result from Christian principle and be quickened by Christian hope, and that you may feel what the Psalmist felt, when you say what he said, "I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it."

Let me now address myself more particularly to the younger part of my audience. You have not yet, perhaps, had many trials to distress you; but the Bible tells you, that "man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward:" and though every thing wear a gay and smiling aspect around you, you know not how soon the gloom of sorrow may overcast all your prospects. "Remember, then, your Creator in the days of your youth, before the years draw nigh in which you shall say that you have no pleasure in them." Prepare, even now, for the difficulties, and misfortunes, and evils of advancing life. And recollect, that your best and only preparation consists in your being at peace with God-in acquainting yourselves with him-in having a deep-seated faith in all the truths and promises of his word-in cultivating an experimental recognition of the perfect excellence of every part of his character and his administration-and in holding habitual communion with him both as the Hearer of prayer, and as the God of comfort. If you thus live by faith in God and in Christ, you are ready for whatever trials and tribulations await you. And being "reconciled to God by the death of his Son," and confiding in his paternal management of all that concerns you, and tracing every event that befals you to his will and to his doing, and satisfied that he orders all things wisely and well, and will make them work together for your present and your eternal good, resignation will become the prevailing temper of your souls. You will not only be patient when adversity comes, but you will be enabled to rejoice in it. And thus, while it will secure your peace amidst the most formidable ills of life, it will fit you for encountering the agonies and the terrors of death, and be instrumental in preparing you for entering that happy

world where those dwell who have "come through much tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."

And as it is the gospel which not only inculcates this grace, but holds out the comforts and the views by which it is formed and cherished, let the gospel be precious in our regard. Let us cling to it in every dark and distressful hour, for our own support. And let us be anxious that it may go forth, in all its blessings, and in all its power, among the sinful and sorrowing children of mortality.

SERMON XIX.

THE ACCEPTED TIME.

2 CORINTHIANS vi. 2.

"Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation."

In the context, the apostle represents himself, and his fellow-laborers in the ministry, as working together for promoting and accomplishing the salvation of sinners. He entreats those to whom they address themselves not to frustrate their object-not to reject the message of reconciliation which they were commissioned to publish and to urge-not to despise or to refuse that which is the appointed provision of divine mercy for redeeming guilty souls from misery and ruin. To enforce this exhortation, the apostle refers to a passage in Isaiah, in which God promises to give the Gentiles to the Messiah, as a reward of his mediatorial undertaking. "I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succored thee." And, as this promise is made to Christ, the apostle extends its application to all who live under the gospel dispensation, reminding them, that, even under that dispensation of grace and

mercy, a limited period is fixed for the return of sinners unto God, and that there is danger in delaying, for the shortest time, to yield to that beseeching voice which calls on sinners to be reconciled and to live. It is in this point of view that we are now to consider the language of the text,-"Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation."

It is the wish of most men to obtain salvation; and therefore, it is their resolution that, at some time or other, they will repent. They have not yet forsaken their sins; they have not yet embraced the Saviour whom God has sent ; nor is it just at this instant that the work is to be undertaken. They are engaged in some important business which requires all their attention. They have met with some worldly disaster which has disturbed their thoughts. They are in pursuit of some pleasure which is not very consistent with a change to the better. They feel an indolence of temper which indisposes them for mental exertion. Or they cannot spare as much time from their ordinary avocations as will be sufficient for the purpose. Some object or another engages them at present, and furnishes them with a pretext for delay.

But they are still determined not to let life pass away without doing what they are sensible must be done if they would be saved. They will not always be so much employed with other things as to prevent them from attending to the one thing needful. Some favorable opportunity will occur, of which they will not fail to take immediate advantage. If none should occur of itself, they will create one, and force a few passing hours into their service. No difficulty, no opposition, no temptation, shall then frustrate their design. And if, contrary to their expectation, any thing of this kind should take place, one alternative still remains, which they will most unquestionably adopt. Nothing shall hinder them from making their peace with God when they are going to die. Die they must; and at that interesting period, the best fitted, as they imagine,

for religious exercises and moral reformation, no circumstance surely can intervene to prevent them from accomplishing that which they had always wished, and always intended to accomplish. Whatever they have been in times past, whatever they now are, whatever they may continue to be, they will at least leave the world in a state of due preparation for another and a better.

Thus lulled into security by their resolutions of future amendment, thus perfectly satisfied that they have nothing to fear, because they are determined to repent, they go on to indulge themselves in all the desires of a corrupted heart, and in all the practices of an evil world to disregard the secret remonstrances of conscience, to despise the warnings and invitations of the word of God, to trample on the blood of Christ, and to do despite unto the Spirit of grace. They dream not of the ten thousand circumstances which may occur to render a change of character unattainable. They reason with themselves as if repentance were the easiest thing which they can attempt, as if all its means were obedient to their control, or as if Providence were to work miracles to preserve them from the common accidents of life, and the common infirmities of nature, that their feast of criminal pleasure may suffer no interruption, and that they may be saved, though they have industriously labored to destroy their souls. Or if some thought of danger should intrude, if something should happen to excite a suspicion that their latter end may find them at once unprepared and incapable of preparing for eternity, they banish the unwelcome supposition by entering into a calculation of chances, which, as may be readily imagined, always bends to their passions, and terminates in conformity to the secret bias of their wills. They flatter themselves with the persuasion which originally deluded them, and which deludes them still, that they wish-that they not only wish but intend -that they not only intend but resolve, to amend before they go off the stage of life, let that event take