hour of purity, or of pollution; the hour of forgiveness and forbearance, or of malice and revenge; the hour of open and kind and Christian sincerity and simplicity of conduct, or of secret cabal and dark whisperings, and of well-concealed injustice, all these, and each of these, pass not for ever! They shall be placed in living colours before every soul of mankind, before our joyful, or our shrinking and appalled eyes, in the day of the Lord's vengeance. Knowing these things, should the subject we are now considering ever be absent, my beloved brethren, from our minds? Should not the realized idea of heaven and hell, as the alternative presented to guide the every hour of your life in obedience and righteousness, be laid up in your heart and in your soul, and be bound for a sign upon your hand, and be as frontlets between your eyes? Shouldest thou not teach them to thy children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou ridest up? Be ye not fools, but wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil: no inconsideration, no forgetfulness, no wilful infidelity, will long blind the human spirit to the awful reality! Meditate then upon these things; realize them to your mind, as your own certain, and peculiar, and individual fate, till you are taught to flee from the wrath to come, unto the sure and sheltering mercies of your Redeemer! Behold, the Lord is not slack concerning his promise as some men count

slackness, but is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that ALL should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. The earth also, and the works that are therein, shall be burnt up. Seeing then all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness? Be sober then, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour: whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren which are in the world. But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his ETERNAL GLORY BY CHRIST JESUS, after that ye have suffered awhile, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. To Him be glory for ever and ever. Amen!

SERMON II.

LUKE XVI. 29.

ABRAHAM SAITH UNTO HIM, THEY HAVE MOSES AND THE PROPHETS, LET THEM HEAR THEM.'

IN quitting the Gospel of the Saviour, and the age in which it was promulgated, the first difficulty that presents itself, is the period of about four centuries which intervenes between the ministry of Jesus and that of the last of the prophets. In an inquiry like the present this period should not be passed by in silence, and we must therefore consult, for information on the subject, the writings generally attributed to those times, which are to be found in the books of the Apocrypha. We confess also, that in entering on the sacred Scriptures of the prophets and Moses we quit the full radiance of the Sun of Righteousness, and enter upon regions illuminated indeed, but yet faintly, by the lights and glories of Revelation. These lights, however, may be distinctly traced by those who with a becoming disposition receive the Old Testament in humble reverence, not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the Word of God. Infidels even, must allow, that the same great plan is apparent throughout, and the same great principles

of human conduct are insisted on through the whole tenor of both these dispensations. The moral law remains unchanged and unchangeable; while the same splendid hopes or awful fears, to incite men to obey their Creator, or, on the other hand, to deter them from sin and pollution, every where arrests the attention of the anxious and considering, because believing, mind. A search confined to the writings of the Pentateuch alone, might, perhaps, lead some to suppose, that the Mosaic law promised only temporal, to the exclusion of æternal benefits; but if, guided by the prophetic writings, and the other less conclusive, but yet most useful, evidence that may be elsewhere collected, we consider the books of Moses with the earnestness which they so deeply merit, we shall discover innumerable traces, clear, decided and incontrovertible, that the Jews always had light enough, amidst all the types and shadows of their law, had they chosen to use it, to guide every humble and believing spirit to the knowledge of life æternal. It might be argued, indeed, that such a revelation was not necessary, the Present Deity being always awfully conspicuous amongst their nation; and that the immediate rewards and punishments which Almighty Wisdom dispensed, were sufficient to compel all, but the most hardened and iniquitous, to choose good, and life. Nor can we deny, that those who braved the VISIBLE PRESENCE of their Creator, and who forgot all his benefits poured

E

upon them, deserved less than infinite punishment. Yet does it appear far more consistent with the mercy of Providence, and the warnings which were perpetually laid before the Israelites, in, beyond all comparison, lesser evils, that the transgressors should have been always aware of the full penalties of their almost incredible rebellions; more especially, as both their temporal, and æternal welfare, was always the acknowledged object of their Almighty Father. We, may be well assured that death and the judgment, heaven and hell, were never concealed from mankind but by their own wilful blindness. Whether they were displayed, however, to the Jews as clearly as they now are to us, is not material. If they had evidence, of any kind, that man was immortal--that is, that a state awaited him beyond the grave-it was sufficient. We, have in this respect, no advantage over them. They saw enough of the arm of the Deity, of the signs and wonders around them, and of the constant and appalling judgments which overtook transgressors amongst them, to be well aware, how terrible must be the penalty of Almighty vengeance through an æternal existence; and these peculiar and awful visitations were perhaps far more striking and more tremendous than all the detailed warnings of the Gospel.

To return unto our text. We are therein unquestionably referred, and by our Saviour himself, for the original revelation of heaven and hell, of