wrath of God abideth on you, and no hand can remove it but that of the atoning Saviour. In the distresses which imbitter your old age you may see the tokens of his anger. Your nights are wakeful, for he debars your eyes from sleep; your flesh is pained, because his arrows stick fast within you. Instead of having reason to expect his help under your burdens, he may lay on you the most grievous load of all others, the sense of unpardoned guilt, the apprehensions of eternal misery. The spirit of a man may sustain his infirmity, but a wounded spirit who can bear? Youth in all its vigour would wither and perish under this load; and can your heart and flesh endure it? In a short time God will take you from the frailties of age, but it will be to deliver you to the pains of hell. The sins of a long life must be answered for; they require a furnace seven times heated, and they shall have it. "Double unto her double, according to her works, in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double." You have seen the agonies of the suffering infant; and did not the thought strike you, " If original sin is thus punished, what do the wilful transgressions of a long life deserve? If these things be done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?" O! let these terrors of the Lord rouse you! Your opportunities of salvation are almost gone, and you are within a step of the last. Now or never you must repent and believe the Gospel. Let not your feeble hands bear any longer the weapons of rebellion, or your failing heart be any longer at enmity against God.

*Rev. xviii. 6.

Polluted and worn out as thy heart is, Jesus is willing to take it. The eleventh hour is come, yet Christ is willing to engage thee. He deserved the first and best of thy days, yet he is willing to accept the last and the worst of them, rather than that thou shouldest perish. O let him now see your hearts at his feet in humble submission and holy desire; and let him this day have it to say, "They are at last conquered; they are coming to me at last, and I will in nowise cast them out."

DISCOURSE VI.

THE NEARNESS OF SALVATION A MOTIVE TO VIGILANCE.

ROMANS Xiii. 11. And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.

It is a charge which has been sometimes brought against religion, that it cherishes an indolent spirit; and that the assurance of salvation which it gives tends to make men careless about further attainments in excellence. Its votaries are represented as saying, "Let the slaves of the world eat the bread of carefulness, and amass its wealth by incessant toil; and let men of a legal temper strive to be rich in good works; we will sleep on, and take our rest, for we are sure of heaven." They are charged with imagining that nothing can endanger their salvation, and that therefore caution and fear are in them both needless and degrading. Cavillers who bring forth such charges show their utter ignorance of those noble and generous principles of religion which would make a saint avoid sin, even though he knew it would do him no detriment, and practise holiness, though to it no rewards were promised.

Accusations of this nature are easily repelled by exhibiting the spirit of the Gospel, which is a spirit of active goodness, by a reference to many of its pre

Polluted and worn out as thy heart is, Jesus is willing to take it. The eleventh hour is come, yet Christ is willing to engage thee. He deserved the first and best of thy days, yet he is willing to accept the last and the worst of them, rather than that thou shouldest perish. O let him now see your hearts at his feet in humble submission and holy desire; and let him this day have it to say, "They are at last conquered; they are coming to me at last, and I will in nowise cast them out."

DISCOURSE VI.

THE NEARNESS OF SALVATION A MOTIVE TO VIGILANCE.

ROMANS Xiii. 11. And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.

IT is a charge which has been sometimes brought against religion, that it cherishes an indolent spirit; and that the assurance of salvation which it gives tends to make men careless about further attainments in excellence. Its votaries are represented as saying, "Let the slaves of the world eat the bread of carefulness, and amass its wealth by incessant toil; and let men of a legal temper strive to be rich in good works; we will sleep on, and take our rest, for we are sure of heaven." They are charged with imagining that nothing can endanger their salvation, and that therefore caution and fear are in them both needless and degrading. Cavillers who bring forth such charges show their utter ignorance of those noble and generous principles of religion which would make a saint avoid sin, even though he knew it would do him no detriment, and practise holiness, though to it no rewards were promised.

Accusations of this nature are easily repelled by exhibiting the spirit of the Gospel, which is a spirit of active goodness, by a reference to many of its pre