so consonant with the most exalted ideas of the character and attributes of God-so agreeable to the dictates of reason, and to the best feelings, affections, and wishes of mankind-and of all benevolent beings: does this doctrine deserve to be considered, and called a new and strange doctrine, and a pernicious and deadly heresy? No surely no. It is as old as the No-surely promise made to man in paradise-which in substance was renewed to the patriarch Abraham, and which has been confirmed and declared "by the mouth of all God's holy prophets since the world began."

And now,that this heavenly, and soul cheering doctrine of good tidings, is spreading and prevailing in every direction; and, to use the figurative and elegant language of the prophetis causing "the wilderness and the solitary place to be glad, and the desert to rejoice and blossom as the rose," distilling and diffusing its delightful fragrance-Now, that it is making its way to the understandings and consciences of men, and commending itself to their reason and judgment, and to their best wishes and hopesAnd now too, that it is proving so mighty, through God, to the pulling down of strong holds, casting down imaginations-spoiling ecclesiastical principalities and powers, and successfully warring against "spiritual wickedness in high places."Seeing these movements and

operations-too palpable to be concealed, do any inquire and desire to know of us "what these things mean?"

We readily answer-we unhesitatingly declare what we believe-what we are fully persuaded, these things mean-viz, That the day of judg ment has come! that very day of judgment referred to by the Apostle, in the close of his discourse in the Areopagus at Athens-even the day--the period-in which God will judgethat is, rule, and govern the world in righteousness by that man whom he bath ordained-not by the servile principle of fear and terror-but by the all-subduing influence-the all-conquering energy of ineffable compassion and kindness and almighty LOVE-revealed and manifested in the gospel of Jesus. And of this glorious, triumphant, and universal judgmentOF REIGN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, by Christ, God

hath given assurance unto all men--in that he hrath raised him from the dead"-" set him at his own right hand"-"given him a name which is above every name, that, in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father."? Ainen Hallelujah--Praise the Lord.

SERMON 4.

BY THOMAS JONES.

The Gospel Ministry.

MATT. IX. 37, 38.-The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few; pray ye, therefore, the Lord of 3 the harvest, that he would send forth laborers into his harvest.

Ir is said in the verse preceding the text, that when Jesus saw the multitudes who attended to hear him, he was moved with compassion for them, because they fainted and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd. In this care and sympathy, which Jesus ever showed towards the destitute and afflicted, we discover in our divine Lord those peculiar virtues which should insure for him the highest respect and the best affections of the human heart.

The account given in the context of the needy multitudes who flocked to hear the teachings of Jesus, we may safely use in a moral application, to show that they were faint in respect to their minds as well as their bodies; and that they were unsettled as to any fixed senti

ment which could give them real and permanent comfort. Nor had they any guide who cared for them, so as to lead them into the right paths except the Lord Jesus. He is emphatically the good shepherd who gave his life for the sheep, and as such, he had compassion on the famished multitudes.

It is worthy of notice, in this place, that Jesus pronounced a woe against the teachers of his day-the standing order in the Jewish church-saying, Woe unto you, lawyers, for ye have taken away the keys of knowledge. Ye enter not in yourselves; and those that were entering in, ye hindered. If it be asked, how the Jewish teachers did these things? the answer is easy. By their traditions they took away the true method of interpreting the scriptures; gave the people a wrong understanding of the prophecies, and thereby hindered them from entering the gospel kingdom. A proverb similar to the above, was uttered by the prophet Jeremiah, chap. xxiii, ver. 1-Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture, saith the Lord. This woe was pronounced against them because they scattered and destroyed the sheep; nor was this all,-they withheld from them the true bread, and forbid their feeding in God's field of free grace.

Very suddenly our Lord changed the similitude of sheep without a shepherd, to that of a

plenteous harvest fully ripe, where there were but few laborers to gather it in. Amongst all the masters in Israel, there was none found to gather the people; to lead them, doctrinally, into the rich scriptural comforts mentioned by the holy prophets of Israel.

In prosecuting the subject of this discourse, I will speak

1. Of the plenteous harvest.

2. Of the few laborers.

3. Of the exhortation found in the textpray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth laborers into his harvest."

1. The plenteous harvest represented the great multitudes of people which Jesus saw as sheep without a shepherd, having, indeed, a spirit of inquiry; but as yet in ignorance, And as Jesus is the same yesterday, to-day and forever, we believe the ignorant multitudes have his compassion still, and that he shows them mercy. In the parable of the tares and the wheat which Jesus put forth, the harvest is said to mean the end of the world, i. e. age or dispensation. The end of the world referred to the time when the tares should be gathered out of the wheat, and be burned. This was accomplished in the destruction of the Jewish hierarchy, temple and city. But in the text, reference is not had to time in particular, by the