ance of sin prepares for the remission of it through the vicarious sufferings of Christ, on whom the penitent fixes his faith. How excellent soever may be the attribute of mercy in God, the sinner will never be the happier for it without repentance. No one can approach a God of mercy, nor realise the favor of a God of love, without first abhorring himself, and repenting in dust and ashes.

4. The necessity of this repentance is universal. All have sinned, and are guilty. Not one is exempted. Not one can say, I have made myself clean; I have no sin. No circumstances of difference in life constitute a difference here. These all vanish when we are arraigned

in common as sinners. The points of distinction in this life relate to time, and end with it. Gold and silver, robes and titles, the dignities of office, the attainments of learning, the reputation of wisdom, the sealed parchment, the securities of property, every thing earthly will be buried in oblivion, or burnt up with the world. Man alone survives, naked before God: he stands in the simple character of a sinner. His morality cannot save him. He is a sinner still. Morality forms no adequate ground of acceptance with God. The only refuge is in Christ, and repentance opens the only way to the cross.

5. The necessity of this repentance is immediate. In order to salvation, "God now commands all men every where to repent." This command is imperative. Now is the accepted time. As soon as the sinner is cut off from time, he is cut off from all hope. It is, therefore, necessary he should repent immediately.

for

Repentance is delayed by some, through a blind presumption on the mercy of God. God has spared them so long that they think to-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant. Thus they reason from one set of facts only. God spared the old world long in their sins, but He also destroyed them in awful judgment. He sent preachers of righteousness to the cities of the plain, but He also rained fire and brimstone upon them. I want but one hour to prepare death, once said a presumptuous sinner, determined to live in sin, and the next moment he was launched into eternity by the judgment of God. The church at Fern in Scotland fell in during divine service, and buried the whole congregation in one common grave! No man has the security of a moment. The necessity of repentance is, therefore, immediate.

Repentance is delayed by others because they are young. young sinners never die? Read the public obituaries. sculptured memorials of the delay. But who is willing to may not accept the remnant.

And do Go to the

dead, and there learn the danger of this spend the best of his days in sin? God Oh, that I had served my God with as much fidelity as I have served my king," once said a rejected cardinal,

who had put his trust in princes, "and he would not have cast me off in my old age to the fury of my enemies."

Others again excuse themselves, because they are not as great sinners as some others. But what say the Scriptures? "He that offendeth in one point is guilty of the whole." A single sin unrepented will sink the soul to hell. Who can say he has not sinned? Say not, then, you will delay repentance. Repent immediately.

III. A consideration of some of the evidences of repentance is also necessary to a full view of the subject. These evidences may be very properly divided into two classes, internal and external; or those that enter into the essential experience of the Christian, which are, therefore, the subject of his own consciousness, and those which are obvious to others. Of the former class are all those exercises, which are essential to true repentance-a conviction of sin as heinous and personal, consequent self abhorrence, right views of the character of God as a moral governor, of Christ as a Saviour, of himself in relation to them, and to eternity-all resulting in a hatred and forsaking of sin, and a love of holiness.

These evidences, wherever they exist, will develop others to public observation. They will influence the life. They will furnish a train of evidences in the life and conversation, which will be decisive of the moral action of the heart. "He has put off the old man with his deeds, and has put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him." "He has put off all these things, anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication, out of his mouth, and has put on, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long suffering, forbearing and forgiving, even as Christ hath forgiven him." Moreover, "he puts on charity, which is the bond of perfectness." "The word of Christ dwells in him richly, and whatsoever he does, in word or deed, he does all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him." "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance; and they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts."

In the subject, has now been presented the true answer to the absorbing question, which possesses the anxious and entire attention of the convicted sinner. You see the nature of true repentance, the duty, necessity, and evidences of it. Nor is it the work of a moment. It is the work of life. The true penitent lives a life of repentance.

Consider carefully, then, a subject, which involves your eternal life. Delay not so important, so necessary a work. "Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." Amen.

THE ADMONITORY SEASON, OR LESSONS FROM AUTUMN: ISAIAH lxiv. 6. And we all do fade as a leaf.

EVERY circumstance calculated to better the heart should be noticed and improved. Even those things which tend to beget sadness should not be avoided, inasmuch as they harmonize with the actual state of human existence. "Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward;" yet his great aim seems to be to defeat this repulsive decree, and whatsoever savors of it, or whatsoever seems to remind him of it, is generally an unwelcome topic of conversation. But this avoidance of every thing sombre in its aspect is not a politic measure; for, when evil comes- -as come it must upon all-it falls upon us with the more overwhelming shock. It seems to be with many, a main object to drive away from the mind all consideration of the certainty and circumstances of their mortality. They cannot endure a book that paints its moral by a reference to such subjects. Even the gathering gloom of autumn is to such minds often disagreeable, and would if possible be avoided. But, happily, the Creator has so arranged the vicissitudes of the seasons, as to convey through the eye a salutary lesson upon the heart. From this none can escape. It addresses its wholesome instruction to the dark and skeptical mind, and to the careless votary of the world. They, who would scorn to be moved to seriousness by the plain admonition of a gospel minister, are awe-struck and sedate, as they witness the departing glories of the year, and see a funeral-pall silently spreading itself over the face of nature. Can they fail to recur to their own dissolution? Such was the effect upon the pious and poetical mind of the prophet, when he witnessed the autumnal leaf fading and falling, to be swept away by the blasts of winter. He thought at once of the mortality of man. He saw in this leaf a striking emblem of our frailty, and he exclaimed, "We all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away."

