children and servants in the privileges and duties of the Christian character? We are commanded to train up our children in the way in which they should go. Now, has this been our conduct during the past year? or may not our children and our servants justly complain, that however we may have attended to the concerns of our own souls, we have grievously neglected theirs?

Has there been in us, during the year that is past, a diligent attendance at the table of the Lorda regular habit of self-examination, of true and unfeigned repentance of sin-a believing application of the Saviour's sacrifice· an earnest endeavour to walk in newness of life? Have we not only endeavoured to attend to religion at some times and on some occasions, but have we laboured habitually to maintain a spirit of holy circumspection? Have we been watching over our tempers, and passions, and appetites, and endeavouring to comply with the apostolic exhortation, "whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God?"

O my brethren, when we come thus to consider our past ways, and to enter with seriousness and impartiality into the review, how many instances shall we perceive in which we have been so defective, so negligent, so forgetful, that we must ever feel deeply humbled in the sight of Almighty God, and beseech him with all earnestness not to enter into judgment with us, but to have mercy upon us, and pardon our past offences through the merits of his dear Son?

Secondly, Consider your ways with reference to the present. Looking at the present moment, indeed, we may well say, What is it? It vanishes while we speak. It is, as it were, only the connecting link between two vast eternities. For, what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little

time, and then passeth away. And yet, as the past is irrecoverable, as the future may never come, it is of the utmost importance that we should pause and consider, during the existing moment, what are our views and feelings, our purposes and resolutions.

Do you now feel ashamed, and humbled, and truly penitent, under the recollection of your past transgressions in the sight of a holy God, your numerous defects of duty and commissions of sin? If the consideration of your past ways does not excite such feelings of humiliation and of penitence, it is, my brethren, because you have been superficial in the inquiry, or have been estimating your conduct by a mistaken, an erroneous standard. So long as you compare yourselves with yourselves, or judge yourselves by yourselves, you may perhaps be well satisfied. So long as you estimate your conduct and behaviour by the example of many around, who make a plausible profession of religion, you may feel that you are, so to speak, as good as they; but if once you compare yourselves with the holy law of God, and estimate your character. by that perfect and unerring standard, or compare it with the holy example of the Saviour, the language of your hearts will be," Behold, I am vile; I am all as an unclean thing; I am the chief of sinners: enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord!”

Are you now welcoming the Saviour? Many, like those of old, see no form nor comeliness in him that they should desire him. They are ready to say, What is thy beloved more than another beloved? They will speak of the excellence of the morality of Jesus Christ, of the sublimity of his doctrine, and the perfection of his example; but they are prone to lose sight of the value of his sacrifice; they feel nothing of personal interest in him; there is no void to be filled up in

their minds; no defect in their righteousness which compels them to look out of themselves; no habitual dependence upon Jesus Christ, no running to him continually; no counting all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of him; no settled abiding conviction, that without an interest in his atonement they must perish: yet this need of Christ, this longing after Christ, this willingness to give up every thing for Christ; this abiding conviction, that without Christ they must perish; and this consequent coming to Christ, believing on him, fleeing to him, earnestly desiring an interest in him, is indispensably necessary to a state of acceptance and reconciliation.

Again, Do you now earnestly seek for the enlightening, sanctifying, strengthening, and consoling influence of the Holy Spirit? Every discovery of your true character as a sinner must be accompanied with an increasing sense and feeling of your blindness, ignorance, weakness, and pollution. If, therefore, you have duly considered your past ways, you will welcome in an especial manner that promise of the Father, which the Saviour gave to his disciples shortly before his removal, that he would send another Comforter who should abide with them for ever. Every fresh discovery of the evils of your own heart, every day's experience of the temptations with which you are assaulted, will compel you to feel more and more the need you have of his divine grace, and will lead you to seek more earnestly that it may be vouchsafed.

If such is the case with you;if you are indeed deeply humbled under a sense of sin-truly penitent on account of your past transgressions-earnestly desiring mercy through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ -habitually seeking for the influences of the Holy Spirit-we may well congratulate you on that good

work which is begun; and animate you to press forwards, forgetting the things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those which are before.

Thirdly, Consider your ways as to the future.

