resolutions of obedience, this devotion of yourselves to the service of your God. This solemn renewal of your baptismal covenant will be accompanied, in this holy ordinance, with the solemn conveyance to you, on the part of God, by the instrumentality of his authorized minister, of all your baptismal privileges-of his mercy, that will blot out your transgressions-of his Holy Spirit, that will sanctify your corrupt natures, aid you in the discharge of duty, and support you in all your trials -of his almighty power, by which you shall overcome your last and terrible enemy, even death, and by which, shaking off the bands of corruption, and rising from the darkness of the tomb, you shall enter on immortal life and glory.

These blessings, exalted as they are, and unworthy as we are of enjoying them, may be attained by you; your heavenly Father, in condescension to the weakness of your nature, assures them to you by an ordinance of his own appointment, by the instrumentality of those whom he hath commissioned to be ministers to you of the blessings of this great salvation. Is it possible, then, that you can hesitate as to receiving the ordinance which assures to you these exalted privileges!

Baptized Christians, of whatever age, but especially the young, who have not thus renewed your baptismal consecration to God, I beseech you to consider that the vows of God are upon you. By the law of your nature, you are bound to serve the God who made you; by your condition as creatures, you are in the hands of him who is able to save and to destroy. The obligations to which nature thus binds you to the service of the God VOL. II.

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who made, and preserves, and is to guide you, were imposed anew in the sacrament of baptism. These vows, reasonable and necessary to your perfection and happiness, you are now called on to ratify and confirm; you are solemnly called to do so, by God and by his church. Your heavenly Father offers to you his mercy, his favour, his grace. If you should reject these blessings, your life, disgraced and degraded by error, by sensuality, by sin, will produce only shame and remorse, until it terminate (such is the righteous decrce of the Sovereign of the universe) in the worm that never dies, in the fire that never will be quenched.

But now your heavenly Father allures you to his service by the prospect of that glory laid up for you in heaven, which, when this world and all its joys have faded away, will increase in lustre and enjoyment through everlasting ages. If you disregard these powerful motives, by what considerations shall I urge you? Remember, a day will come, when, for every privilege which you have neglected, for every offer of mercy which you have contemned, for every mean of grace which you have failed to improve-yes, for the present offer of grace and mercy, if you refuse it-God will bring you into judgment. And surely it will be a fearful thing thus to fall into the hands of the living God.

Oh, then, resolve to live in the service and to the glory of God; go from this sacred temple resolved to devote yourselves to that God and Saviour who will be your guide even unto death, and your portion for ever and ever.

Fathers, mothers, all who have influence over

others, endeavour to excite and to cherish this pious resolve in those who are the objects of your solicitude and care; for remember, for them also you must render an account. Aid them and us, O merciful Father, by that Spirit which quickens unto life; and bring them and us from the ordinances and services of this earthly temple, to the vision and enjoyment of thy perfections and thy everlasting glory in thy temple above.

SERMON VIII.

FOR CONFIRMATION.

ROMANS XIV. 8.

Whether we live or die, we are the Lord's.

THIS passage most forcibly represents the interesting relation of the Christian to his God and Saviour.. He is the property of that Lord by whom he was created and redeemed; to this Lord his life is devoted in the faithful discharge of the duties of his Christian calling; and then dying, he is the Lord's; that Lord to whom he is devoted, will be in this conflict the support of his soul, and its portion through eternal ages.

In reference to the ordinance of confirmation which is this day to be administered, it was my object to exhibit, in some of the preparatory lectures delivered during the preceding week, that Christian life which baptism denotes, and to which confirmation renewedly pledges us. The view proposed of the Christian life, was in its commencement, its progress, and its termination.

The Christian life commences in baptism, when its obligations were imposed and its privileges conferred; and it renewedly commences in confirmation, when its engagements are publicly assumed by those who were baptized in infancy, when they come to the years of discretion. And at this commencement of the Christian life, the exercises

proper for those who publicly devote themselves to God, in the laying on of hands, are, an humble acknowledgment and confession of the weakness and corruption of their nature, and of their actual transgressions; trust in that mercy of God, through Jesus Christ, which is then to be assured to them; a serious conviction of the necessity of that spiritual change implied by "dying unto sin and rising unto righteousness," denoted by the sacrament of baptism, the obligations of which we then assume; and earnest supplications for the influences of that Divine Spirit by which, in union with our own endeavours, this change is to be effected.

The Christian life, in its progress, may be considered with respect to its character, the principle by which it is animated, the agency and means by which it is maintained, and the consolations and hopes with which it is supported and rewarded.

The character of the Christian life (to which baptism and the ordinance of confirmation devote us) is holy-holy, in the renunciation of all sin, jn the exercise of all holy affections, and in the discharge of the duties of a holy life. The principle by which the Christian life is animated, is faith, that faith which so fully and so strongly realizes all the great truths of the Gospel, as to make them operative upon the heart and the life, in renewing and reforming them, and leading to the cultivation of all Christian virtues, and the faithful discharge of every moral duty. By the agency of the Holy Spirit, acting according to the constitution of the human mind, and not to be distinguished from its operations, blessing, to our conquest over sin and our advancement in holiness, the use of moral means, of prayer, of pious reading and meditation,