now a duty; it is a talent to be cultivated and improved, a blessing to be accounted for; there is no 66 escape "if they wilfully or carelessly

"neglect so great salvation," now that the way to attain it has been made known to them. For there is but one cause of ignorance, and our blessed Saviour truly explains what that is, when he states the reason why "he that believeth not is condemned already." "This (he says) is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil; for every one who doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved." And St. Paul says to the same effect, "awake to righteousness and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God; I speak this to your shame:" thereby meaning that sin was owing to the want of the knowledge of God, and that that ignorance was a shame and reproach to those who were guilty of it, after the gospel had been revealed to them.

My brethren, I heartily pray God to convince you of this, that you cannot now be ignorant of him (we shall see by and by what the knowledge of God signifies) without sin, nor continue in that ignorance without certain ruin. It might have been expected indeed, did we not too well know what human nature is, how men

of those, who in name acknowledge a God, but in fact deny him. He who pictures to himself a Deity only malevolent, cruel and oppressive, will ever tremble under an abject apprehension of his wrath, and will endeavour to appease him by bloody rites, and self-inflicted torments, and all the terrors of a gloomy superstition, as if nothing but pain and misery could give him pleasure, or procure his approbation. This is a description of the religion of a great portion both of the ancient and modern heathen world. He who has no higher notions of the Deity, than that he is of like passions with sinful man, will expect to gratify him by his very crimes and vices, and by an unchecked indulgence in all the abominable corruptions of human nature. Almost the whole civilised world was formerly polluted by such a base religion as this; every iniquity that could be named, having its supposed patron in heaven. He who imagines his god to be of material subsource and form, will make idols to represent Jim, and bestow his ignorant adoration upon a suci * 4 store, which his own hands have faShemei. I need not remind you any further of te varuus jagu superstitions, to convince you Musequences that most result from man's En duse conceptions concerning the Arme maure I will rather bring the mater

nearer home, by mentioning one instance of an almost equally gross, certainly no less fatal, error, that too much prevails even in the Christian world, and which renders the religion (I should have said the irreligion,) of many, worthy of comparison with the worst that has ever been exhibited in the most unenlightened ages and nations. He, who regards God only as a compassionate, forgiving being, not really requiring strict obedience to his holy laws, nor prepared to execute punishment on those who continue in their natural unconverted state, will never repent of and forsake his sins, but will indulge in all the vices to which he is inclined, with carelessness and security, encouraging himself with the vain. hope that his infirmities (as he calls them,) will be overlooked, and that mercy will blot out all the account that may be against him in the records of justice. This man will live and die in presumptuous, unrepented sin, and find too late that his erroneous opinion of God's character, has involved him in everlasting, irremediable ruin. So fatally do multitudes of nominal Christians deceive themselves by representing God according to their own imaginations, or rather according to their own wishes, instead of implicitly receiving the account of his nature and dealings, which it has pleased him to reveal in

passionate Father, who "willeth not that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance!" By him may we come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may find mercy and grace to help us in the time of need!" May the Holy Spirit "give us that due sense of all God's mercies, that we may shew forth his praise not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up ourselves to his service, and by walking before him in holiness and righteousness all our days, through Jesus Christ our Lord;" remembering always, that "the grace of God, which bringeth salvation, and hath appeared unto all men (when correctly received and heartily embraced) teaches us that denying all ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works."

May he therefore be our wisdom, our righteousness, and our sanctification in this world; may he also be our redemption, our life, our glory in his Father's kingdom in Heaven hereafter. Amen.

SERMON IV.

THE TRUE GOD AND ETERNAL LIFE.

JOHN xvii. 3.

And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast

sent.

THE religion of every man, who is serious and sincere in what he professes, must depend entirely upon what he believes to be the nature and character of the Being whom he worships and serves as God. He who thinks that God exercises no providence over his creation, and is indifferent to the actions of men, will of course live as" without God in the world," will have no regard to him in any thing, will do nothing as a religious duty, will entertain no religious feeling or sentiment towards him of reverence, love, fear, hope, or submission. This is the atheistical life