cified Redeemer'; by the precious promises and awful threatenings of the Gospel; by all your hopes of heaven and fears of hell; by the worth of your immortal souls, and by all that is dear to men; I conjure you to accept of the offers of mercy, and fly from the wrath to come."Behold now is the accepted time, behold now is the day of salvation." All the treasures of heaven are now opening to you; the blood of Christ is now speaking for the remission of your sins; the church on earth stretches out its arms to receive you; the spirits of just men made perfect are eager to enrol you amongst the number of the blessed; the angels and archangels are waiting to break out into new alleluias of joy on your return; the whole Trinity is now employed in your behalf; God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, at this instant, call upon you, weary and heavy laden, to come unto them that ye may have rest unto your souls!

SERMON XIX.

LUKE XV. 18.

I will arise and go to my Father.

THE THE parable of the prodigal son is one of the most beautiful and affecting pieces of composition which is anywhere to be found. The occasion on which it was spoken, and the persons to whom it was addressed, are well known to you. Dropping, therefore, what was peculiar at the fist narration, I shall consider it as representing in general the return of sinners to God by true repentance.

Such a return is not a single act in the Christian life; it is the habitual duty of every man who is subject to infirmities and defects. For such is the weakness of human nature in this imperfect state, such is the strength of temptation in this evil world, that frail man is often led astray before he is aware. Alas! in our best estate we are but re

turning penitents; and to the last hour of this mortal life, we stand in need of amendment.

We may observe the following steps in the return of the prodigal to his father's house; first,-His restoration to a better mind, by means of consideration. "When he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough, and to spare!" Second, Ingenuous sorrow for sin, accompanied with faith in the Divine mercy. "Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before thee." Third,-A resolution to return to a sense of duty: "I will arise and go to my father." And, fourth,-His immediate performance of that resolution : "And he arose and came to his father."

First, His restoration to a better mind by means of consideration. "He came to himself."

With great propriety is this expression used; for a wicked man is beside himself. Madness, saith Solomon, is in the heart of the sinner. As madness is a disease of

the rational powers, so is vice of the moral. Sin, in like manner, unhinges the whole frame of the moral being, tinges with its baleful colours every sentiment of the heart, and presents to view a spectacle more melancholy still,a being, made after the image of God, sinking that image into the resemblance of a brute, or the character of a fiend. Mad, however, as such persons are, they are not always so. Sin cannot always keep its ground. The evil principle has its hour of weakness and decline. There is no man uniformly wicked. The exertion is too strong to last for ever. Nature does not afford strength and spirits sufficient to keep a man always in energy. The most abandoned have fits of soberness and recollection. There are lucid intervals in the life of every person. At such a time is the crisis of a man's character. At such a time the prodigal son came to his right mind. At once the spell was broken and the enchantment dissolved. He is amazed, he is confounded to find himself degraded from the rational character; cast down to the herd of inferior animals; making one at the feast where the vilest of brutes were his associates and companions. Then the false colours with which fancy had gilded his life, vanisheth away. The flattering ideas, which imagination and passion presented to his mind, disappear in a moment. Disenchanted from the delusions of the great deceiver, what he esteemed to be

the garden of Eden, he finds to be a desolate wilderness. "Then he came to himself."

You know that, when a man recovers from a fit of lunacy, and is restored to his reason, the mind annihilates the lurid interval, forgets the events of such a state like a dream, and resumes the train of ideas it had pursued in its sound state. Thus, the penitent in the parable, awaking as from a dream, recovering as from a delirium, transports himself into the time past, his former life recurs to his mind, his father's house rises to view, he recals the first of his days before he went astray. Happy days of early innocence and early piety, before remorse had embittered his hours, or vice corrupted his heart! Happy days when the morning arose in peace, and the evening. went down in innocence; when no action of the past day disturbed his slumbers by night; when no reflection on the riots of the night threw a cloud over the succeeding day; when he was at peace with his own heart; when conscience was on his side; when reflection was a friend; when memory presented only welcome images to the mind; when, under the wings of paternal care, he was blessed in his going out and coming in; when his father's eye met his with approbation and delight.

