your lives.

You then immediately proceed to make a most humble confession of your sinfulness; you pray earnestly to God to forgive you for Christ's sake, and to enable you ever after to serve and please Him in newness of life, to the honour and glory of His holy name. Again, before communicating you express your utter unworthiness in the sight of God, and your entire dependance on his mercy-and you beseech Him. that He will grant you so to eat the flesh of His dear Son, Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that your sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and your souls washed through his most precious blood, and that you may evermore dwell in him, and he in you. And after you have partaken of the bread and wine, you, in the following words, dedicate yourselves to the service of God. "Here we offer and present unto Thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls, and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice unto Thee."

Now it is shocking to think of all this being with any person, only so much solemn mockery of God and religion. What! will any man use these very serious and significant words, without any corresponding feeling or emotion whatever? Will any man make these most humble confessions of sinfulness before God, who trusts in

himself that he is righteous? Will any man in such earnest expressions implore forgiveness, who is yet living in wilful sin? Will any man so solemnly declare himself to be in perfect charity with all men, whose heart is full of malice, pride, and envy ? Will any man thus publicly profess his faith in Christ, and his thankfulness for the redemption purchased with his blood, who lives like an unbeliever? Will any man at the very table of the Lord, proclaim his hearty repentance, and his stedfast resolution to lead a new life, who, in reality, has never seriously resolved on amending his ways? Can it possibly be so, my brethren, that any man receives the holy sacrament one day, and the very next, perhaps, runs wilfully and deliberately into sin? Can it be So, that any of you will be seen at the Lord's table one day, and the next be seen drunk, or be heard to swear, or to talk profanely, or obscenely, or to do any thing that you know to be forbidden by the laws of God? Will you immediately after, injure or defraud your neighbour, or give yourselves up carelessly and indifferently to be led astray by every temptation that may assail you? God forbid ! may the divine grace keep us all from such fearful sin! That, through the infirmity of our nature, we shall frequently offend both in thought, word, and deed, even after par

taking of the Lord's Supper, we cannot but fear; but I hope we shall not deliberately rebel against God, after devoting ourselves, with so much solemnity, to his service. Oh let us pray earnestly against so great and dangerous a fall! Let us heartily beseech of God that he will grant us the continual help of His Holy Spirit, to purify our hearts, and to sanctify our conduct; that so we may be enabled to commemorate the death of Christ, in his holy ordinance, “to our great and endless comfort;" and that our souls may be strengthened and refreshed with such heavenly vigour, that we may go forth into the world securely armed against all temptations, and that we may evermore bestow our hearts and affections upon that Saviour, who gave his body to be broken, and his blood to be shed, for us miserable and unworthy sinners; upon that Saviour, who alone, with the Father, and the Holy Ghost, is worthy of all praise, and worship, honour and adoration, for ever and ever. Amen.

SERMON XXV.

THE LAST JUDGMENT.

ROMANS xiv. 10.

We shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

THE season on which we have this day entered, is called in the language of our church "Advent," which simply means "the coming;" and it is so named, because we are about shortly to commemorate the arrival of our blessed Saviour upon earth. But to prepare for that commemoration is but a small thing, unless we are also prepared for a much more important season, the day when our Lord shall come again, not in humility and abasement, as on his first descent to these lower regions, to suffer and to die, but in his glorious majesty, to sit in judgment on the assembled world. Our best