whatever degree it may exist, should not need mercy from Him who is of purer eyes than to behold evil, and who cannot look upon iniquity. You need the mercy of God to convince you that you are sinners. Not a child of Adam has ever learned this humiliating truth in the manner in which every one needs to learn it, from any other source. Every human being, when reflecting on his moral condition, says instinctively, I am rich, and increased in goods, and have need of nothing; never decerning, deluded and unfortunate creature, that he is poor, and wretched, and miserable, and blind, and naked, and in want of all things. The knowledge of our guilt is the basis on which only our reformation can be erected. He who is whole in his own belief, our Saviour has taught us, will never feel the necessity of a physician or a

cure.

From the mercy of God you must derive all your safety from temptation, all your strength to resist it, all the checks of conscience, all your restraints from sin, all your resolutions. and efforts of obedience. From the mercy of God you need the daily prolongation of your lives, and the continuance of your manifold blessings. Can any of you assign a reason, satisfactory even to himself, why he is here surrounded with comforts, and animated with hopes? Can a reason be assigned why he is not roaming for prey in an Arabian desert, or prowling for slaughter and for scalps in the western wilderness? Why, let me ask of you, are you not now begging alms at the door of pride and insolence, deprived of sight, and led by a guide from house to house, to save you from perishing with hunger and nakedness? Why are you not writhing with pain, scorched with fever, or wasting with hopeless decay? Why are you not deprived of your reason, and shut up from the society of men in a dungeon of darkness and despair? Why are you not already numbered with the dead, mouldering in the grave, and gone to your final trial? Why are you here, in the house of God, before the mercy seat, candidates for eternal life, at the foot of the cross, listening to the sound of redeeming and forgiving love, and hearing the voice, at which all heaven

trembles with rapture, "I love them that love me, and those “who seek me early shall find me ?”

To all these questions there is but one answer: "Because "it so seemed good to the mercy of God."

From the mercy of God you must derive the renovation of your souls, if they are ever renewed; and if they are not you cannot see the kingdom of God. The Spirit of truth, of whom you must be born again if you ever become the sons of God, communicates all his blessings from mercy only. Without his influence, you will neither know nor feel your guilt nor your danger, will neither renounce your sins nor be endued with that holiness without which no man can see the Lord. Should then this glorious and benevolent agent refuse to have mercy on you, what will become of you here and hereafter? You will here be given up to hardness of heart and blindness of mind; will have eyes indeed, but they will not see; ears, but they will not hear; and hearts, but they will not understand. Of course you will never be converted nor healed. The time is hastening when you will come to the bed of death. It cannot be far distant at the utmost. It may, to some of you it probably will, arrive much sooner than this peAgainst some or other of your names the melancholy asterisk may make its appearance in the next triennial catalogue. At this awful season, when your friends, your enjoyments, and even the world itself is retiring from you; when the pains of death are agonizing your hearts; while life itself is struggling in vain to keep its hold; while the soul is fluttering and trembling over its beloved tenement, and stretching its wings with terror and anguish for its final flight; where will you find consolation, peace, or hope? Your physician will have spent his last medicine upon you. Your minister, and perhaps yourselves also, will have uttered the last prayer for your recovery, and your friends wished, and wept, and supplicated for the prolongation of your life in vain. Lift now the curtain which conceals eternity from your view. Cast your eyes through the opening into that boundless vast, and tell me whether you discern, in all its regions, and among the

endless millions of its inhabitants, a friend, an acquaintance, or even a stranger, who can prolong your life in this world, or who, unpermitted of God, can make your arrival in that, safe, hopeful, peaceful, pleasant, and prosperous. Not one of them can by any means redeem his brother or give to God a ransom for him, that he should still live for ever, and not see corruption. For the redemption of the soul is precious, and it ceaseth for

ever.

