remove them?

Full of promises, that upon re

pentance through faith, and earnest endeavours after amendment, the merits of Christ shall avail to the salvation of every sinner? I need not multiply these questions, and in a Christian assembly, I need not answer them.

Are then the scriptures true, which in express terms, and with such frequent repetition, assert the sinfulness of man and the mercies of God? As believers in those scriptures you must answer "Yes," because the words are plainly written. But I put the question now to your own consciences; Do they assent to the truth of that assertion? Let me request you first to catechise your lives on this subject—afterwards we will proceed to the heart.

Well, what answer do your lives return? Do they say that you are holy, and pure, and undefiled? Do they testify that your nature is uncorrupt? Do they declare that the accusation of sinfulness is false and undeserved? Do they answer that you have retained that image of God, in which man was at first created? Do they afford any ground for denial that mankind are depraved, and apostate, and fallen?

No, my brethren; I believe if the truth were disclosed, that they would, with one consent, testify to the very contrary of all this. I doubt not that they

would support, and fully confirm the charge which the scriptures make.

I will not expatiate on the subject of notorious and palpable violations of the law; I will suppose (and you can best tell how truly I may make the supposition), I will suppose, that you can all with justice affirm that you are not "extortioners, unjust, adulterers;" that you have not broken, in their literal sense, any one of the ten commandments; that in fact, you have paid an external observance to all these things from your youth. But still, have you any right to congratulate yourselves on this subject? Is your irreproachable conduct in these respects an evidence of religious principles? May it not have proceeded from other causes? Have you had much temptation to flagrant sins? Or if tempted, may you not have been restrained by the fear of the law, by shame, by the want of convenient opportunity, by the desire to sustain a fair character and an honourable station in society, by personal interest of some kind or other? Would you not, in a worldly point of view, have lost more than you would have gained by the commission of such sins? So that you are not necessarily better than those unhappy criminals, of whom you express perhaps much abhorrence, and by comparing yourselves with whom you are led to rate highly the excellence and

worth of your own characters; for you know not but that you might have fallen as low, if placed in the same circumstances, and exposed to the same temptations. And here I must confess, that when in a court of justice, I have seen a culprit at the bar, listening in agony to the awful sentence of death, pronounced upon him for his crimes, I have thought with myself (and some of you perhaps have made the same reflection), suppose God should at this moment summon all the persons present-judge, jury, prisoner, and spectators to take their trial before his righteous tribunal, would that wretched criminal be condemned by him as the most guilty sinner of the whole? Why have we not-we, who are so shocked at his wickedness, and think his punishment so just-why have we not been in the same condemnation? Why have we not shed the blood of our neighbour? Why have we not violated the security of his dwelling, and plundered him of his goods? Why have not we, by forgery and artifice, enriched ourselves at his expense? Perhaps, only because we have not been so tempted as he was;- our passions or our necessities have not led us to murder or to robbery ;-we had not the ability or the opportunity of successful fraud. But that individual of the whole assembly, who (in compliance with the temptation to which

he was exposed) should have committed a deliberate sin against any one (though not detected by human eye, or not amenable to human law, or not censured by human opinion) who should have committed a deliberate sin against any one law of God, and had not yet repented of it, would doubtless have fared as ill at the hands of divine justice, as he who was the object of our horror, and a deserved victim to the broken laws of his country. A thief, nailed to the cross for his crimes, was once, (as we know) immediately on his death, transported to the happiness of paradise. Many of those who witnessed his punishment were at the very time committing a greater sin than that for which he suffered, by reviling and scoffing at the Son of God; and though they did not die in so ignominious a manner, did their souls experience so blessed a transition? They may have lived to repent, but they would not have been in the happy condition of that Penitent, if they had been called to their account at that moment. And if we die unrepentant, although we may have committed no grievous offence against law and good order, yet not only "publicans and harlots," but many who have paid the penalty of their crimes at the gallows, will "go into the kingdom of heaven," not merely "before us," but leaving us excluded.

But to return. I have supposed it likely that on an examination of your past lives, the majority of you cannot charge yourselves with open and scandalous sins; those who can, of course have no doubt on the subject of their sinfulness, and of their need of mercy. But the argument has been all along addressed to persons who disapprove of the universal application of the term sinner, who think that it cannot fairly be applied to themselves, and who consequently are somewhat unqualified for receiving with any practical advantage, what appear to be fundamental doctrines of Christianity. "Not having broken any of the laws of the decalogue then, you may ask, what sins can we have committed?" Let me warn you first that you may deceive yourselves in thinking that you are guiltless of the breach even of all these; "thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain," "remember that thou keep holy the sabbath-day,"-" thou shalt not covet any thing that is thy neighbour's." How many of us have kept these commandments with exact obedience? But this is not all. Do you never make profane jests on holy things? Do you by your conversation or your conduct never put a stumbling block in the way of those who would otherwise treat religion with respect? Do you take no pleasure in reporting stories discreditable to