state of enmity with your God. To you, I am bound to say, if such be your mode of life, such the condition of your soul at the close of it, to you, the language of the text has awful reference. Bad enough is it to think, that when the miseries and the troubles of this earthly scene are at an end, we shall be refused admittance to the realms of peace and happiness in Christ's kingdom; but more appalling still, is the reflection, that not only our future state will be destitute of all enjoyment, but that it will be made up of the most dismal woes, and the keenest sufferings; that not only shall heaven be far from our possession, but that hell will be our everlasting portion.

Why then is it, with the positive declaration of the word of God before your eyes, as to what will be your condition hereafter, if you obey or reject the gospel, that you still persist in going on in your wickedness, and are thus "treasuring up for yourselves wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God1?" Why, since you have the glorious light of Truth to illumine your path, will you choose to walk in darkness? Why will you "prefer the pleasures

1 Rom. ii. 5.

of sind. Its rust, is not yet

fel. The finger if nergy s beckons you forward place cage. Through the assistance of the

Bar Some you my resist every effort on the part of Samar and you: and through the suze L-sufficent price, you may yet march on I suby and mph to the walls of the heavenly Jerusalem: where the trophies, which have been won.—not by your own weak arm, but by the mighty valour of “the great Captain of your salvation,”—shall grace your peaceful entrance, and adorn your eternal sojourning in the City of the Living God.

SERMON XVI.

WE MUST SUFFER ALL THINGS FOR THE
SAKE OF CHRIST.

MATTHEW X. 38.

"He that taketh not his cross and followeth after me, is not worthy of me."

THIS expression of our blessed Lord's, seems to have been taken from the custom of condemned malefactors being compelled to carry the cross on which they were to be impaled, to the place of execution.

That the instruction contained in it, was considered of peculiar importance by the Evangelists, is evident from the circumstance of its being mentioned by them, if not in language exactly similar, yet the same in substance and in meaning, four different times, in the gospel narrative: twice by St. Matthew, once by St. Mark and St. Luke. Why St. John has not thought it necessary to allude to it, it does not at all concern us

It's race stent that the other
Tafod i gren a second time by

me voner of the tem no me li chapter, 24th verse, mi ilovs immediately after our Saviour band reproved Peter fe presuming to expostulate Vi um vim he had timed him and the test å la discles, bow that be must go unto Teristem, and suffer many things of the elders, and thef priests, and series, and be killed, and be raised in the by' It is quoted by St. Mark, of the Sth chapter. 34th verse, and writer under similar cremstances, as those rebited by the former Evangelis. Lastly, it is mentioned by St. Luke at the 9th chapter, 23d verse, and follows directly after our Lord's prophetical account of his approaching sufferings to his disciples.

Without animadverting further on the particular incidents which lead to this divine declaration, as related by the other sacred historians, I will proceed briefly to remark on such parts of the chapter before us, as may seem to have immediate connection with the text: and after shewing what might be the direct object of the Redeemer in uttering these remarkable words, I will endeavour, under divine grace, so to improve

the subject that it may afford such practical instruction, as we may presume, it was his intention should be conveyed to Christians, in every succeeding age of the gospel.

After our blessed Saviour had sent forth his twelve apostles, (with an account of which the chapter commences,) and had given them a variety of instruction necessary for their approaching labours, he tells them, at the 16th verse, "Behold I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves," thus giving them a kind of earnest of what they were to expect in the course of their ministry, and which was more fully explained to them in the six following verses; in the last of which, he declares to them this solemn and appalling truth, that they should be hated of all men for his sake;" but not without fortifying them at the same time, with this consolatory assurance, "he that endureth unto the end, shall be saved."

Many other words of comfort and encouragement did their divine Master vouchsafe to impart to those, whom in his wisdom he had chosen to preach the glad-tidings of salvation, amidst diffi culties and perils, which he only could foresee,