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grace there. The same God which indited the Bible has taught and sanctified your heart. Truth in the record of Scripture, and truth in your judgment and feelings is written by the same hand.

If, however, this happy change-this conversion has not yet fully taken place in you-I mean if real religion is not yet seated in your hearts--then let me intreat you no longer to delay this great, this first duty of an accountable being, the care of the soul. I intreat you to remember the authority of truth-it claims your attention, it lays before you the most powerful body of evidences as to its divine origin-it promises you every aid in making your inquiries. The Bible is given to save your soul. Consider, I beseech you, the danger of trifling with conscience. Employ the interruption to worldly affairs which the weekly Sabbath affords, for studying your Bible, for examining your heart, for attending the public worship of God with greater devotion and more fixed attention. Be in earnest. Pray. Act as a reasonable being under a dispensation of mercy.

WHICH

Above all, avoid that most perilous state of mind v COMES TO NO CONCLUSION--which "halts"-and continues to "halt"-and at last "halts" systematically "between two opinions," which goes on for years with no opinion formed-no religion governing the soul-with unprofitable intentions of future penitence and faith-and a most insidious and fatal vacillation between God and the world.

I conceive there are too many in all large parishes, and therefore amongst my own beloved flock, in this state—the most opposed imaginable to the authority of revealed truth. They profess generally the Christian religion-they attend the means of grace-they respect their ministers-they admire the national church--they join in certain benevolent objects. In all this they do well. But they are not truly converted from the love and service of sin and sensible objects, to the supreme love and service of God in Christ Jesus. Truth has not its just sovereignty in their hearts,

And how does this come about? There is a fallacy at work. They say of some parts of truth, "I think them doubtful, they are controverted;" they say of other parts, "I dread being a party man, I fear going too far, I receive the general doctrines of the church as they are commonly understood-I mean the same---there is no difference; we

all believe the gospel:" they say of certain duties, "I admit the expediency of thus acting, but the time will not allow of it, my circumstances and connections forbid; I am a man of peace." Thus they strike a balance, as it were, between God and the world. They come to a compromise. They deny no article of the Christian faith explicitly; but all the spiritual, humiliating parts, they evade---all the peculiar grace of Christ Jesus they evade, all the glory and efficacy of the work of the Holy Ghost they evade-all the real mortification of heart to sensible objects and worldly pursuits they evade---all the reproach of the cross, and the shame following the humiliating doctrine of the gospel they evade! Miserable subterfuges these-snares of the great adversary. What! are the opinions of men, or the fear of a party-spirit, or the fashion of the day, or the standard of piety which happens to be reputable in a rebel world, any sufficient arguments against the authority of revealed truth? You are bound to yield to the call and demand of your Creator and Redeemer, whatever may be the consequences. It is this commanding claim which I am most anxious to urge upon you. It is not man, it is not this or that writer, it is not the church, it is not ministers; it is GoD HIMSELF who speaks. Faith is the submission of the soul to all be declares---and therefore it is that faith is not an intellectual effort, or a cold assent, but the cordial acquiescence and repose of the understanding and will of man upon the Bible as the word of the living God. It is the work of the Holy Spirit in the human heart. To seek this blessing, I most affectionately invite you, that you may know the things which belong unto your peace, and attain the blessings of salvation.

Nor is it upon the general body of my friends and parishioners merely, that I would press the authority of religious truth; I would turn to those who do admit this authority, and are endeavoring to act uprightly in obeying it, both as it regards the great scheme of salvation, and as it respects the holy season of the Lord's day, which is appointed to accompany it.

Let me guard you against the prevalent invasions of the authority of revealed truth which abound in the present day. I need not say any thing to put you on your watch against the neologism, the daring criticism, the love of novelty, the

impatience of old-received truth, the pride of a false philosophy, the pretence that knowledge can sanctify and bless mankind, the questioning the plenary and unerring inspiration under which the Scriptures were written, and the rage for bold interpretations of their sacred contents, which are the spurious progeny of a time like the present.