Having viewed the picture, he compares it with his present situation. Sad contrast! By his own folly, a vagabond in a foreign land; banished from all that he valued and held dear; cut off from the joys of his better days; languishing out life under the most abject form of misery; pining under poverty, sunk into servitude; feeding swine, and himself desiring to partake with them in their husks; miserable without, but more miserable within; a spirit wounded by remorse, a heart torn by reflection on itself, an accusing conscience, which told him that he merited his fate, and which held up to him his past life in its blackest colours of tolly and guilt. Astonished at himself, startled at his own image, which, in its true colours, he had never seen before, he was ashamed of his conduct, and came to a better mind. Such were the effects of consideration, and such will ever be the effects of consideration, to those who duly exercise it. Why does the sinner go forward in the error of his ways? Because he does not consider. "Hear, O heavens; give ear, O earth: The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his

master's crib; but my people do not consider." Consider your ways, is the voice which God addresses to mankind in every age; and unless you consider, the calls of the gospel and the offers of grace are made to no purpose. The world which is to come has no existence to you but what you give it yourselves; the eternity that is before you, the happiness of heaven and the pains of hell, are no more than dreams, unless you realize them to yourselves, unless you give them their full force, by bringing them home to the heart. When a man reviews the error of his ways, nothing is wanting to a further reformtion but reflection and thought. Think, and the work is done. "I considered my ways," saith the Psalmist. What was the consequence?" I turned my feet unto thy testimonies."

The second step in the return of the prodigal is ingenuous sorrow for sin, accompanied with faith in the Divine mercy. "Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before thee."

We are formed by the Author of our being to feel contrition for the offences we commit. This pungent sense of infirmities, this penitential sorrow for errors and defects, is a beauty in the nature of man. It is an indication that the sense of excellence exists in its full vigour, and the mark of a nature that is not only improvable, but that also is making improvements. When a man seriously considers that the tenor of his life has been irregular and disorderly; that much of his time has been misemployed, and great part of it spent altogether in vain; that he has walked in a vain show, unprofitable to himself or others, an idler upon the earth, a cumberer of the ground; that, by his negligence and perversion of his powers, he has been lost to the world which is to come, has marred the beauty of his immortal spirit, and stopt short in the race which conducts to glory, honour, and immortality; when he further considers that his offences have extended to his fellowmen, that by his conduct, he has been the cause of misery to others, has disturbed the peace of society, done an injury to the innocent,-such reflections, in a heart that is not altogether callous, will awaken contrition and sorrow.

The penitential sorrow will be increased when he considers against whom he has offended; that he has sinned against infinite goodness, and saving mercy, and tender love; that he has resisted the efforts of that arm that was

lifted up to save him; that he has rebelled against the God who made, and the Saviour who redeemed him. This is one of the characteristics of true repentance. The penitent does not mourn for his sins as being ruinous to himself, so much as for their being offensive to God. The returning prodigal, in the address he makes to his Father, dwells not upou the misery he had brought upon himself, upon the ruin to his character, his fortune, and his expec tations in life. "I have sinned against Heaven and in thy sight." What grieves me most is, that I have offended thee: that I have sinned against goodness unspeakable; against that goodness to which I am indebted for the care of my infant years; against that goodness to which I owe my preservation; against him who visited me while I was flying from his presence; who supported my powers while they were employed against him. It is my Benefactor whom I have offended; it is my best Friend that I have injured; it is my Father himself against whom I have risen

in arms.

This sorrow for sin is accompanied with faith in the Divine mercy. To wicked men, labouring under the agonies of a guilty mind, the Deity appears an object of terror. They figure to themselves an angry tyrant, with his thunder in his hand, delighting to punish and destroy. Like Adam when he had sinned, they are afraid, and flee from the presence of the Lord. But from the mind of the penitent these terrors vanish, and God appears, not as a cruel and malignant power, but as the best of beings, the Father of mercies, and the Friend of men, as a God in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself. Encouraged by these declarations, the penitent trusts to the Divine goodness, and flies for refure to the hope set before him. It is the wicked man only that despairs. Horrors of conscience and forebodings of wrath affright and overwhelm the sons of reprobation. Such horrors felt Cain and Judas I-cariot. But the penitent never despairs. He sinks indeed in his own eyes, and throws himse.f prostrate on the ground, but still throws himself at the footstool of mercy, not without the faith and the hope that he will be taken into favour. The language of his soul is, "Though I am cast out of thy sight, yet will I look again to thy holy temple. I will arise and go to my Father, for though I have offended hun, he is a Father still. He now sits upen a throne of mercy, and holds a sceptre of grace.