I next address myself to those of you, my brethren, who make frequent and successful applications to your conscience. And what is its testimony in your behalf? is it favourable or unfavourable? If your conscience, on a careful scrutiny of your conduct, condemn you not, happy are you; long may you enjoy the fruits of its approbation, and may the Lord increase them an hundred fold: only let me charge you to beware that you do not mistake a lifeless answer for an answer of peace. Be not deceivers of your ownselves; if you have never experienced any thing like a feeling of compunction for the sins you have committed, in common with all the sons and daughters of Adam, I fear it is a proof, not so much of righteousness as of callousness; but if, with a sense of your imperfections, and frailties, and unworthiness, your conscience also bears witness that you are labouring to overcome them, and the tenor of your lives confirms the truth of that testimony, you are genuine disciples of the Lord Jesus and your inward satisfaction is as real as it is delightful.

Lastly; are there any of you, my brethren, whose conscience, so far from being silent and dormant, resteth not, neither night nor day, from tormenting you,-pouring into your ears a loud and frightful sound, like the overwhelming noise of many waters, conjuring up your sins from the dark abyss of time, and placing them in your way

at every step, and telling you, incessantly, that there is a righteous God in heaven, and a hell prepared for the devil and his angels? I need not inform you that you are not happy now, but I can inform you that you may yet become so. There is a way in which even you may find rest to your souls, goaded and distracted as they are at present; but it is not by endeavouring to escape from, or drown the terrors of conscience: let it cry aloud and spare not till it has set your transgressions fully before your face, and your secret sins in the light of your countenance. And in the mean while accept not, for your life, any of the empirical remedies for your disease which the world and the flesh can offer you; they neither understand your case, nor could relieve you if they did. You must betake yourselves to the great Physician; you must weep, and lament, and mourn for your sins; you must resolve to crucify them, as they have crucified you; and, placing all your hope in the unmerited compassion of the Almighty, and the merits of His Son, return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon you, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.

SERMON XVI.

INSTABILITY IN RELIGION.

Hos. vi. 4.

O Ephraim what shall I do unto thee? O Judah what shall I do unto thee? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away.

THE history of the people whom God selected as the peculiar instruments of His providence, for preserving in the world the knowledge of true religion, and for transmitting it down from one generation to another, is altogether a narrative of very astonishing events; but none of those events appear more extraordinary, than do the perverseness, the hard-heartedness, and ingratitude of those people themselves. In the accounts of them written by Moses and his inspired successors, whether judges, princes, or prophets, we perceive a perpetual struggle between the mercy

of God on the one side, and the obstinacy and iniquity of the Jews on the other; we see their heavenly Sovereign using all possible means of keeping them steadfast in their religious faith and obedience, sometimes by the unbounded display of His goodness,-sometimes by awful manifestations of His power; we see Him baring His omnipotent arm in their defence, overthrowing their enemies by signs and wonders, which made the earth to quake, and the inhabitants thereof to tremble,-leading His own people, like sheep, from nation to nation, and suffering no one to do them violence,-supplying their wants by miraculous interpositions,-settling them in a land flowing with milk and honey,-raising up for them mighty deliverers, and able counsellors to secure their national independence,-furnishing them with ample instruction in His statutes, ordinances, and commandments, by the institution of a standing priesthood, and the occasional mission of prophets-lastly, with a view of encouraging the Israelites to piety, and deterring them from wickedness, we behold the Almighty signally and visibly rewarding those, who had been eminent examples of the former, and punishing some, who were the most worthy objects of His vengeance, in order to reclaim the rest of their guilty brethren. Is it inquired now, what was

the general effect on the Israelites themselves, of these multiplied instances of Divine goodness and mercy?—“ for all this they sinned yet more;” their occasional fits of obedience and piety, were commonly succeeded and terminated by acts of irreligion and profligacy, such as murmurs against God's providence, defection from His worship, and rebellion against His ministers. It is true, indeed, that, as the Psalmist has told us, "when He slew them, then they sought Him, and they returned and inquired early after God"-when they saw the sword of the wrath of the Almighty slaying their fellows, the devouring pestilence walking in darkness amidst the tents of the congregation, or the earth opening its mouth and swallowing up their sinful companions, the alarm excited by such dreadful spectacles compelled them to consider what they must do to be saved, and obliged them to adopt the only possible expedient for the purpose,-that of amending their ways and their doings. But when these tremendous visitations were withdrawn, and things returned to their usual course, they too returned to theirs, almost as usually, and almost as soon,for their heart was not right with God; so much reason, then, was there for that affectionate expostulation which He has put into the mouth of His prophet in the text, "O Ephraim what shall