, and our obligation to them, in their manifest connexion with God's glory and our own welfare; in the richest promises of divine mercy; in the most fearful denunciations of divine wrath; and in Scripture examples, recorded with Heaven's approbation and praise. So is it with the duty of Family Worship. Of all associations, the first in importance, as well as first in time, is that of the family. In proportion as its relative duties are well discharged, Church and State are safe and prosperous. These duties never will be discharged without the instrumentality of household devotion. But by uniting in daily prayer, members of a family may be made to realize that they have a common Father and God, who is now their Witness, and will hereafter be their common Judge. Indeed so important has this been considered in every age, that the very Heathen themselves had their household Divinities—Gods, whom as families they worshipped, and to whom they daily looked for the blessings, which as families they needed. And if any parent living in a Christian land, and believing in the true God; and having children growing up around him, whom he has been instrumental in bringing into being, and whose being he may be instrumental in making a blessing or a curse to themselves and the world; if such a parent, I say, can habitually neglect the plain duty of leading his children in the worship of the one living and true God;-alas, the example is a most lamentable contrast to that of the Pagan, devoutly, though ignorantly, bowing with his family to an idol of wood or stone. Yes, brethren, the religion of nature, as well as the religion of the Bible, prompts to family worship. There is not a feeling which belongs to us as fathers, which does not plead for this duty: -There is not a relation which we sustain, either to children or servants, but it speaks out, and enjoins-let there be an altar to Heaven, at which the father and head of the family may minister, and call down blessings on those around him.

And while we find not only warrant, but arguments for this duty in every kind feeling of a father's heart, which even the darkness of paganism can not destroy; we at the same time find the Most High adverting to it in language that may well alarm such as have neglected the duty. Says the inspired Prophet, Pour out thy fury upon the Heathen that know thee