you, how many sins you have severally committed in a single day; how many more in a week; how greatly they have been multiplied in a month; and to what a vast number they have arisen in the compass of a year. How many evil thoughts and affections; how many murmurings and repinings against God; how many lewd, injurious, and base purposes have been formed and cherished in the soul; how many words of unkindness, falsehood, profaneness, and obscenity, have been uttered; how many iniquitous, unjust, fradulent, rebellious, and impious actions have been done? How often you have hardened your hearts against the threatenings of future wo, the reproofs of sin, and the invitations to repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ! How often you have perverted, and ridiculed, the word and worship of God; profaned the Sabbath; tempted those around you to sin; exhibited a baleful example of impiety; "grieved the Holy Spirit;" and "crucified afresh the Lord of glory by your unbelief!" How often, also, have you preferred all other conduct to your duty, and all other things to your souls; devised means to withdraw yourselves and others from repentance and reformation; voluntarily contributed to your own perdition, and to theirs ; and thus assumed, at the same time, the character of assassins and suicides. At the same time I would charitably hope, that such is not, in the same absolute manner, the character of all who hear me. Will it be too much to be presumed, that tenderness of conscience has in some instances been increased; that a few persons in this assembly have exercised more solemn and just thoughts, than heretofore, concerning their moral state, and their salvation; and that some of you seriously intend to obtain eternal life? How different is the state of this assembly, at the present time, from what the eyes of some, who are present, beheld at a former period! In the year 1802, about fifty youths, members of this College, gave themselves up to God in the Covenant of grace. This year has seen but one solitary dedication of this nature. How do "the ways of Zion mourn, because few come to her solemn feasts?"

[SER. XVI.

5thly. At this time, also, we are affectingly required to ask ourselves the following questions.

First. What reason can we give for spending our life, as we have, in many instances, actually spent it.

Can you, my hearers, render to your consciences an excuse, with which they will be satisfied, for the manner in which you have lived during this period; a reason, which they will admit, why you have continued in sin; neglected your salvation; hazarded the eternal welfare of your souls; and put them on the risk of final perdition; a reason, why you have not obeyed GoD with all the heart; yielded yourselves to Him, as his children, in the covenant of peace; besought him with all humility of mind, with strong crying, and many tears, to pardon your manifold sins; turned to the Lord Jesus Christ with a sincere repentance, and faith in his blood; and consecrated your hearts and your lives to the service of GoD, and "your generation, according to His will?" Can you find a reason why you have wasted this year, with all the Sabbaths, privileges, and blessings which it contained; a reason, which you will be willing to allege before the bar of God; a reason, which he will admit; a reason, which will stand you in stead in that trying hour?

Second. Let me ask for you, What have you gained by living this year?

Are you less sinful? Are you more sober-minded? Are your consciences more tender? Do you think more frequently and solemnly, on death and the judgment; on the immense importance of life, as the day of probation; on the amazing nature of eternity, as the season of reward? Have you formed and retained useful resolutions of speedy repentance and amendment of life? Have you begun to ask God to save you, or to look to Christ for redemption? Have you considered whether you have souls to be saved; or once thought, during the preceding twelve months, that then was peculiarly "the accepted time?" Are you wiser, or better, than when the year began? Are you nearer to heaven? Have you gained any thing, which your minds can now recall; and which you will be willing to rehearse beyond the grave?

Third. Let me further ask you, What you have lost?

This question let me also answer. If you have not gained the things, which I mentioned under the last question; you have lost a year, with all the hopes and blessings which it brought on its wings. The bounties of God's Providence have been bestowed on you in vain. The proffers of his grace have been made to you in vain. In vain have the glad tidings of the gospel been proclaimed to you. In vain has the Sabbath dawned on you with peace and hope; the sanctuary invited you to the mercy seat; the sun in his successive circuits warned you how fast your days were fleeting away; the bell tolled the knell of those around you, to warn you of your own approaching death; and GoD and man, earth and heaven, laboured together, that you might live. All these blessings you have lost; and for the loss of none of them can you give an account.

