ment;" answer me as a Christian, with your eye upon the cross for salvation, what ought you to give, out of that property, which God has first given you, to send the Gospel to the heathen? If any thing can be needed to excite your benevolence, I bring forward this morning five petitions, each soliciting your assistance, and each sufficient of itself to merit the greatest liberality.

The first is uttered in the groans of six hundred millions of human beings, who, as they pass before you on their way to eternity, repeat that imploring language, "Come over and help us." The second is from several hundred Missionaries, who, looking around upon the immeasurable scene of their labours, urge the admonition of their Master, "The harvest is great, but the labourers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth more labourers into his harvest." The third is from the Directors, "stating that their expenditure this year has exceeded their receipts, above five thousand pounds, and entreating that they may not be forced to slacken their exertions, for want of funds to support them; which must inevitably be the case, unless they are encouraged to go forward by increased liberality on the part of their constituents." The fourth is from heaven, borne to us by the spirits of departed Missionaries, who hover over our assembly this morning, "beseeching us to carry on with renewed vigour, that cause in which they sacrificed their lives; and the magnitude and importance of which, amidst all their zeal for its interests, they never perfectly knew till they were surrounded with the scenes of the eternal world." The fifth is from-will you believe it from hell. Yes, directed to your hearts in the shriek of despair, comes the solicitation of many a lost soul in prison: "Oh! send a Missionary to my father's house, where I have yet five brethren, that he may testify to them, that they come not into this place of torment." You cannot reply to this, "they have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them."

What hearts you must possess, if you can be deaf to such pleas, and can turn away such petitions unrelieved. Have you arrived at the very limit of your ability, and is every

private resource exhausted? Then let us go to the treasure of the sanctuary, let us melt down the church plate, and convert even that into a means of sending the gospel to the heathen, assured that if we have nothing else to give, it will be more acceptable to our divine Lord to see it so employed, than to behold it glittering upon his sacramental board. But do not plead such a necessity, till you have surrendered the luxuries of your own houses, till the gorgeous display upon your own tables is given up. The mere tithes of extravagance would support all the Missionary and Bible Societies in existence, magnified to ten times their present extent. A showy and lavish profusion in our habits, is not only injurious to our own spiritual interests, but also to the interests of others. It is a felony upon the fund of mercy. Frugality is the best financier of philanthropy, and one of the most important auxiliaries of the Missionary

cause.

It is an encouragement to your liberality, to know that eventually nothing shall be lost. You are employed in building that temple, of which Jehovah declares, "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations ;" and of which the top stone shall at length be brought forth, amidst the shouts of exulting spectators, crying, "Grace, grace unto it." Stupendous and glorious edifice! its transept shall extend from the northern to the southern pole. Its choir shall rest upon the empire of China, and its western window look out upon the waters of the Great South Sea; while all the nations of the earth, attracted by the cross which shines upon its dome, shall assemble within its mighty circumference, and amidst the sacred memorials of Missionary Institutions, and the monumental inscriptions of illustrious men, which occupy every niche, and hang from every pillar, shall celebrate the jubilee of the world, and unite in that sublime anthem:-"HALLELUJAH; SALVATION, AND GLORY, AND HONOUR, AND POWER UNTO THE LORD OUR GOD. THE KINGDOMS OF THIS WORLD ARE BECOME THE KINGDOMS OF OUR LORD AND OF HIS CHRIST, AND HE SHALL REIGN FOR EVER AND EVER. WORTHY IS THE LAMB THAT WAS SLAIN." While the

ten thousand times ten thousand angels round about the throne, shall respond to the shouts of the redeemed on earth," saying with a loud voice, WORTHY IS THE LAMB THAT WAS slain, to receive power, and riches, AND WISDOM, AND STRENGTH, AND HONOUR, and GLORY, AND BLESSING;" and still the chorus swells,and still the thunder rolls,—and still the strain waxes louder and louder, "till every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, shall cry, BLESSING, honour, GLORY, AND POWER, BE UNTO HIM THAT SITTETH UPON THE THRONE, AND UNTO THE LAMB, FOR EVER AND EVER. AMEN. AMEN."

APPENDIX.

Note A.

(See page 28.)

"I cannot but take notice," remarks Mr. Brainerd, "that I have in the general, ever since my first coming among these Indians in New Jersey, been favoured with that assistance, which to me is uncommon in preaching Christ crucified, and making him the centre, and mark to which all my discourses among them were directed. God was pleased to help me, 66 not to know any thing among them save Jesus Christ and him crucified." And this was the preaching God made use of, for the awakening of sinners, and the propagation of this work of grace among the Indians; and it was remarkable, from time to time, that when I was favoured with any special freedom, in discoursing of the ability, and willingness of Christ to save sinners, and the need they stood in of such a Saviour, there was then the greatest appearance of divine power in awakening numbers of secure souls. And it is worthy of remark, that numbers of these people are brought to a strict compliance with the rules of morality and sobriety, and to a conscientious performance of the external duties of Christianity, by the internal power and influence of divine truths, the peculiar doctrines of grace, upon their minds. And God was pleased to give these divine truths such a powerful influence upon the minds of these people, that their lives were quickly reformed, without my insisting upon the precepts of morality, and spending time in repeated harangues upon external duties. When these truths were felt at heart, there was now no vice unreformed, no external duties neglected. Drunkenness, the darling vice, was broken off from, and scarce an instance known of it amongst my hearers for months together. The practice of husbands and wives in putting away each other, and taking others in their stead, was quickly reformed, so that there are three or four couples, who have voluntarily dismissed those they had taken, and now live together again in love and peace. The same might be said of all other vicious practices. The re

formation was general, and all springing from the internal influence of divine truth upon their hearts, and not from any external restraints, or because they had heard their vices particularly enforced, and repeatedly spoken against. Some of them, I never so much as mentioned; particularly that of the parting of men and their wives, till some, having their conscience awakened by God's word, came and of their own accord confessed themselves guilty in that respect."-Vide Brainerd's Journal, Edwards's Works, vol. iii. p. 416.

Note B.

(See page 29.)

The Moravians, of whose success so much has been said, and said so justly, by all descriptions of writers, from the philosophical reviewer down to the sentimental and romantic traveller, have ever proceeded in their missions, upon the principle of "knowing nothing amongst the heathen but Jesus Christ, and him crucified." To the simple plan of preaching the doctrine of the cross, they ascribe all those mighty and marvellous effects which are to be seen in the transformation of savages into rational and holy beings, and of the literal wilderness into gardens, fields, and orchards. For a proof of this, read Loskiel's History of the Mission among the North American Indians; Crantz's History of Greenland; "An Account of the Manner in which the United Brethren preach the Gospel among the Heathen."

The following extracts and anecdotes will confirm the statement above given:

"The Missionaries have frequently remarked, that nothing makes such a powerful impression on the minds of the heathen, or makes them so desirous of receiving farther instruction, as when one, immediately at the first speaking with them, declares to their hearts the gracious message concerning the free mercy of God in Christ Jesus, towards the lost human race. On the contrary, our catechists, before they were rightly acquainted with the chief matter which a minister of the New Testament has to declare, have made manifold experiments how little is to be effected among the heathen, by all moral representations of the glorious attributes of God, and of the various duties of virtue. Even supposing they outwardly assent to all such truths, still, while their stubborn will is not gained over, they only seek the