splendid sins? If your consciences can respond in the affirmative to these particulars, the kingdom of heaven, with all its felicities, is yours. Our Lord himself has declared, "He that believeth shall be saved:" to all such he will say at the awful day, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." Allow me once more earnestly to beseech you to beware of self-flattery; see that the foundation on which you build your hopes be firm ho other foundation can any man lay than that which is laidJesus Christ.

If you belong not to the resurrection of eternal happiness-dreadful alternative! you must belong to the resurrec tion of damnation. To be placed in a fiery furnace, that has the power of burning intensely without that of consuming, even for the few years that remain of this short life, would be a punishment far surpassing all the happiness you have received from your tran

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sient and guilty pleasures. What, then, must be the eternal punishment of body and soul, where the worm dieth not, neither is the fire quenched? The sole consideration of an eternity of misery is sufficient, one would think, to rouse the most careless and obstinate sinners into a feeling of their unhappy state. But careless and obstinate sinners, it is to be feared, do not believe that there is a hell, though the Scriptures describe it in as express terms, as they do that there is a heaven in which the faithful will dwell and be happy for ever. They form crude and indigested notions of God's infinite mercy, not aware, that though, indeed, God's mercy is beyond all bounds, his justice is infinite too; and that he can no more be unjust, than he can be unmerciful. To such I say, Flee from the wrath to come; pray earnestly to God to give you repentance and faith, and to convince you that there is a hell in which sinners will be miserable for ever. God's eternal word is gone forth in truth that

"all who believe not shall be damned." Slight not the momentous declaration ; you can neither laugh it out, nor blot it out of God's book.

The Lord grant that none here present, as unbelieving and impenitent sinners, may hear this sentence pronounced against them, Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels." Amen.

SERMON XXV.

1 JOHN, II: 9.

He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness, even until now.

ACTIONS are the test of faith, not only to our own conscience, but to the world at: large. God, indeed, wants no test to certify to him; for he knows our hearts, and also who are his, from all eternity. To strip God of his attribute of omniscience is to rob him of a part of his divinity. But to know whether we be in the faith, it is necessary that we examine ourselves and prove ourselves. We must not deceive ourselves with vain notions and idle professions, and call our selves: believers, because we think we believe. We must have some substantial ground to build upon, before we can

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have the hearty approbation of our conscience that we are really what we would wish to be. When we see and taste the fruit of a tree, we can then pronounce with a tolerable degree of certainty, what kind of tree it is. "The tree is known by its fruits." And this is the very comparison our Lord himself institutes, when he speaks of those who are faithful, and of those who are not: "By their fruits," says he," shall ye know them;" that is, the actions of men declare, both to themselves and the world around them, the sincerity of their religion. If a man profess faith, and if he have no good fruits to make it evident to his own conscience and to others, he is a hypocrite and a deceiver. The second chapter of St. James's Epistle is written expressly on this subject, to distinguish the true from the false believer by the fruit of their doings. Hear our Lord also: "I am the vine," says Christ, "and my Father is the husbandman: every branch in me that beareth not