the most prejudiced mind can reject their authority. With regard to the infidel, even should he be convinced that the Old and New Testaments do not militate against each other; yet it would still remain to convince him that they are a divine revelation. But this may be shewn by so many arguments and by so much historical evidence, that it may be fairly presumed that the progress of infidelity arises, not from want of evidence of the truth of the Scriptures, but from want of an unprejudiced examination. Our Saviour has told us that men "love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil:" and he has warned us not to cast our pearls before swine, lest they should turn and rend us."

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That difficulties occur in the sacred Scriptures, cannot be denied; but those things which most concern us, as rational beings, who are to live for ever in a state of reward or punishment, according to the righteous judgment of God, are fully revealed to us. Infidelity can only tend to the disorganization of society; to the overthrow of every moral and religious restraint; to brutalize the heart; to deprive it of all natural affection. The Christian may be exposed to calamity and distresses in this life; but they are lessened by

the glorious and blessed hope which the Scriptures inspire. The infidel, whatever his riches, whatever the brilliancy of his genius, whatever his rank-destroys those blessings which the kindness of Providence had prepared for him. The paradise around him, by his own destructive hand, becomes a wilderness. He is the victim of his own pernicious principles.

Let, then, my brethren, the imperfect attempt I have made to shew the connexion of the Old and New Testament, induce you to examine them closely. They will bear the test of the severest criticism. Suffer not your belief in them to be shaken by the sophistry of the infidel. They record the dealings of God with men. They will lead you to rely on his providence for the blessings of this life, and eternal happiness hereafter. The Scriptures have a greater tendency to promote the welfare of society, to make men what they ought to be, as rational creatures, than all the writings that can be accumulated of infidels and deists. "Hold fast, therefore, the profession of your faith, without wavering; for he is faithful that promised."

SERMON III.

PREACH THE GOSPEL.

Woe is unto me, if I preach not the Gospel!— 1 Cor. ix. 16.

THE certainty which we possess, from the sacred writings, of a future state, and that our happiness or misery in this state will be determined before the unerring tribunal of the Almighty, must necessarily excite a considerable degree of anxiety in every reflecting mind. If there be a judgment to come, if eternal death will be the certain wages of a sinful life, and if eternal death consist, not in the annihilation of our existence, but in the suffering of those torments which are prepared for the devil and his angels; and if the fire that never can be quenched, and the worm that dieth not, await the sinner,-surely it cannot be an unimportant inquiry to ask, "What shall I do to be saved?" By those who are just entering into life, and are not yet convinced, from experience, of the vanity and

emptiness of all human things, this inquiry may not, perhaps, be regarded with that attention which is due to it; or they may imagine that it may be deferred until they shall have advanced farther in years, when the pleasures and amusements of life shall have lost their relish. But those, whose experience and whose conscience testify to them that here “all is vanity and vexation of spirit;" who have seen many of their contemporaries, the friends of their youth, the sharers of their pleasures and their sorrows, committed to the grave; who have seen the ambitious, the proud, the rich, the thoughtless, and the avaricious consigned earth to earth, and dust to dust; who have seen that neither wisdom nor talents, nor honour, nor any human virtue or excellence, can supersede that decree which has passed upon all men; who have wept over the departure of venerable age, or lamented the untimely loss of flourishing and amiable youth ;-surely these, convinced that there is nothing really valuable in this world; surely these must raise their thoughts to that future state to which a few years will transmit them: surely these will anxiously inquire, "What must I do to be saved?" Oh! how shall I "flee from the wrath to come?" But, alas! this is far from being

generally the case: too frequently, those who yielded to the instigation of the world, its vanities, and its follies, in their youth, have, when advanced in years, with all the evidence and conviction before them of the danger of their situation, still found excuses for their sins. Alas! they have become habituated to them: they are either restrained from quitting them by the ridicule of their companions, or they revert to the plea, urged in the commencement of their career, "There is yet sufficient time before me; I am still strong and healthy; I can promise myself many years." Thus do men deceive themselves; thus do they suffer themselves to be deceived by others; thus do they turn the very blessings and forbearance of God into arguments to disobey his commandments. But what is it that shall awaken the sinner? what shall rouse him from that torpor which renders him blind to his real state, which makes him careless and heedless on the very brink of eternal destruction?what but the voice of revelation? what but the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

The Apostle saw the infatuated crowd around him rushing to their own ruin. He had himself been stopped by a voice from heaven; he had obeyed the gracious call, and was