Fourth. What is now your condition?

Search your souls, and see. Determine to know the worst of your case. This is the first step towards rendering it better. Probe your wounds to the bottom; lest they ulcerate beyond the hope of a cure. Inquire solemnly into all that you have done, and into all that you have left undone. What do your consciences testify? Can they say of you, as the spirit of grace said of Paul," Behold he prayeth." Do they testify, "That some good thing is found in you towards the Lord God of Israel?" Or are you yet" without hope, and without GoD in the world?"

Fifthly. What are your prospects?

These will in a great measure depend on your plans. What are those plans? Is there among them a sober, determined scheme of obtaining salvation? Is the time fixed on, at which you will begin the great work of self-examination; at which you intend to ask, "What you must do to be saved?" at which you intend "to arise, and go to your Heavenly father, and say to him, Father, I have sinned against Heaven, and before thee; and am no more worthy to be called thy son."" Have you began to feel, that you are sinners; ruined by your apostacy, condemned by the righteous law of GOD, and advancing daily towards the

66

burnings of devouring fire." Are you fully satisfied, that "there is salvation in no other, but Christ ;" and that "his blood only can take away sin?" Have you determined to quit "the broad and crooked road, which leadeth to destruction;" to desert your evil companions, your dangerous haunts, and your still more dangerous practices? Has the path to heaven, strait and difficult as it is, begun to seem a desirable road for the journey of your life? Have you considered the glorious world, to which it leads, and to which it is the only way, as your own future, eternal habitation; and determined, as an earnest of your arrival there, speedily to renew the joy of angels and saints over your repentance? Or is the world still your God, your portion, and your all.

Sixthly. What will be the end of your life?

At no distant period, all your years will come to an end. Your "feet will then stumble on the dark mountains," and your eyes be closed in the iron sleep. Your souls will then leave the bodies, which they here inhabited, and will "return to God who gave them," to have "every work, with every secret thing, brought into judgment." When from a dying bed you come to take a retrospect of all you will then have done, suffered and enjoyed, in this world; what, in your view, will probably be the amount? Will your whole life, like the year that is now closing, appear like a tale that is told; not only momentary, but vain; idle; a mere amusement; a day, in which you have fluttered and sported in the sunbeams, to no useful end; without providing for a peaceful death, a comfortable account, or a happy eternity. Will it then appear, that the means of grace have all been squandered by you; and that the day of salvation, that sweet and accepted time, has been laughed, slept, and sinned away? "Oh that you were wise; that you understood these things; that you would consider your latter end."

SERMON XVII.

A SERMON FOR THE NEW YEAR.

PREACHED JANUARY, 1807.

JEREMIAH Xxviii. 16.

Therefore thus saith the Lord, "Behold, I will cast thee off from the face of the earth; this year thou shalt die, because thou hast taught rebellion against the Lord."

HANANIAH, the son of Azur, of Gibeon, a prophet of a false and wicked character, in the days of Zedekiah, king of Judea, thought proper to oppose the prophet Jeremiah. In the course of this opposition he denied the truth of his predictions; and declared, that God had revealed to him the disappointment and overthrow of Nebuchadnezar, the ruin of his expedition, and the liberation of the Jews from his yoke. All this he falsely declared. God had not sent him; but he made the people of Jerusalem "to trust in a lie." In consequence of this evil conduct, God sent to him the prophet Jeremiah with this message: "Hear now, Hananiah. The Lord hath not sent thee; but thou makest this people to trust in a lie. Therefore, thus saith the Lord, behold, I will cast thee off from the face of the earth: this year thou shalt die."

There is something peculiarly solemn and affecting in this remarkable prediction; and I cannot help believing, that it may be made a profitable subject of our contemplations. To bring death near to us; to recall our own personal interest in this mighty change, the close of our residence in the present world, and the means of our introduction into another; the termination of