tance.

Oh! let the thought of this move you to repenCease to live in opposition to the truth, in opposition to God. Take diligent heed to your ways and your doings, remembering the solemn account you must one day give at the judgment-seat of Christ. Believe the word of God, and obey His blessed will, that you may meet Him without fear and enter into His rest. Even if it were possible for the Church to be mistaken in urging you to a life of faith, and pressing upon you the necessity of holiness, yet in obeying her teaching you would incur no danger, you would experience no loss. But if, as we know, her foundations are upon the holy hills, and the word in her mouth is the truth of God, then how fearful the danger of despising her authority, how awful the consequence of disobedience to her guidance!

SERMON XV.

THE SINNER'S AWFUL CAREER.

JEREMIAH ii. 19.

"Know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord God of hosts."

THERE is room for little controversy on this point, that it is an evil and bitter thing for any one to forsake the Lord his God. We all instinctively feel that it is God only who can do us good; and that if therefore we depart from Him, we are forsaking our own mercies. Yet, unhappily, in spite of the universal acknowledgment of this truth, there are too many who venture to act in contradiction to it; who leave their Father's House, and forsake the guide of their youth, setting at nought the teaching of the Church, and the remonstrance of their conscience, and choosing for themselves whatever ministers to the indulgence of their own free will.

It seems scarcely possible, however, that those that act thus, can be aware of their real situation.

They cannot know their danger. They cannot know how near they are to everlasting ruin. They cannot be really aware, to what an awful state they have brought themselves. It may be well, therefore, to direct your serious attention to a most awful contemplation, I mean the contemplation of the sinner's mad career. A faithful picture of his fearful state will be a useful warning, especially to the young, of the dangers that accompany a wilful departure from God.

Let us suppose then the case of two children brought to the sacred ordinance of Baptism, to be thereby mercifully received into the Church of God. They both bring with them to that sacrament a sinful nature. Possibly indeed at that early period there may be some difference of natural character, some undeveloped dispositions in the one, which do not exist in the other. But of this we cannot speak with any thing like certainty. All we can confidently affirm is, that both being naturally inclined to evil, and both, on account of their evil nature, being under the divine condemnation, they are brought to "the laver of Regeneration," to have their sins remitted, to be made the children of God and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven.

Now of two children thus received into the family of God, and so far placed upon the same

footing, the course of one through life may be such as to bring him at last to the kingdom of heaven, and the course of the other such as to end eventually in his being miserable for ever. Now I purpose setting before you the condition of the one, whose career is a career of sin, and whose end therefore will be eternal ruin. And while I am doing this, let me urge you to remember, that the case I am about to describe is a very frequent one-and one, in the description of which there can be little doubt, that the condition of some, who are here present, will be faithfully pourtrayed.

The adopted child of God then, blessed with the remission of his sins and gifted with the Holy Spirit, is returned into its God parents' hands to be brought up in the ways of righteousness. But from some cause or other-whether it be the parent's neglect, or inconsistency, or want of prayeror whether it be through the child's own selfwill-it so happens that he goes astray. Perhaps evil companions have enticed him, and he alas! has yielded to their solicitations-or, uninvited by them, of his own accord, he has dallied with temptation, and thereby brought the guilt of some grievous sin upon his soul. He may have tasted the poisoned cup of unlawful pleasure, and after having tasted it once, he has returned to it again