If, my brethren, you are suitably affected with the past, and in a right state of mind at the present, you will be induced to say, What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits? You will feel that the time past may suffice to have wrought the will of the flesh; and will cheerfully suffer the word of exhortation while we say, Set out afresh in God's service with renewed diligence and devotedness. If much of your time has been spent unprofitably; if the talents, and privileges, and opportunities you have enjoyed, have been neglected or misapplied; surely it becomes you to labour earnestly to improve what still remains. Endeavour, therefore, solemnly to review your past lives, that the recollection of your defects and mistakes may excite to greater degrees of diligence and industry; that the weakness of your former resolutions may lead you to lay hold more firmly on the divine strength; that you may no longer halt between two opinions, or attempt to unite that which the word of God declares is impossible, the service of God and the service of the world. Choose your part with seriousness and consideration; but choose with decision and determi

nation. "If the Lord be God, serve him; if Baal, then him." But while you determine that no earthly consideration shall induce you to neglect the only way of peace and safety through the Redeemer's blood; strive also against that lukewarm spirit, that spirit of conformity to the world, which so fatally destroys the comfort and impedes the progress of many professing Christians. Be more careful and circumspect in the use of the

means of grace. If you would serve God effectually, you must diligently wait upon him in the ordinances of his appointment; and be constant and early in your attendance at the house of God: be regular, that you may receive the whole of that instruction which God vouchsafes by the voice of his ministers, and that you may not lose those discourses which may be more especially appropriate to your state, by an unnecessary absence from your place. If you would experience true enjoyment in waiting upon God, be not only regular but also early in your attendance. You must seek the divine blessing by diligent prayer; and if the earlier parts of the service are neglected, if there has been no confession of sin, no prayers for pardon, no calling and waiting upon God, is it at all surprising that you should remain destitute of enjoyment and consolation? or that the sermons which you hear should be productive of little abiding benefit? Labour, therefore, not only to obtain knowledge, but experience not merely to possess speculative, but deeply practical views of religious truth; and to come with hearts prepared for the reception of that word which is described by the Saviour as the good seed of the kingdom.

Be seriously attentive to the duties of the closet and of the family; secure time for secret communion with God in private prayer and the study of his holy word, by so regulating and arranging your business, that your stated periods of devotion shall not be intruded on. In many cases, this will necessarily require you to redeem time from sleep, from company, from late visits, and evening parties;-to renounce the sinful habit in which so many indulge, of rising later in the morning of the Lord's day than any other. Lamentable is it to find, that those who are to be JANUARY 1823.

met with in their shops or their businesses at an early hour on every other day in the week, are so forgetful of the Lord's day, that they ean scarcely arrive in the house of prayer by the noontide hour, nor this without the sacrifice of secret and family devotion. O rob not God of his sacred day; but begin this year with the holy resolution, that your sabbaths shall indeed be devoted to the divine service.

Be regular and diligent in your preparation for and attendance at the table of the Lord. Nothing more effectually conduces to growth in grace and advancement in the divine life than a frequent participation of the Lord's Supper. The great enemy of souls, indeed, endeavours to persuade men that there is some lurking danger, some secret snare, in this divine institution; and he too often succeeds in inducing persons to absent themselves, even for years together, from that ordinance which is especially appointed for the strengthening and refreshing of their souls. But believe not him rather than God. Obey not his voice, rather than the command of Him who said, "Do this in remembrance of me." Did the Saviour desire your welfare when he died for you?-Did he not desire your edification when he instituted these memorials of his love? and will you be so ungrateful as to refuse his invitation, when, by the voice of his ministering servants, he says, Come, for all things are now ready? O begin not to make excuse, but examine yourselves, and so eat of this bread and drink of this cup.

And while you thus set out with holy determinations to devote yourselves more entirely to Almighty God, than you have in former years; and are for this purpose more constant and early at the house of God-more diligent in private prayer, and the study of his word-more frequent in

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attending on the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper; O let me call upon you to manifest a more studious regard, a more diligent attention to family religion. Often think of the souls of your children, and of your servants.. Why has God given you children, but to train them up for him? How can you so effectually secure the affections of your servants-how so attach them to your interests, as by leading them to seek the salvation of their souls? How can you so repay your obligations to Almighty God for the blessings of his providence, as by adopting Joshua's resolution, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord?" Let then the word of God be daily read in your houses; let your family be collected together, and unite with them in prayer and praise; let the labours of every day be thus consecrated to God, and he will mercifully accept and own the service.

He, my brethren, he is ever ready to hear, to pardon, and to bless. He calls upon the Jews to prove him by complying with his precepts, and to try whether he would not assuredly vouchsafe them a blessing. And is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not of the Gentiles also? Have you no promises in which you may trust, which may animate your hope and encourage your expectations? Surely if you take the Word of God for your guide, and if you really desire a prosperous and a blessed year, you will devote yourselves, and all belonging to you, more simply and entirely to Almighty God.

