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for ever every lust; you must be convinced of the sin which has maintained dominion over you; you must forego for ever all claims upon the divine justice; you must cast yourself upon the divine mercy, and seek to be washed by the atoning blood of Christ, to take away your guilt. You must see that you have need of nothing else than the divine grace, to make the means more effectual. Never again reckon upon means: it is that by which you cheat your heart, to suppose that a happier moment will arrive. Whence are these means to come? How shall you prove them to us? What are they? Who gets them? Brethren, it is an illusion of the heart: that heart which is deceitful above all things, which is desperately wicked; there are no more powerful means than there are at present, and that happier moment will never arrive. Now is the accepted time; it is through the grace of God, not multiplying new means, but rendering effectual those which we still enjoy.

Again; let such a subject bring this solemn truth before you; that you need instant repentance; and you must not be a single day or hour without that repentance. Now tell me, brethren, if you are immortal, if your souls, which you wish to live on for ever and ever, are immortal; if you are rational creatures, tell me what grounds you have for supposing that if you cannot repent now, you ever can? What grounds can a reasonable man have to lead him to this persuasion? You cannot repent now, you say: you cannot hate the sin which has dominion over you: believe me, if you do not burst from its dominion now, you never can. You want instant repentance to take one step towards heaven. Now, at this moment, and in the presence of God, I tell you to forsake it for ever; and heartily, with a true sincerity, beg of God that every reigning sin may be dragged from your soul, and that God Almighty alone may reign over your hearts. If your resolution is timid, if your desire is so feeble, and you know that it is so timid and so feeble, then ask his grace, as you can ask, and entreat him to free you, so that sin shall never again prevail, which has now so nearly accomplished your destruction. Now I entreat you, if you would not live to regret a wasteful hour, an hour of sensitiveness of conscience, an hour in which you have had one glimpse of hope, and do not wish to lose it at that moment when you might seem to have your course to heaven marked; and you would not take the first step to enter it, though you sit here in the presence of God, and lift up your hearts to God's abode-let me entreat you to overcome that sin which has dominion over you, or it will be the cause of your eternal ruin.

One thing more suggests itself. If ever you are overcome by sin, and feel that your mind is occupying your heart, consider that there are evil things that may be taken to heart. In the case of Judas; so long as he was occupied in the consideration of that love for the thirty pieces of silver, all love for his Master had entirely ceased; he was continually thinking of the pleasure of obtaining the money, and he could not prevent his mind from recurring to it. If Judas had gone at once and confessed his sin to the Lord; if he had at once renounced his office, through the temptation which he felt to be insuperable; or if he had been occupied with the duties of his calling, and busily engaged in the preparation of his ministry, and in the discharge of it; then his mind would have been continually-associating with the other disciples who were occupied his mind would have been employed and occupied aright by the impression

of his heart, so that we can say his sin would have been checked. Now, if the heart was occupied with right objects instead of evil, it would have taught you, my beloved friends, to feel that you are now under the power of a reigning sin: and you would set yourselves to right employments and occupy yourselves in useful reading.

Above all, choose companions who will elevate, improve, and sanctify you. In the light and ordinary employments of life we may engage; they are useful, so long as persons do not give themselves too heartily to them-for indolence is the great bane of character, and they who give themselves to this can have no religion about them. Employment will strengthen the character, and lessen the power of evil in those objects which are pursued. There is a precept that every one is commanded to obey-that he be fully occupied. Then let him who is anxious to turn his mind from any reigning temptation, let him set himself to benevolent objects in life; they cannot be entered upon without attracting the heart and engaging the thoughts. Let them endeavour to do good let them at once strive to draw others from the misery of sin; and encourage those godly efforts which are now so plentiful in the world, by which the cause of the Redeemer may be advanced; and thus sin will be checked as we insensibly acquire a deeper interest in those things. Let the love of good expel the love of evil. Every one ought to seek pleasure and improvement for the mind, by reading. I need not say how the sacred volume opens to the religious man endless means for his improvement and employment. I may add, likewise, that works which are not upon religious subjects, but that convey useful knowledge, are well adapted to arrest the imagination, take hold of the heart, and bring the thoughts to a totally new current, under the sanctifying influence of God's Spirit, and the powerful means of grace.

Thus the most powerful means are under our command. But good companions are of incalculable value: they fasten our hearts to friends whose example we venerate; and our affections are attracted by all that is excellent and good. Judas never ought to have been alone: he ought to have been kept by the side of his Master, and not have left the disciples perpetually. Judas, in his absence from them, reflected upon those evils which haunted his imagination : but he ought to have been diverted from them, and then he would not have been left to plan and regulate the different means for the accomplishment of the crimes which he intended to commit. So ought every person who finds himself under the power of a reigning sin. They ought to be surrounded at home by those whose excellent conversation, heavenly-mindedness, pious sincerity in the ways of God, and provident counsels-whose holy example would warm the affections, and continually draw us to what is good. Beloved friends, this is what you ought to acquire, if you would not now come under the hopeless dominion of sin; and I do beseech you that sit here this day, to lift up your hearts to God, and to set yourselves to use the means by which you may over

come sin.

