them. His presence is encouraging, and therefore are you assembled that you may go on together to the place of your final abode.

Take a view of the varieties of character and gracious attainments that are found among you: not for the purposes of discord, of pretension, or of pride of superiority; but with gratitude to the Sovereign disposer of every event, and with design to be helpers of one another in your progress. The least of you that believe, has more than he merited; the best, has nothing whereof to be vain; all have reason to mourn over imperfections, and to rejoice that your sufficiency is of God. Hand in hand, the young and the old, the feeble and the strong, the unlearned and the scholar, the new recruit and the veteran, march to the place of conquest and triumph. The trumpet blows, the people hear, "The Breaker is come up before them: they have broken up, and have passed through the gate, and the Lord on the head of them. Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound: they shall walk, O Lord, in the light of thy countenance."*

2. Be not discouraged, although your progress in religion is neither as uniform nor as rapid as you first expected it should actually prove.

Every Christian has many changes in his own spiritual lot; and those changes are not always agreeable to his feelings or his expectations. We know most assuredly, that all things shall work together for our good; but we do not previously know, what method our heavenly Father will take in relation to our numerons concerns in order to produce this effect. That religion itself is a source of happiness, we will not cease to believe; for wisdom's ways are pleasantness, and all her paths are peace: but in consequence of our personal imperfections and transgressions, and our relation to a sinful world, our very piety may become the occasion of trouble and sorrow. There are seasons in your life, in which there is need that ye be in heaviness through manifold temptatians.

Among the numerous trials which afflict the saints, none appear more alarming than those which indicate a decline of their spirituality: and there is on this quarter great reason of deep concern. In all cases of declension, there is something to blame on our part; and there is evident diminution of our usefulness to others: there is offence against God, and consequent ground for our apprehension of his indignation. It is, moreover, the case, that many professors who were once confident of their own religion, and who were in the estimation of others truly religious, have, by gradual or sudden declension, lost that which they appeared to have had, and so made it manifest to all that they were not true Christians. Such considerations ought to humble us when it is evident that we are not growing in grace; they must humble the saints when they are made sensible of personal decay: but they often alarm the pious, perhaps to renewal of strength, perhaps to despondence approaching despair.

This last, is the most painful condition in which pious men can be placed. Against it I would have you guard with caution. It is a bitter draught of itself; and it renders all other troubles with which it may be your lot to be visited, doubly painful. It induces melancholy, augments bodily infirmity, and renders its sleepless victim unfit for exertion. Wipe away your tears, ye sons of sorrow, for the gospel has provided a remedy. The cure is not in yourselves: ye have sinned, and merit the indignation of the Lord. But there is a remedy. Lo, the Mediator is your advocate. He is your Lord and your Brother. He delights in employment: and he calls to him the wearied and the heavy laden. Are you guilty of sloth, of ingratitude, of negligence? Are you idle in his sanctuary, cold in your affectious, slow in your progress, or rather retrograde in your motions? Then you have the greater need of his aid who is able to save to the uttermost. Come to him at his invitation. The urgency of your case should be with you an argument to come without delay: the greatness of your criminality is no reason for his denying his salvation; but on the contrary his glory is the more conspicuous, because his mercy is the better displayed in pardoning the iniquity which is very great. He is rich in mercy; his blood cleanseth from all sin. I repeat it, Christians, although you have lingered too long, although you have been overcome by temptations, although you have not hitherto made the expected progress in zeal, in usefulness, in patience, and in heavenly-mindedness; although you are faint and without the wished-for strength, he is at hand to help you. He is a Father and a Friend, "God is our refuge and our strength, a very present help in trouble; therefore will we not fear though the earth be removed. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he

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increaseth strength. Even the youth shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall; but they that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint."* AMEN.

ASSURANCE OF A SAVING INTEREST IN

CHRIST.

SERMON VI.

1 JOHN iii. 19.-And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him.

IT may with truth be said of unfounded confidence in matters of religion, as the daughters of Israel said of the son of Jesse in their songs, "David has killed his tens of thousands." Numerous beyond calculation are the victims of a deceitful hope of future salvation. Very few of those who think at all of the world to come, have gone down to the grave in despair of happiness; and but comparatively a small number of those who hear the gospel, have really believed to the saving of the soul: the remainder perish with delusive expectations. Many are called, but few are chosen. Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it; for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat.

It is lamentable, that there should prevail among men, both within and without the pale of the Christian church, so much unreasonable confidence, as it regards the future state of their immortal souls. Strange as it may appear, when the fact is at first presented to view, there are many people, in other things intelligent and prudent, who are conscious that they are not sufficiently religious to make a public profession of Christianity; who acknowledge that they are not fit to join in a visible communion with men who are very far from perfection: and yet, with such consciousness and acknowledgments, they flatter themselves that they are in quite a fair way to enter at death into heaven; to be admitted by a holy God to the communion of angels; and settled in the incorruptible inheritance, in fellowship with the spirits of just men made perfect. It is remarkable that so many acute and inquiring minds, should bestow so little consideration upon the most important and interesting subjects, while they are alive, feelingly and jealously alive to the concerns of country, of personal interest and reputation, yea, of party and of prejudice.

It is a pity, too, that among the few who live godly in Christ Jesus, there should be found any who, from ignorance of their own gracious state, or negligence of their high calling, deprive themselves of the consolations of the Christian's hope. To awaken, from their deceitful dreams, those who are slumbering in false security; to conduct to a sight of their personal safety, those believers in Jesus Christ who are afflicted with doubts and fears, is a duty, at which the pastor must aim, however difficult it may be to accomplish. After having described the NATURE AND PROGRESS OF TRUE RELIGION in the soul, I have thought it might be well to exhibit those principles upon which my hearers should try their own Christian character. With this view, the text is selected.

The venerable apostle furnishes in this epistle the professed Christian with the proper criterion of his devotional exercises. In his Gospel, he has exhibited the most sublime doctrines of the evangelical system; in the Apocalypse he has given us an outline of the prospective history of Christianity as it affects the great concerns of society: and in his Epistles he furnishes us with a fine and discriminating view of personal godliness. Pure friendship, upon Christian principles, tender, enlightened, and constant, appears in the last two addressed to individuals. In this, a general epistle to the churches of Christ, he happily interweaves, with the doctrines of grace, and the purest morality, a description of the principal effects of experimental religion among all ranks. John the Divine outlived the rest of the apostles of our Lord; and peculiarly felt a parental affection for all the scattered churches and their several members. He had lived long enough to see many instances of apostacy and hypocrisy; and much decay of spirituality in some men of undoubted piety. His furrowed brow and his silvered locks betokened the many years which had passed over him in his ministry: and before he departs from the world, he strives to leave as a legacy with his children, a practical work by which they may ascertain their own religious state. Referring to some distinguishing traits of Christian character which he had previously drawn, he adds, in my text, hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him.