times lull conscience into a deep sleep; but it is very difficult to keep it from starting and waking. Wo be to them who throw it into a dead sleep to wake no more! But how dreadful, when it awakes, does it arise from its sleep! What blows does it strike! What wounds does it make! What pains and horrors does it excite, when it says to a sinner, Miserable wretch! what hast thou done? from what dignity art thou fallen! into what deep disgrace and distress art thou plunged! My punishment is greater than I can bear! Mountains! cover me: Hills! fall upon me, Gen. iv. 13. Hos. x. 8. Ah! ye empty sounds of worldly pleasure! ye tumultuous assemblies! ye festal and amusive scenes! how feeble are ye against an enemy so formidable! It is repentance only, it is only godly sorrow that can disarm conscience. A soul reconciled to God, a soul made to hear this comfortable language, thy sins be forgiven thee, Mat. ix. 2. passeth, so to speak, all on a sudden from a kind of hell to a sort of heaven; it feels that peace of God which passeth all understanding, Phil. iv. 7. it enters into that joy unspeakable and full of glory, 1 Pet. i. 8. which hath supported the greatest saints under the most infamous calumnies that ever were invented to blacken them, and the sharpest punishments that ever were devised to torment them.

3. In fine, godly sorrow reconciles us to death, While we live without repentance, yea, while there remains any doubt of the sincerity or truth of our repentance, how can we sustain the thoughts of a just tribunal, an exact register, an impartial sentence, all ready to unfold and decree our future fate? How

can we hear this summons, Give an account of thy stewardship? Luke xvi. 2. Godly sorrow, reconciles us to this enemy, the sting of death is sin, 1 Cor. xv. 56. and sin has no sting for a penitent. Death appears to the repenting sinner as a messenger of grace, sent to conduct him to a merciful God, and to open to him ineffable felicity flowing from boundless mercy.

Ah! my brethren, would to God it were as easy to prove that you bear the marks of true repentance, as it is to display its prerogatives! But alas!... I dare not even move this question....And yet what wait you around the pulpit for? Why came you to hear this sermon? Would you have me to close the solemnity as usual by supposing that you have understood all, and referred all to the true design: that last week you all very seriously examined your own hearts; that you all prepared yourselves for the table of the Lord by adopting such dispositions as this holy ceremony requires of you; that this morning you all received the communion with such zeal, fervour, and love, as characterize worthy communicants; that in the preceding exercise you all poured out your hearts before God in gratitude and praise ; and that nothing remains now but to congratulate you on the holiness and happiness of your state?

But tell me in what period of your lives, (I speak not of you all, for thanks be to God, I see many true penitents in this assembly; men, who "shine as lights in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation," Phil. ii. 15. and who may perhaps have obtained to-day by the fervour of their zeal forbearance

for all the rest. But I speak of a great number, and of them I ask,) In what period of your lives were you in possession of all those characters of godly sorrow, of which we have been speaking?

Was it in your closet? What! that trifling examination, that rapid reading, those superficial regrets, those hasty resolutions, was this your course of repentance?

Was it in company? But what! that commerce with the world, in which you were not distinguished from other worldlings, and where after the example of your company you put on their livery, and pursued their pleasures, was this your course of repentance?

Was it at the table of Jesus Christ? But what! those communions, to which you came rather to acquire by some slight exercises of devotion a right to commit more sin, than to lament what you had committed; those communions which you concluded as indevoutly as you began; those communions that produced no reformation in you as men of the world, members of the church, or of private families: those communions, after which you were as proud, as implacable, as sordid, as voluptuous, as envious, as before; do these communions constitute the course of your repentance?

Perhaps, we may repent, when we are dying! What! a forced submission; an attention extorted in spite of ourselves by the prayers and exhortations of a zealous minister; resolutions inspired by fear; can this be a safe course of repentance?

Ah! my brethren, it would be better to turn our hopes from the past; for past times offer only melancholy objects to most of us, and to confine our attention to future, or rather to the present moments, which afford us more agreeable objects of contemplation. O may the present proofs, the glorious proofs, which God gives us to-day of his love, make everlasting impressions upon our hearts and minds! May the sacred table, of which we have this morning participated, be forever before our eyes! May this object every where follow us, and may it every where protect us from all those temptations to which a future conversation with the world may expose us! May our prayers, our resolutions, our oaths, never be effaced from our memories! May we renew our prayers, resolutions, vows and oaths this moment with all our hearts! Let each of us close this solemnity by saying, "Thou art my portion, O Lord! I have said, that I would keep thy words! I have sworn, and I will perform it, that I will keep thy righteous judgments," Ps. cxix. 57, 106. I have sworn to be more exact in all thy service, more attentive to thy voice, more sensible to thine exhortations. And to unite all my wishes in one, may that sincerity, and integrity, with which we take this oath, be accompanied with all the divine assistance, which is necessary to enable us never, never to violate it. Amen and Amen!

SERMON X.

Assurance.

ROMANS Viii. 38, 39.

I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor an gels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

It is a circumstance of sacred history well worthy of our reflections, my brethren, that Moses and Joshua, being yet, the one beyond Jordan, the other hardly on the frontiers of Palestine, disposed of that country as if they had already subdued it. They made laws concerning kings, subjects, priests and levites; they distributed towns and provinces; and they described the boundaries of every tribe. It should seem their battles had been all fought, and they had nothing remaining now but the pleasure of enjoying the fruit of their victories. Yet war is uncertain, and the success of one day does not always ensure the success of the next. Hence the ancient proverb, Let not him that girdeth on his harness, boast himself as he that putleth it off, 1 Kings