Lastly, let me tell you, it is not in checking one sin that will avail to your eternal happiness. Each of us here who are under the power of a reigning sin, proves the fact, that he is no servant of God. His nature must be changed: he must seek the grace of God; that shall make him a new creature; that Christ Jesus may visit him with the love of Christ which passeth knowledge; that he

He must

may be brought into conformity with the image of our Saviour. begin the life eterna; religious principles must govern, not only one habit, but all. He must set his mind upon heaven, and invite others to aspire after it. It is by this, and this only, that he has a safe evidence that he is one of God's servants, one of Christ's chosen ones: and that he will meet his Master with joy at that great day when he shall again appear. He must seek his blessing too; and oh! that there may be no religious person in this assembly, who will not now go from this Church with the first resolution he ever made in his life strengthened-no longer to live for himself, but, by God's blessing and aid, to lead a religious life, and live always under the dominion of a religious principle.

294

THE MAGNITUDE OF THE MISSIONARY WORK.

REV. D. WILSON, A.M.

ST. MARY, ISLINGTON, SEPTEMBER 14, 1834*.

"Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest."-MATTHEW, ix. 37, 38.

OUR blessed Lord takes a delight in comparing the operations of grace with those of nature. The mind of man easily reverts from the one to the other; and even more readily listens to spiritual and heavenly instructions, when they are conveyed to him through the medium of objects which are constantly presented to the outward senses. We may suppose our blessed Saviour to have been in no little degree an admirer of those works of creation, of which he was equally the Author with those of grace. Both indeed had been marred and spoiled by the fall; both bespoke the entrance of sin and corruption. Whether he looked upon the face of nature-his own handy-work, or whether he regarded the moral condition of his creatures, he found the same corresponding marks of disorder and derangement. But the same gracious and all-powerful word could restore and bless both the one and the other. He who could crown the year with his goodness, and make his paths to drop fatness, so that the pastures should be clothed with flocks, and the valleys be covered over with corn, could also, by the same Almighty power, cause righteousness and peace to spring forth together; he could make the moral wilderness to rejoice; and he could make the spiritual desert to blossom like the rose. The object of his coming into the world was to do this; he came to renovate and restore the moral wilderness; he came to gather in the rich harvest of immortal souls into the heavenly garner.

The sight of the multitude who were walking with him at this moment, waiting to be healed of their bodily diseases, seems to have brought to his mind that glorious era which was now bursting upon the world, when the present waving crop of nature's harvest, whitening and shaking before his eyes, should be only a very weak and imperfect illustration of that great ingathering of souls which should take place, when, as the Psalmist says, "There shall be a handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon, and they of the city shall flourish like the grass of the earth.”

The Church Missionary Society, the cause of which I am to plead before you this afternoon, has for its object the promotion and carrying on of this great design-to send out into distant lands, missionaries, catechists, and schoolmasters, to carry forth the words of divine life to those far-distant regions • On behalf of the Church Missionary Society.

which are sitting in darkness, and without light. Or, in other words, their object is precisely this: to send out more labourers, to reap and gather in the heavenly harvest of the world. Taking, then, our text as the foundation of the remarks which I shall make, let us look, in the first place, at the vast field of labour which invites missionary effort in the present day. Secondly, the comparatively small number of those who are as yet engaged in this great work. And, lastly, notice by what means we may best contribute to supply this deficiency. And may the Lord of the harvest be now present; may he bless and sanctify what I may be permitted to speak as his feeble instrument; and may your hearts, my beloved brethren, be aroused, and kindled, and awakened on this great subject.

Let me first direct you to fix your eyes on THAT VAST FIELD OF MISSIONARY LABOURS WHICH THE WORLD Presents, "The harvest truly is plenteous." Even in our blessed Lord's time, at the very first establishment of a Christian church, the opening of a brighter day was beginning to dawn; the fields were already white for the harvest. Looking through the vista of time, and surveying, with a divine glance, that very enlargement of his church, he already saw of the travail of his soul, and was satisfied. The first drops, as it were, of the heavenly shower, were already falling; the womb of time was pregnant with the rich and abundant fruit. If such were the circumstances of the world at that time, the present moment must present an aspect still more encouraging and more striking. Would you know, my brethren, how plenteous this harvest is? Look first at those vast tracks in the present day which are forming in the immediate sphere of our missionary labours. Lift up the eye, that is, Northward, and Southward, and Eastward, and Westward, and see on every hand, stretching before you, the sphere of missionary labours. On the one hand are the West India Islands, and the numerous Islands of the Atlantic on the West, stretching forth their hands for our Gospel. The slave, just bursting the bands of despotic tyranny, now is beginning to think, and feel, and act for himself, and is looking for the Christian missionary to instruct him in that better liberty, wherewith God makes his people free. Then the Red River Settlements, on the North shores of America; Greenland, with her icy coasts, and the wild savages of the Northern, are beginning to hear the name of Christ, and softening their ice-bound hearts beneath the genial influences of the Sun of Righteousness. Then on the South, there are the sable sons of Africa calling for help; vast tribes of newly discovered territories are waiting for us. The Western territory of Sierra Leone, needing much strengthening with missionary hands; and presenting a most encouraging, though in some respects difficult, sphere of labour. Need I turn your eyes Eastward, and tell you, that India, with her hundred millions, is lying open to the entrance of the Christian missionary, and is flocking to the standard of the cross? Or that Australasia, with her almost countless islands, the aggregate surface of which is supposed to exceed the whole of that of Europe, are now forming in some of their quarters one of the most interesting and encouraging spheres of our missionary effort? Yes, my brethren, the harvest is plenteous; stretching on every hand; waving with a rich crop of corn, ready to be gathered by the hand of the Christian missionary.

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