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loves, and whom you should love in Christ.

You have all the adorable attributes and perfections of the blessed God; all the glorious and gracious offices and operations of the Divine Redeemer and the Holy Spirit; all the precious promises and provisions of the well-ordered, everlasting covenant; all the inexhaustible treasures of the divine volume; its stores of sacred poetry and prophecy, history and biography; and preeminently all that is there recorded of Him, who though from eternity in the form of God, for your sake took on Him the form of a man, even a man of sorrows; all the beauties of His character, all the manifestations of His love, all the wonders of His history, and all the glories of His reign. You have besides, all the warnings and exhortations, all the precepts and promises, given for the guidance, support, and consolation of the saints on earth; and all the prospects of blessedness, the exceeding riches of the glory of the inheritance of the saints in light, reserved for them in heaven; and is not this a field ample enough for you to range in? This-why, it is a field extensive enough for angels to expatiate in, through eternity. Why, then, oh! why will you ever leave this field, which the Lord hath blessed, which is all sparkling with the sunshine of His smile, freshened with the dews of His grace, and gladdened by the voice of His spirit, to wander through bleak and barren wastes, on which no dew from heaven ever de

scends, no smile of a Saviour's countenance ever shines, no whisper of the Spirit's voice is ever heard? Expatiate, I conjure you, with a glad and grateful heart, through the length and breadth of this magnificent field, on which the Lord hath promised His blessing. Its beauty and fragrance will indeed gladden and refresh you and your fellow-travellers, on your way to Sion, and cheer you along your pilgrimage with many a joyful song; and often, while there speaking one to another, will He, of whom you speak, "join you by the way, and open to you the scriptures concerning Himself," till you will feel "your hearts burn within you" with such holy love, and holy joy, as can only be surpassed when 'you shall see Him, as He is-speak with Him face to face-hear His own voice breathing heaven around you; and enjoy uninterrupted communion with Himself throughout eternity. What the full blessedness of that communion will be, we must wait till the actual enjoyment of it enable us to comprehend; Oh! may we all thus comprehend it, even for ever and ever!

SERMON XII.

THE GUILT OF BROKEN VOWS.

ECCLESIASTES, v. 4, 5.

"When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for He hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed. Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow, and not pay."

THE man who vows a vow unto his fellow-man, who pledges his solemn promise to the fulfilment of an engagement, and afterwards deliberately breaks that promise, and perfidiously refuses to fulfil that engagement, is branded with reprobation, by the almost unanimous voice of society-is deemed unworthy of the confidence and companionship of every upright and honorable mind—and unless his own conscience be entirely callous, must feel within him, however he may conceal them from the world, the stings and reproaches of a selfcondemning conscience. The man, who vows a vow unto God, who pledges his solemn promise to the

Almighty for the fulfilment of an engagement, and afterwards carelessly forgets, or perfidiously breaks that promise, and refuses to fulfil that engagement, is not branded with any peculiar reprobation by the voice of society-is not deemed unworthy of the confidence and companionship of the upright and honorable men of the world; and feels few, if any, compunctious visitings of remorse, for the guilt of broken vows towards God which lies upon his soul, and the insult which every moment he breathes he is offering to the Almighty. Now I would propose for your most serious consideration, this simple question: Is there such a difference in those two cases as to justify the different judgment passed on them by the verdict of society, and the voice of conscience? Is vowing vows unto man, and breaking them, a great sin; but vowing vows unto God, and breaking them, a slight offence? Does the mere fact that it is the great, glorious, ever-blessed God, and not a weak, vile, miserable worm, like ourselves, who is thus insulted, strip perjured perfidy so entirely of its turpitude, that pledging a solemn promise to a fellow-worm, and perfidiously breaking it, does indeed deserve the deepest reprobation from others, and self-reproach from ourselves; but pledging a solemn promise to the Almighty, and perfidiously breaking it, does not deserve any such peculiar reprobation, or selfreproach? This is the question I propose this,

and is this a question to be seriously canvassed? Am I to set about seriously to prove, that there is nothing, either in the character or claims of God, which constitutes a sufficient reason, why He should be thus singled out for peculiar contempt, and treated with peculiar insult ?-no sufficient reason why, in our estimation, the Almighty should be degraded so far below the level of our fellowworms? Am I to prove this? I dare not insult His majesty-I will not insult your understandings, by engaging in such a task. No; I feel convinced, there is not here a sinner so hardened in impiety, so worse than brutified by sin, as deliberately to declare with his lips, (whatever he may practically prove by his life,) that he thinks the Almighty, the Sovereign Majesty of the universe, the Author and Giver of our life, and all our blessings, deserves to be thus estimated, and thus treated, by the creatures who breathe merely by His mercy-are preserved incessantly by His providence, and supported entirely by His bounty. Yea, further, I I feel convinced, that when thus led to reflect on the subject, there is not one of you that will not, speculatively at least, admit, without hesitation, that the guilt of perfidiously breaking vows made to God, rises above the guilt of thus breaking vows made to a fellow-worm, just in proportion as God rises above that worm, in the dignity of His character, and the extent of His claims-that is,

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