When your bodies return to the dust from which they were taken, your spirits will return also to God who gave them. They will return, to render their last account. Every work will then be brought into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it has been good, or whether it has been evil. Who then will be your advocate? Who, beneath the eye of stern justice, will appear to plead your cause? Where will you find a friend, a refuge, or a hope, but in the mercy of God.

Accompany me in your thoughts one step farther. There are two states of existence beyond the grave—a state of immortal enjoyment, and a state of endless woe. To one of these you will go from the judgment. Realize, so far as you are able, the difference between these allotments. Realize the difference between spending eternity with a band of fiends, or surrounded by the church of the first born, and the innumerable company of angels; in the bliss of heaven, or the miseries of hell. Without an interest in the mercy of God, think, I beseech you think, where, how, with whom, you will pass your future being.

With all these solemn and interesting things in your view, let me recal to your minds the affecting transaction in the text. In the same situation with yourselves, with all the necessities which I have here stated to be yours, Jacob, when he began the business of life, determined, with supreme wisdom, to provide for them all. In what manner did he make this provision? He chose Jehovah as his God, and consecrated himself and his services to the pleasure and praise of his Creator.

The choice is perfect-the example is perfect. If the proof already adduced were insufficient, the most decisive evidence

is furnished in the subsequent parts of the sacred volume. The blessings innumerable and invaluable which were bestowed upon him; the protection which he received in this solitary and dangerous journey; the prosperity which attended his labours; his preservation from enemies, famine, and death; and the glorious things done for his posterity, particularly in their sanctification and salvation, and peculiarly the immensely glorious things which are promised, and which will be performed for them after their restoration in the latter days-are illustrious proofs that the benefits of these resolutions may transcend the life and interests of him by whom they are made, may flow down the streams of time to the remotest generations, and may enter with them the regions of eternity. On Jacob himself and his everlasting welfare, the efficacy of these resolutions is wonderfully exhibited in the remarkable facts that the Messiah sprang from his loins; that God was pleased to style him his servant, his chosen Israel, a prince with God, and to style himself the God of Jacob, the Mighty One of Jacob, and the Holy One of Israel; and that to sit down in the kingdom of God with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, is appropriate language, used by Christ to denote the immortal blessings of Heaven. The effects of these resolutions were, therefore, immeasurable and eternal.

Confidently follow, then, this glorious example. Open your eyes in all your wants, your weaknesses, your exposures, temptations, and sins. Feel that life and death, endless enjoyment and absolute ruin are now offered to your choice. Feel that he who was not ashamed to be called the God of Jacob will be pleased to be your God; that he loves those who love him; that those who honour him he will honour; and that those who seek him early will find him. Remember that all good is in his hands; that he is the fountain, whence every stream of enjoyment, tasted by the intelligent creation, has flowed from the beginning, and will flow for ever. Remember that he is the Sun of righteousness, which alone has illumined and quickened the moral universe throughout all its immeasurable regions-that in his light you will see light, and peace, and joy-and that, when he shines not, all is darkness and solitude, misery and despair.

SERMON XXVI.

THE APOSTLES OF CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE.

To the Candidates for the Baccalaureate in 1811.

MATTHEW X. 5.

"These twelve Jesus sent forth.”

THE twelve here spoken of, were the twelve Apostles of Christ, who were now sent out by their Master upon an extraordinary mission.

This mission was obviously the commencement of their ministry. It was an extraordinary commencement of an extraordinary business; a business in many respects singular, in all wonderful, and demanding from mankind the strongest approbation and the most intense gratitude. Such a subject cannot fail to claim the attention of every man who feels an interest in Christianity, nor of being a profitable theme of our present meditation. In examining it I shall consider briefly the person by whom, and the errand on which, the Apostles were sent ; their circumstances, their character, and the issue of their agency, as it respected both themselves and their fellow-men.

They were sent on this mission by the Saviour of mankind. This glorious person, whose name, with singular propriety and emphasis, is called Wonderful, appeared in this world in the humble character of a Jewish peasant. Yet in this character he uttered, from the stores of his own mind, wisdom which no