I would rather caution you, with great tenderness, against more covert attacks on the authority of truth, by excess of statement by over earnestness respecting the unfulfilled, and therefore inscrutable scheme of prophecy--by disproportionate attention to matters doubtful at the very best and not essential to salvation---by vehement assertions of our own particular sentiments on these points, and the public inculcation of them upon others. These are dangers to which I believe you are at present very little exposed. I rejoice to think of the simplicity of your faith, and your unfeigned subjection to the whole Bible in all its holy instructions. But I would caution you. The tendency of all such misplaced vehemence is to sap the authority of truth. It eats out the life and grace of religion. It occupies the time, distracts the thoughts, takes off the attention from God and Christ, and pardon and justification, and the Holy Spirit, and growth in holiness, and watchfulness and humility--and it gradually and unconsciously draws off the mind towards minute and subordinate points, which can never be settled, and if they could, would not change one duty nor one motive of the Christian life. My dear friends, I only suggest a hint. I speak to my younger parishioners and fellow Christians, as a father to his children. I do not say, "Study not the prophecies"--for I study them myself with increasing delight. I do not say, "Indulge not the most glowing hopes of the future millennial triumph of the church" --I indulge them myself. I do not say, "Expect not the second coming, the second personal advent of our Lord”— I expect it myself—I watch or endeavor to watch with my "loins girded and my lamp burning." On all these points there is no difference of opinion. The danger is, when particular explications of the unfulfilled prophecies with respect to them, possess the mind---the danger is, when the imagination dwells, till it is inflamed, upon minute and secondary details on the time and manner of our Lord's approach--the danger is, when an hypothesis is first admitted into the

mind, then admired, then defended, then made an article, or almost an article of faith---the danger is, when repentance, faith, love, obedience, communion with God, watchfulness, growth in grace, the discharge of social and personal duties, are insensibly jostled out of the mind; and these new and subordinate matters thrust into their place. You do not mean this---you are not convinced it is possible. But let me beseech you to be on your guard. The human mind is a narrow place. The time we have for religious exercises is short. The corruption of man leans always towards theory rather than practice. Novelty, when it once gains the imagination, soon gets possession of the time and heart.

Unnumbered examples in ecclesiastical annals testify how the effects of a similar course (unconsciously admitted by the most pious persons) have exposed the church to the wiles of our great adversary. Three times in the course of thirty years, have I witnessed such a process myself. Whatever takes us off from holy repenting, holy believing, holy walking, holy loving, holy watching, holy dying, is an artifice of that arch-deceiver. It is thus, in every period when they have arisen, that the church has been divided, that claims to miraculous powers have been made, that an inflation of mind has been produced, that the idea of a special inspiration has been imbibed, that all argument and expostulation have proved fruitless, that the Holy Spirit has been grieved, that scandals of the most fearful description have at length arisen, and the honor of Christianity been tarnished.

The wisdom, my dear friends, of the humble servant of God, is to take warning betimes; to avoid the first steps-the succeeding may be beyond his power---but THE FIRST STEPS he may shun-and at the same time he must take care, that in doing so, he is not betrayed into any opposite extreme, equally dangerous though of another character.

The remedy is, THE AUTHORITY OF TRUTH-the soul subjected to God-the reason and conscience taking the simple, unsophisticated declarations of the Bible-stopping where God stops-and not first imposing human notions on this sacred book, and then calling those notions the Bible. To help us to walk safely in all these respects, we must pray much for the Holy Spirit, take counsel with friends,

be willing to be ignorant of many things, mark the first admonitions of conscience, shun novelties, and fly before we are entangled in the net of the subtle foe.

As to the practical duties of the Holy Sabbath, I would only urge you and myself, my dear friends, to be continually on our watch against the growth of unfavorable habits. The more holy it is kept, the better. Let it be set apart for spiritual duties. Give it up exclusively to God. Obey the fourth commandment. Carry its injunctions into effect in your hours, your arrangements, your spirit, your influence, your example, your whole conduct.

Endeavor to make the duties of the day pleasant and interesting to children and servants. Imbibe the Christian spirit of love, of tenderness, of the compassionate example of our Lord. Young persons cannot enter as you do, into all the reasons of the institution; but they can be attracted, led on, encouraged by degrees. Do not open your minds to objections, when you have once been relieved from doubts--which I trust the following sermons may assist in effecting---do not again admit them. Let the question be considered as settled--dismiss the controversy, close the debate; and give yourselves to the practical authority of truth. To listen to cavils, after you have come to a calm determination, is to tempt God. To dispute agáin, is to grieve the Holy Ghost. Life is too short for interminable bickerings.

With regard to public measures for observing the Lord's day, I need scarcely invite my kind neighbors to aid the new Association to which I have already adverted. I am sure I may rely on the heads of families, and persons in station and influence, to give effective directions that tradesmen bring home to them no articles of food, or other merchandise, on the Lord's day.

I am sure I need not entreat them to attend with their families, twice on the Sunday, the public worship of God.

I am sure I need not beg of them to avoid the reading of secular books and public newspapers, the writing of letters of business, the paying and receiving of ordinary visits, the indulging in worldly and vain conversation on the sacred day.

Nor is it necessary for me to say much to those of my parishioners who are engaged in the affairs of trade, to in