The subject is appropriate for two reasons. It is the season when VOL. XI. No. 4.

our thoughts should be seriously impressed by the lesson which our Creator is reading to us from his works. It seems but yesterday, that the surrounding hills and valleys were clad in verdant beauty. Every thing was fresh and full of promise. The eye, and the ear, and all the senses were cheered and regaled. But how great a change has now passed upon them! The autumnal frosts have invaded their glories, and after a transient flush-like the hectic of death-they begin to decay and depart forever. Soon the fierce blasts of winter will come and sigh through the naked branches, and whirl in eddies these fallen leaves of the forest.

My hearers, is there not an admonitory voice in all this? You must surely admit a striking analogy between this and the desolating stroke of death, which will send us all to the tomb like the leaves of the forest, and bury us in as deep an oblivion.

But there is another reason why this subject is appropriate. It is not the leaves ONLY that are falling in this season of general decay, There seems to be a fall also of vigorous manhood and of youthful beauty, and the grave is gathering in its harvest from among the fairest and firmest of our community.* God is thus giving us a two-fold lesson. Most impressively does he speak to us, and say, "All flesh is grass, and the glory of man is as the flower of grass."

The text presents us with the idea of a progressive decay, preparatory to the actual fall. It declares, that as the leaf withers and then dies, so man fades away and is gone. The places that kuew him shall know him no more forever.

The comparison is as beautiful as it is solemn, and I shall call your attention to several particulars showing its appropriateness,

First; As to our corporeal powers, we fade like the leaf.

Our bodies are of such make and material, that their continuance should be more a matter of surprise than of expectation. The pliant flesh, the brittle bones, the countless channels of the blood, the delicate. nerves issuing from the brain; the heart, with rapid action, making the whole physical machinery fearfully to vibrate; the lungs, in contact often with unwholesome air-all these, amid the innumerable casualties of life, make the continuance of our bodies for a term of years a sort of standing miracle.

But whilst these powers are in play, it is evident there must be some waste of the vital principle-some wear and tear of the mortal framework. And this is admitted to be the case.

It

In infancy and youth-which is the forming state-the body expands and acquires tone rapidly. But soon it arrives at its acme. reaches with wonderful rapidity its full development. Then it seems, for a brief moment, to wave like the well expanded leaf in all its matured glories; and then it shows evidences of decay.

I am sure, my hearers, you must have been struck with the rapid transition from childhood to maturity, and from maturity to speedy decline. You have seen the face that yesterday wore no trace of care, coupled with a form from which a statuary might have framed his designs-where all was youth, and health and serenity-sink, as it were,

* Several interesting youth in the congregation had been suddenly called away by death,

of a sudden, into incipient decay, and reveal the melancholy fact, that "all flesh is as the grass that withereth."

And this has taken place where there was no violent assault, no racking pains, nor intemperate indulgences, to hasten on a premature fall. It is simply that natural decline and waste of the corporeal powers, which indicates the speedy dissolution of the body.

It would be a most impressive scene, if the passage of a whole generation to the tomb, were as simultaneous and sudden as the fall and dissolution of the vegetable world-if some invisible cause, like the unseen blight of autumn, were to come suddenly upon us, paralyzing our strength, and spreading over us all a paleness premonitory of our fall. If a whole generation were thus to have affixed upon them the signet of death, and then, as by one fearful blast, be swept into the grave, how solemn and impressive would be the scene! Who then could look forward to the autumn of their existence, and not tremble? But, my hearers, is it less solemn as a personal consideration, that we drop away singly and silently into eternity? To me, it is even more for I have been accustomed to suppose, that when men die in company, as in a general sickness, or on the field of battle, there is less intimidation and dread. Even in a calamity so awful as death, the social principle operates to disrobe it of some of its horrors.

so;

But the body is, like a plant or leaf, never stationary. There is not a moment when either is so. They are in progress to maturity, or they are ou the decline. We have scarcely time to admire their opening beauties, before they have sensibly parted with some of their freshness and bloom, and then, but a short interval occurs, and they have gone into the sere and yellow leaf. God has put the stamp of vanity on every bright and beautiful object of earth. He means to make us feel, that here we have no abiding habitation, that we are pilgrims and strangers, and must not build our hopes on so shifting a soil.

Secondly; How soon do our intellectual powers become enfeebled. So intimate is the connection between the body and the mind, when the former suffers, the latter, in most instances, suffers by sympathy along with it. But the powers of the mind do not generally indicate weakness so soon as the body shows symptoms of decay. It seems to be gathering strength sometimes when the corporeal powers are declining. But, even this nobler part feels indirectly the shock which falls on the clay tenement. The bodily functions connecting it with the external world, are the instruments which it uses in enlarging its sphere of knowledge; consequently, when they are enfeebled, the mind loses those auxiliaries without which it cannot efficiently improve. It hence often sinks into supineness-evincing no longer its wonted vigor and sprightliness. It is obliged to wait until death knocks off these rusty chains, ere it can again spread its wings and soar unfettered in its flight. When the eye grows dim, the inlet to external nature is obscured. The page of knowledge cannot be traced with the same satisfaction as formerly, and the effort to acquire being greater, whilst the physical capacity is becoming less, there is a sensible diminution of mental interest and activity. When the ear is deaf, and sounds are either not perceived or have become indistinct, another source of mental improvement is gone; and the disappointed soul must content herself, in a great