We say not indeed that temporal prosperity shall necessarily follow-we presume not to pry into the secrets of futurity. The blessing of the Lord maketh rich; he may see fit to withhold worldly wealth; he may provide some better thing for you; yet this we know assuredly, that all things shall work

together for good to them that love God; that all things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come, all are yours, and Christ's, and Christ is God's.

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But let me earnestly press upon you, my brethren, not to delay or neglect this entire devotion of yourselves to God. Many, alas! spend their lives in purposing what they never perform. The commencement of a new year finds them as the commencement of its predecessor did. Convinced, perhaps, that they are wrong; forming resolutions to be right; waiting till the streams of temptation shall have passed by; looking for the day when they may be religious without difficulty, and serve God without trials, and get to heaven without taking up their cross; they are the same now as they were this time last year. The same, did I say? no-that is impossible. They are a year olderhave wasted another year-have lost another year's opportunitieshave entangled and enfolded themselves in still stronger chains of sin-are become more difficult to excite, more practised in vain excuse, more averse to the required labour and exertion; they are hastening to the grave with an increasing load of sin with a shorter period of life-with a great work to perform, and yet not knowing what a day may bring forth. And is this your case? Is it the case with any who are here present? O may God grant that you may indeed consider your ways! may repent you truly of your sins past, and so flee unto Jesus Christ, and devote yourselves unto him, that this year may be the beginning of life to your souls; and that if called hence before its close, an abundant entrance may be administered into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

H. O.

WE never feel more sensibly the difficulties of our office, than when called to notice the producupon tions of eminent departed ministers. We are seldom authorized to speak in terms of pure and unmixed praise; and yet we are well aware, that such is the irritability of some minds, that the very smallest degree of criticism on the productions of departed worth is imputed to motives which have no existence. Happily in the case before us, the difficulty is in great measure removed by the very judicious and sensible remarks with which these Sermons are introduced; and we know not how we can convey to our readers a more correct view of the present volume than by calling their attention to the following extracts from its

Preface.

These Sermons (say the editors) are quite devoid of ornament, which he was known rather to shun than to cultivate, and are not characterized by those finely turned periods which a refined reader may look for. But he will find something of greater worth-honesty, good sense, a well arranged mind, and sound divinity.

For the better information of his hearers, and their greater improvement in Christian knowledge, the author was accustomed to inculcate religion in the order of the inspired writers, by frequent courses of expository sermons, in which he embraced nearly every branch of a Christian's faith or practice. Thus were brought before his congregation, as a succession of years enabled him fully to do, the characters of God and of man, of the Redeemer and his great work, of the Sanctifier with his variety of graces and gifts, and in short the whole counsel of God as delivered in his word to a fallen world.

His views of religion were precisely those of the Church of England, as contained in her service and accredited formularies; and to these he had a very strong attachment, as, in his deliberate judgment,

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pure and scriptural. Like Luther, whom be greatly admired, he considered justification by faith to be the grand fundamental doctrine of Christianity; and to this, like a true son of the Church of England, be made every other subservient, whether he was laying the foundation, raising the sustones of the Christian building. “By grace perstructure, or adjusting the ornamental are ye saved through faith," was his language, " and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast *" Than this, he thought there held it to the last whole and undefiled. could not be a clearer proposition, and he

But though so strenuous an advocate for justification by faith alone, without the deeds of the law, yet there could scarce be a more practical preacher, or one who more zealously inculcated upon his people, that they should be careful to maintain good works. These things he considered good and profitable unto men, not as by any means a foundation of hope, but an evidence of faith, and of their meetness for heaven. Thus he rightly divided the word of truth, and, as a wise master builder, laid the foundation of our hope in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.-Pp. iv—vi.

nothing of systematic arrangement The editors then remark, that has been attempted in the following work; and, after briefly stating the subjects which are treated in these discourses, add,

Such as they are, either in order, matter, or manner, they are now given to partial friends, and a candid public, in that plain, unadorned dress which characterized the author, both as a man and a Christian minister; and in conformity to the wish of many, that he might appear as himself, and as they had been accustomed to hear him, not only in sentiment but in diction, as little alteration has taken place, either by addition or diminution, as could consistently be avoided.-Pp. vii, viii.