all human affairs. You have feen changes in almost every department of life. You have seen new minifters at the court, nẹw judges on the bench, and new priests at the altar of the Lord. You have seen different kings upon the throne. You have feen peace and war, war, and war and peace again. How many of your equals in age have you furvived? How many younger than you, have you carried to the grave? Year after year hath made a blank in the number of your friends. Your own country hath infenfibly become a Strange land, and a new world hath rifen around you, before you perceived that the old had paffed away. The fame fate that hath taken away your friends, awaits you. Even now the decree is gone forth. The king of terrors hath received his commiffion, and is now on his way. If you have mifemployed your time, that talent which God hath put into your hand; if your life is marked with guilt or folly, how will you anfwer to your own heart at that awful hour? For previous to the general doom, Almighty God hath appointed a day of judgment in the breaft of every man. The

laft

laft hour is ordained to pass sentence on all the reft. The actions of your former life, will there meet you again. How will then answer at the bar of your you own heart, when the collected crimes of a lengthened life, at one view, fhall flash upon the mind; when the ghofts of your departed hours, of thofe hours which you have murdered, fhall rife up in terrible array, and look you in the face. - What would you then give for that time which you now throw away? What would the wretch who lies on a bed of agony, extended and groaning, who feels in his heart the poifoned arrow of death; who, looking back on his past life, turns aside from the view; who, looking forward to futurity, difcerns no beam of hope to break that utter darknefs which overwhelms him; What would he then give for those hours which you now despise, to make his peace with Heaven, and fit him for his paffage into the world unknown? Remember, my friends, that this is no imaginary cafe, it is a cafe which may foon be your own. Be wife, therefore, while wifdom can avail, and fave yourfelves

F 4

felves from the agony of repenting in bitternefs of foul, when all repentance may be in vain.

To fum up all, my friends,' the time is short. We are as guefts in a strange land, who tarry but one night. We wander up and down in a place of graves. We read the epitaphs upon the tombs of the deceafed. We shed a few tears over the ashes of the dead; and, in a little time, we need from our furviving friends the tears we paid to the memory of our friends departed.

Time is precious. The time is now pas fing that fixes our fate for ever. The hours are, at this inftant, on the wing, which carry along with them

happiness or eternal mifery.

your eternal

Time is irrecoverable. The clock is wound up once for all; the hand is advancing, and, in a little time, it ftrikes your last hour.

SER

SERMON V.

W

upon

PSAL. iv. 4.

Stand in awe.

HEN the Patriarch Jacob departed from his father's houfe, and entered on that state of pilgrimage, which only terminated with his life, he lighted on a certain place, where he tarried all the night. Agreeable to the fimplicity of the ancient world, he laid himself down to rest the open plain; without any pillow but a stone of the field; and without any covering but the curtains of heaven. A ftranger he was to the elegance and luxury of after-times, but he enjoyed pleasures of a higher kind. The God of his fathers was with him. In the patriarchal ages, before a public revelation was given to the world, the Deity frequently appeared to

holy

holy men in dreams, and vifions of the night. Accordingly, Jacob, in his dream, beheld a ladder fet upon the earth, the top of it reaching unto the heavens, and upon it the angels of God afcending and defcending: And, behold! The Lord stood above, and faid, "I am the Lord God of "Abraham, thy father, and the God of "Ifaac; the land whereon thou lieft, to "thee will I give it, and to thy feed; and

thy feed shall be as the duft of the earth; "thou shalt spread abroad to the east and 66 to the weft; to the fouth and to the north, and in thee, and in thy feed, shall "all the families of the earth be bleffed."

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Did the Patriarch awake in a rapture of joy, when he had thus been fo highly favoured of the Lord? You fhall hear, "And Jacob awaked out of his fleep, and "he faid, Surely the Lord is in this place, "and I knew it not, and he was afraid, "and faid, How dreadful is this place! "This is none other but the house of God, "and this is the gate of heaven." Though he had afcended in the visions of God, and beheld scenes of glory which few are ad