all solic tude, respecting eternal things, will produce that deceitful peace which is only the prelude to eternal death. Nor does your danger stop here; for often, before this awful result takes place, and as if to furnish the strongest reason for immediately living to God, and for avoiding the least delay in a business so important as that of our everlasting salvation, the thread of life is cut in a moment; and that preparation which you had promised to make at some future time, is utterly prevented by the terror and surprise of a sudden death.

These are brief but powerful reasons, my brethren, for avoiding that halting, hesitating course of conduct, which marks the man who affects to believe in the truth, necessity, and excellence of religion, but who habitually declines the profession of it; who, while he is awed by its restraints, enjoys not its consolations, who inwardly relies upon its promises, but outwardly disregards its precepts; and who, in the very best estimate which we can make of his character, is only almost a Christian, In the words of an English Bishop, "Whoever looks into the Gospel with the "least degree of attention, must see that it re"quires us to give up our whole soul to God, and

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pay an unreserved and undivided obedience to "all his commands. The language of Christianity to its disciples, is like that of Solomon in

"his Proverbs, My son, give me thy heart.' "We are commanded to set our affection on "things above, and not on things on the earth ; "to have our conversation in heaven; to love "God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength; "to take up our cross daily and follow Christ; " to leave father, mother, brethren, sisters, houses, "and lands, for his name's sake and the Gospel's. "These, and such like expressions, are, it is well “known, perpetually occuring in the sacred writ- · ❝ings; and although we are not to understand "them so literally and so rigorously as to con"ceive ourselves obliged to renounce the world "absolutely, and all its rational and innocent en

joyments, to retire into deserts and caves, and "think of nothing but the concerns of eternity; 66 yet if we allow these phrases any meaning, they "cannot imply less than this, that our chief and

principal concern, beyond all comparison, must "be, to please and obey our Maker in all things; "that we must seek first the kingdom of God and "his righteousness; that we must look up to his "law as the great guide and governing principle "of our lives; that we must not vibrate perpetu"ally between two masters, between two opposite "modes of conduct, between vice and virtue, "between piety and pleasure, between inclination "and duty, between this life and the next; but "devote ourselves heartily and sincerely to the

"service of our heavenly Father, and suffer no

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one earthly object to estrange or draw away our "affections from him."

If these remarks are full of admonition to those who have made an open profession of Christianity, and by their own voluntary act pledged themselves to an uniform and universal obedience, are they not also applicable to you, my brethren, who are still keeping back from what you know and acknowledge to be your interest and your duty-the surrender of yourselves to Christ in the ordinances of his Church? And if this be indeed your interest and your duty, my brethren, if you know and feel it to be such, may I not ask you, in the language of affection and solicitude, How long will ye halt between two opinions? And why will ye not at once decide, if the Lord be God to follow him; but if Baal, then to follow him?

Can any thing justify that disobedience to God's commandment which you are continually mani festing? Or would that on which you are relying form even a plausible, much less a reasonable, excuse for your indifference, if you were, at this moment, called to answer for your neglect at the bar of God? Would you think it safe to plead that you are ashamed to confess the name of your Saviour? Or would it be any better plea that you are so enamoured of the world, that you desire

*Porteus' Sermons, vol. ii. pp. 206, 207,

to shun the restraints which the profession of religion would impose? Convinced of the truth and necessity of religion, would you dare to say that your feelings, desires, and inclinations, are all opposed to embracing it? That you have no disposition to cultivate or to cherish the tempers and graces of the Christian character? As to the reasons first named, what stronger evidences could be furnished of your disregard for God, and of your unworthiness of heaven? And as to the last, what greater proof could you give of your unfitness for it, and of your danger? This reason for the neglect of religious duties, is the most common one; but, my brethren, it is also the most fearful and alarming. Time may raise you above the fear and the shame of man, and it may also release you from the love and control of the world; but time, so far from inspiring or increasing those feelings of gratitude and love which lead to God, hardens the heart. It steels the affections against the sense of goodness, and makes men indifferent to the fate they have provoked. And if such be the folly, the guilt, and the danger, of neglecting to cultivate and cherish those spiritual influences which God imparts to all men, and of hesitating and declining to nourish and increase them in the holy sacrament to which he invites them, may I not again be permitted to ask, what limit you purpose to assign to this fatal course; and how long you will continue to hesi

tate respecting this great and imperative duty. I urge this question with peculiar feeling, now when you have been invited to partake of the last communion which we shall celebrate in this place. Often, during the space of two years, have you been besought, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and exhorted as ye love your own salvation, to confess the name and the religion of your Saviour, before the small number of those who compose this Christian flock. Continually, however, have some who hear me abstained from the Lord's table, and separated from their brethren who come to feed on the banquet of that most heavenly food. Never again will that invitation be addressed to you to surround this humble social altar. Never again will you be solicited to kneel here with this small family of the followers of Christ, to receive the bread which came down from heaven. Some there are who have here, for the first time, avowed their faith in their Saviour, and their intention to lead a new life, following the commandments of God, and walking henceforth in his holy ways; and here first have offered their hearty thanks to him, that being fed with the spiritual food of the most precious body and blood of their Saviour Jesus Christ, they have been assured thereby of his favour and

* This was preached in the temporary chapel in which the congregation worshipped, before the erection of St. Thomas1 Church.