situations and conditions of life, filled with persons professing themselves Christians, how few should we discover, who, in our estimation, would be thought to act up to the spirit of the Christian institute! If, beginning with the young, we examine every age of life; if the different sexes be scrutinized, how very few would appear labouring for the salvation of their souls! Many would be found, who would appear to be yielding their members as instruments of iniquity unto sin; but few who would present themselves to God as those that are alive from the dead, and their members as instruments of justice unto God. (v. 13.) Pride and ostentation, profaneness and avarice, intemperance and lust; the mischief that walks by night, and the daring aggressions of the noonday devil would on every side be seen; the signs of a worldly, sensual, and almost pagan depravity are, alas! too frequently exhibited; but that purity of morals—that command over the senses-that subjection of the will, and resignation to the appointments of God, which are required to please him and fulfil his law, are with difficulty discovered.

But let us turn our eyes towards ourselves, and if we find in ourselves that deficiency which our neighbour would discern in our conduct; if we find much more than is to be seen

by the keenest penetration of our neighbour; if we find an artful but dangerous pride-a fatal sensuality-an immortification of our passions, and an indifferency with respect to God, and the observance of his law, let shame cover our faces-let us blush at that which is visible to his scrutiny, and throwing ourselves at the feet of Jesus Christ, seek mercy and salvation where alone they are to be found. Let us break through all delay, and without demur throw off our chains. Penetrated with a lively sense of our danger, and a sincere repentance, let us renew our baptismal engagements. Why should we proceed in false enjoyments, which the knowledge of our duty always embitters; troubled with the fear of being snatched away in our sins, whenever any sudden death, or remarkable judgement of God causes a transient alarm, but again sinking into indolence and apathy. us now begin-let this be the work of the right hand of the Most High; let us beg him to give a blessing to our endeavours, and to support our weakness, that, copying the example of our Saviour, in his death and resurrection, we may enter upon a new life, and participate in the joys of his kingdom for eternity.

Let

SERMON XXXIX.

SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST.

ON THE MARKS OF A TRUE CONVERSION.

As you have yielded your members to serve uncleanness and iniquity; so now yield your members to serve justice unto sanctification. (Rom. vi. 19.)

THE epistle of this Sunday, as well as of the last, is taken from a letter addressed by St. Paul to the christians of Rome, exhorting them to fervor in the service of God, and to a conduct directly the reverse of that which they had held before their conversion. This letter has appeared to the church of God to contain so much salutary instruction, and to be so appropriate to the general circumstances of the faithful, that from it she has selected many lessons during the course of the year. The portion appointed for this day is equally calculated to convey instruction to our understandings, and unction to our hearts the counsels which the apostle gives, the expressions which he employs, evince

his ardent zeal and tender condescendence for these new converts to the faith of Christ. But, my brethren, what he writes to the christians of Rome, is not only applicable to them, or to the faithful of the primitive church, but to all those who, at any time, have been called from the darkness of ignorance and sin, to the admirable light of God's grace. It is addressed to all who have been mercifully extricated from the labyrinth of error, and delivered from the uncertainty of human doctrines, and the fluctuations of human opinions, to the stability and security of divine faith. For, to use the words of the same apostle, Ye were once darkness, but ye are now light in the Lord. (Eph. v. 8.) They are addressed to all who have sinned, and who seriously desire to turn from the paths of vice to the road which leads to eternal bliss. Let us, then, my friends, for I trust we are all desirous of turning to our loving God, let us consider the advice and instructions of the apostle, as directed personally and individually to us, and from them let us discover, first, the marks which distinguish a true conversion, and, secondly, the motives which ought to animate and support us, while walking in newness of life.

First. The apostle gives us two essential marks, by which a true conversion from sin to God may be known: the first is, that we make

the members which have been heretofore the instruments and agents of Satan, now subservient unto justice, and conducive to our sanctification; the second, that we preserve an unalterable detestation of all that can offend God. Observe that he speaks with a degree of indulgence, making allowance for the frailty of human nature. I speak a human thing, says he, because of the infirmity of your flesh. (19.) Knowing your weakness, I require nothing from you which can be objected to as unreasonably severe. I might exact from you an ardour of divine charity, a sorrow and repentance, far beyond your former attachment to iniquity: with the prophet Baruch, v. 28, I might say to you; as it was your mind to go astray from God, so, when you return again, you shall seek him ten times as much; but in compassion to your weakness, I only require that as you have yielded, &c. that your zeal for God's honor, and your own salvation, be equal to the intensity of exertion with which you have served the devil, and laboured to your own destruction. It is a remark of the celebrated Origen, that St. Paul seems willing to inspire a sentiment of virtuous ambition, and to make the sinner who professes to turn from Satan to his God, ashamed at the thought of doing less for him who made him, who redeemed, reclaimed, and preserves him,