dence, and comfort, and security of fortune and affluence, aiming all the time to make you forget or neglect the coming eternity. But, oh fools that we are, and slow of heart to believe the truth. We are but sojourners here, and have no right to stay, no real property in the goods we accumulate; we build houses for others to inhabit, we hoard riches for others to squander, we enlarge our barns and stock them with supplies for many years, (every one to the extent that he can,) and after wearisome days and nights of misplaced toil, ere we have sat down to enjoy, the rightful owner, having warned and exercised long patience with us, bids us at once remove. Preparation for eternity was, at the commencement of our course, enjoined upon us; we despised the commandment, and neglected the admonition, and now further respite is impossible. Thus are the men of ambition, of sensuality, and of avarice, driven away in their wickedness. Oh that every individual who now hears me, of every age and of every condition, children and servants, and young and aged, and poor and rich, would, as in the sight of God, look solemnly and distinctly at a coming eternity, so as to retain throughout this year, and the rest of life, vivid and uniformly abiding impressions of its infinitely important concernments;-then should we see a rational and devout preparation for it. I alarm you not with declamation about sudden and unexpected death, events, however, very common; but I would fix your attention on its shadow-like, slow and noiseless, and certain and inevitable approach.

"Every beating pulse you tell

Leaves but the number less."

What earthly power can arrest the sun in his course, or stay the dial gnomon's shadow, as it silently and impercetibly moves? None! and equally powerless are all human efforts to protract man's sojourn on earth, beyond the period of God's good pleasure.

Prepare then, oh sojourner! to quit at thy Lord's bidding! Prepare then, oh thou moral criminal, to meet thy Judge! Prepare, oh Christian, to meet thy Saviour!

Under these various circumstances ye know what preparation is requisite. It is not so necessary on this occasion, I imagine, to teach you what is right, as to stir you up to do it. Hast thou heretofore forgotten God, and lived without Christ? Repent and be converted. Didst thou once ascend the mount of faith and hope, and hast now slidden back to a lower state of heavenly aspiration? to thee also would I say, Repent, and do thy first works.

When we look within our own breasts, and around us in the world, how lamentably prevalent is a worldly spirit! One periodical religious pamphlet of the high church (Christian Remembrancer) for the last month, has indeed complained that "a religious ferment" is rather too much gone forth among the people; but, alas, how still is this fermentation, compared with the fermentation of worldly aggrandizement! I push not the doctrine of our text to any extravagant and impracticable degree, but only ask, for such a course of acting and thinking, as common sense requires, from the facts laid down and proved every day, by ocular demonstration, viz. that here on earth there is none abiding; and added to that, an eternal existence, a heaven of happiness, or a hell of misery, lie before us. We must come to an honest application of our Christian principles, if we would live as it becomes the Gospel.*

* Oh what lamentable ignorance, misbelief, forgetfulness of God, and fear of man, must exist in the many unhappy cases of suicide that take place, in every part of the world, and not least in this highly enlightened country. Shame, and revenge, and peevish discontent, have more influence than the natural fear of death, and than the fear of God, with persons of all ranks, of either sex, and of all ages. Some at the outset of their sojourn, and others when it must be near its close, impiously and presumptuously hurry themselves into eternity, instead of waiting the dismissal of their rightful Sovereign. God grant that a better understanding of man's condition and duty, may every day increase, and so prevent such melancholy occurrences. And would to God that human governments would cease to be so lavish of men's lives for crimes which concern only property. Ah, how seemingly hypocritical, for our legislators to pray God to have mercy on those to whom their laws, in pecuniary matters, will shew no mercy. What a contradiction between such doings and the Lord's prayer, "Forgive us, as we forgive." Holy Scripture, indeed, commands that "He who sheddeth man's blood, by

Finally, ye who have believed in Jesus, remember that he has gone to prepare mansions for you in his Father's house. Oh repine not at the afflictions which ye may be called to endure in this land, wherein ye are strangers and pilgrims. Be not impatient; be not like the Budhist of China, and the pleasure-sated, wearied, profligate of Europe, to call your existence a curse. Rather up and be active to do all the good possible here. Opportunities to do and to suffer for Jesus, will soon be over. Work therefore while it is day, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God, when ye shall attain to your eternal abode in heaven.

"O God of Bethel! by whose hand

Thy people still are fed;

Who through this weary pilgrimage

Hast all our fathers fed;

Our vows, our pray'rs we now present
Before thy throne of grace:
God of our fathers! be the God
Of their succeeding race.

Thro' each perplexing path of life
Our wand'ring footsteps guide;
Give us each day our daily bread,
And raiment fit provide.

O spread thy cov'ring wings around,
Till all our wand'rings cease,
And at our Father's lov'd abode

Our souls arrive in peace.

Such blessings from thy gracious hand

Our humble pray'rs implore;
And thou shalt be our chosen God,
And portion evermore."

man shall his blood be shed." But beyond this we doubt the right of any earthly power to shorten man's sojourn on earth, or to remove a fellow creature into eternity before the Sovereign Lord himself shall be pleased to do it.

DISCOURSE XXV.

DELIVERED IN 1806, BEFORE GOING TO CHINA.

The Manuscript was preserved by an Old Friend.—The place where this Discourse was preached, like many other occurrences of that period, has totally escaped from the memory of the writer.

SOURCES OF CONSOLATION TO THE
BELIEVER.

JOHN XIV. 1—3.

"Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be

also."

Ir is my desire this day, my brethren, to bring to your recollection some of the consolations of the Gospel. I have chosen, as the foundation of my discourse, a portion of our Lord's consolatory address to his disciples, ere he left the world and went to the Father.

We are all by nature children of wrath, and we do well to recollect it-the depraved children of our apostate first parents, and as such, exposed to the deserved punishment of the Great and Righteous Supreme.

Such being our condition, it is a great mercy that the vials of wrath are not, ere now, poured out upon us. Thanks be to God for our respite from punishment! But, Christians, our state is not merely a state of respite from punishment. No: through Jesus Christ our Lord, we have received the

atonement-have passed from death to life. But yet we are not delivered from temporal evils. Our God has wisely and graciously appointed to every one his period of residence in this state of trial. Ye are exposed to outward afflictions and various troubles, in common with other men; but, in the midst of these, we can address to you, what we cannot address to them-in the words of our Lord Jesus, we say, "Let not your heart be troubled ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions : if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you; and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to myself; that where I am, there ye may be also."

You are familiar with the occasion on which these words were spoken; and we shall not occupy your time in going over it, but shall, with humility, examine for your comfort the sources of consolation which our Lord here suggests to his disconsolate disciples, and which are calculated to bear up your minds under any trial, and make you, through the whole of life, happy Christians.

The sources of consolation which our Lord suggests, are these five. Confidence in himself-Mansions in his Father's house-His presence there now-His second coming-and, our everlasting abode with him.

The Lord grant that your souls may be edified and comforted, whilst I speak, and you muse, on our dear Redeemer's words.

First, then, have confidence in Christ Jesus. "Let not your heart be troubled," said he, "ye believe in God, believe also in me." You believe in God who laid the foundation of the earth, who stretched abroad the heavens, who holdeth the sea in the hollow of his hand, and who taketh up the isles as a very little thing; whose arm is omnipotent, whose understanding is infinite, who is the governor among the nations ;-believe also in me. Believe what I have said concerning myself, what the Father has testified concerning me, and what the works that I do bear witness of. I told you that I came forth from God. The Father testified, saying, "This is my beloved Son, in whom