PASTORAL ADDRESSES.

ON SELF-EXAMINATION.

DEARLY BELOVED,

GOD ALMIGHTY yet spares our lives! and while many of our neighbours are gone to their long homes, we are permitted to enter, in health and peace, on another of our threescore years and

ten!

I rejoice with you on the occasion; and I heartily pray the Giver of all Good, that the year which is now beginning, may be a happy year to you all! May God bless your victuals with increase! May the voice of joy and health be heard in your dwellings! may your wants be few and your comforts many! but, above all, I pray that your souls may prosper; that you may every day grow wiser unto salvation; so that the longer you live, the fitter you may be to die.

But, Dearly Beloved, it becomes us at this season, not only to look forward, but to look back, and to ask ourselves, how we have passed the year that is now closed for ever, and gone to God with the report of the good or evil we have

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each of us done. Let me beseech you then, with all the affection of a friend, with all the earnestness of a minister, and with all the solemnity of a dying creature, to put the following important questions to your own hearts-honestly, seriously, repeatedly!

1. Am I nearer to heaven or to hell, since the last year began ?

2. Have I sincerely repented of my sins, certain, that if my sins be not forgiven, my soul cannot be saved?

3. Have I fled for safety to the cross of Christ, believing in him as the Son of God, and as my. Saviour?

4. Have I begged the grace of the Holy Spirit to help me in working out my salvation?

5. Have I desired not only to be justified, but to be sanctified; that is, not only to be pardoned, but to be made holy?

6. Have I begun to live like a Christian; and to take delight in God's commandments.

7. Have I honoured God's name, ceasing to swear and talk profanely?

8. Have I kept the Sabbath holy, not spending it in idleness and drunkenness, but frequenting God's house, and delighting to hear the gospel preached?

9. Have I diligently read the Bible, with a hearty desire to know God's will, and to do it?

10. Have I prayed to God in the name of Christ, earnestly, frequently, perseveringly?

11. Have I been sober? have I been chaste?

have I been honest? have I been just? have I always spoken the truth? have I been forgiving? have I been charitable?

12. Have I been a good husband, a good wife? have I been a good parent? have I been a good child? have I been a good neighbour? have I been a good master? have I been a good servant? have I been a good subject?

Dearly Beloved, if ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them!

I remain, Dearly Beloved,

Your affectionate Minister, and Servant in Christ,

EDWARD WARD.

THE TERMS OF SALVATION.

DEARLY BELOVED,

THE closing of another year induces me again to visit you in your dwellings by a Pastoral Address; and I am more disposed to repeat this mode of admonition, because it may reach those, who will not come to the House of God; and thus enable me to preach to their eyes those saving truths, which they will not receive by the hearing of the ear. O that I may be instrumental in some way or other to the salvation of every one in my Parish!-and be delivered from the blood-guiltiness of the souls entrusted to my charge!

Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God

for you is, that you may be saved!-saved from the power of sin here!-and from the punishment of sin hereafter!-Salvation is a matter of such infinite moment, that there is no earthly consideration which can be put in comparison with it. Remember there is no middle state: after the present short life is over, you must pass an endless eternity in heaven or in hell!-If you are saved at last, it will matter little what you have suffered on earth. If you are lost at last, it will matter little what you have enjoyed on earth. Your great concern is to work out your salvation, to be daily preparing for the day of death, that that day may not come upon you

unawares.

I now submit to your serious meditation a brief summary of the truths, which I have endeavoured to enforce from the pulpit: they are the plain and essential doctrines of the Bible; and the terms, and as far as I know, the only terms of salvation.

WE ARE ALL SINNERS.

"All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. There is none righteous, no not one. The Scripture hath concluded all under sin. Cursed is every one, that continueth not in all things, which are written in the book of the Law, to do them."

THE CERTAIN PUNISHMENT OF SIN.

"The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The wicked shall go into everlasting fire, prepared

for the devil and his angels; there the worm shall never die, and the fire shall never be quenched. O flee then for thy life! stay not! look not behind thee!"

THE ONLY WAY OF SALVATION.

Repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. Jesus hath said, no man cometh to the Father but by me-and him, that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin."

THE NECESSITY OF SANCTIFICATION.

"Without holiness no man shall see the Lord. Except a man be born of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Be ye holy, even as he which has called you, is holy."

THE BLESSED STATE OF THOSE WHO ARE REDEEMED AND SANCTIFIED.

"The Lord will keep those in perfect peace, whose minds are stayed on him. Blessed are the dead, which die in the Lord. At the day of Judgment he shall say to those on the right hand, Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.""

Dearly Beloved-let these solemn truths sink deep into your hearts-and become visible in your lives-that those amongst us, and certainly some there must be, with respect to whom the decree is gone forth, THIS YEAR THOU SHALT DIE, may be found diligently employed in the