immediately call forth his watchful care lest it hurt you.

Oh! learn to place the most implicit confidence in Jesus-unbounded confidence. It is impossible to overrate his kindness; we honour and please him, as well as add to our own happiness, by manifesting an habitual reliance upon his merciful care over us. It was his exceedingly great kindness which led him in the text to set before us such a striking exemplification of his merciful care and unceasing kindness. And if he has been so full, so strong in the expression of his gracious intentions towards us, shall we be backward to trust him? Let it not be so with you. Rather consider that all tribulation is for the trial of your faith, that it may be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. Take an encouraging view of all that befals you, and say, in all the changes of his providential dealings, He hath done all things well. For indeed you may say it, if, as I said before, you have believed in Jesus Christ.

But if, as there may be reason to think, there be some among you that believe not, the very reverse of all that has been said applies to you: you have every thing to fear in your present state: you have nothing to hope as you now are. To rest contented in your present condition would, alas! be the most fatal presumption. In

stead of saying Fear not, the language of the text cries out to you, Be ye horribly afraid. For the knowledge which Christ has of you is as minute as that he has of his own people, but is used to mark and condemn all that in your life and conversation proves your alienation of heart from him. Alas! that you should call yourselves Christians and not love Christ! Yet this is the case of all unconverted sinners! and, therefore, the case with you, so long as you remain unconverted.

What a sad delusion you are under, if you suppose that you are safe! Safe? no; you are on the brink of destruction: everlasting destruction !

It is very painful to say, but it is a duty to tell you, that none of your religious services are accepted in your present state. They are the formal duties of a worldly heart, not the spiritual sacrifices which are acceptable to God through Christ Jesus.

My brethren, I do not say that you should say, like them of old, There is no hope: no. Because, if you were diligently to seek for the teaching of the Spirit, by prayer, you might be converted and live. Therefore, there is hope concerning this thing. But your condition as it now stands is hopeless: and the fear is, lest you should not be aware of this, and carry on your present mode of religion to the end, and perish at last, as the prophet expresses it, with a lie in your right hand.

Be not unwilling, I beseech you, to enter into a serious examination of your state before God! My brethren, your souls are in danger! Religion is something else than you take it to be. Surely, if any where, it is here, in a matter of infinite consequence and of everlasting results, that it does behove you to look well to your steps; for assuredly it may be said in the words of Solomon, your steps take hold on hell!

I entreat you, my brethren, to bear in mind, that I am not now calling upon the vicious, the profane, and the careless to consider their ways; (such can hardly need a moment's reflection to convince them of their unhappy condition!) but I am more especially addressing those who are moral in their lives, and even religious in their habits, to a certain extent: and yet certainly have not the love of God in them.

It is you, who may not take the comfort which the text undoubtedly offers to all such as really believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh! strive to be amongst this happy people; for not only to you, but to every unconverted sinner present, is the offer of pardon and eternal life freely made; and whosoever believeth shall not perish, but have eternal life.

SERMON XIX.

THE DAY OF GRACE LOST.

(FOR THE OLD Year.)

LUKE XIX. 42.

IF THOU HADST KNOWN, EVEN THOU, AT LEAST IN THIS THY DAY, THE THINGS WHICH BELONG UNTO THY PEACE!

THERE cannot, I think, in the whole Bible, be found a more deeply affecting passage than that before us. It was uttered by Jesus. But a little while before the air was filled with the shouts of the multitude, crying, Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven, and glory in the highest! This, indeed, was a suitable manner of reception, considering his character. But he well knew that other and far different treatment awaited him in Jerusalem, whither he was going!

And as he drew near the city, where he was shortly to be put to death, what were the feelings with which he beheld it? When he beheld the city, he wept over it! He entirely lost sight of his own approaching sufferings, in the thought that those very

sufferings tended so greatly to fill up the measure of their iniquities! He foresaw their coming and accumulated miseries, and expressed his deep compassion for them in the affecting words, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace!

The sentence, you observe, is of an abrupt, unfinished kind, just such as might be expected from one speaking under the impulse of strong feeling. It is expressive of a wish that they had not rejected the counsel of God against their own souls. It signifies, too, that, notwithstanding all the past guilt and long continued wickedness of that city, there was still pardon for Jerusalem, even for Jerusalem!

What, too, particularly adds to the solemnity of our Lord's words is the expression this thy day. It shews us that the time in which Jerusalem might have repented, was limited, and now it was gone.

This last point, it was, which led me to choose the text for this morning's sermon. This being the last Sunday of the year, it seems a fit occasion to consider the shortness of life, and the end for which it is given.

Nor do I know a more profitable way to view the subject than to look at life as the day in which we must learn the things which belong to our peace.

Yes, brethren, this is the great business of