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lavished upon you, the blessings of Providence may fall around you, the kindness and love of God our Savior may be shown you, and no gratitude spring up in your heart, no tears of repentance flow. Should it not trouble you to have such a heart? While it is cherished the Savior may weep over you, the ministers of the gospel may exhort and entreat with all long-suffering and doctrine to no purpose-the tears of the Son of God may be shed in vain, and his ministers may plead in vain. How affecting that indifference, which, while it continues, renders all the methods of God's mercy to reclaim and save sinners ineffectual. Is not such a state of mind truly deplorable? A habit of body that would render every thing received for nourishment or for medicine perfectly useless would be dreadful; what then must be that moral disease which leads men to pervert every gift, to turn away from every overture, to resist every motive. Every prayer you hear leaves you far from God-every chapter of the Bible read is without effect-every sermon you hear, every funeral you attend, leaves you still in love with the world. Thus all the diversified means which a merciful God employs accomplishes nothing for your highest good; and this because you are careless.

3. You ought to be troubled when you reflect what it is you are careless about, viz. your salvation. The man who is indifferent about his health is unwise enough; he who is regardless of his temporal interests can expect little commiseration: what then shall be said of him who hazards the salvation of the soul by neglect. You are here on probation for eternity. Christ has died that you might live-salvation is offered in his name—indifference is unbelief. In an hour you think not of, you may be called to render up your account; by mere neglect, by this indifference you now manifest, you may lose heaveneternal death is the fruit of a careless life, and this you may reap before tomorrow morning. What folly, what infatuation to expose your immortal interests when nothing is to be gained. · O ye careless ones, awake out of sleep— you have too much at stake to waste so much of this short life. If you would only pause, you could not fail to see the inconsistency of being so eager after the vanities of this world, while you are negligent of the realities of the world to come; of being so intent upon the acquisition of wealth, that may take to itself wings and fly away, while you are indifferent about the true riches; of grasping after momentary honor, while you let go immortal glory.

4. Another cause of alarm is found in the exposure of your present condition. Neglect of the gospel is enough to ensure destruction. How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? Many seem to think, if they escape those outbreaking sins which bring ruin upon men in this world, they are in no danger of the fearful gulf in the next; but this is a fatal mistake. Careless sinner, if you had never uttered a falsehood, or injured a neighbor, or stained your hands with a single trespass against society, you would still be in the gall of bitterness-your apathy is a crime for which no amiableness or morality can atone. You have never thought enough of God to know or to love him, or of Christ to believe in and follow him; of heaven to lay up your treasures there. Were you to die to-day in your present state of mind, your alienation of heart, your indifference to religion would exclude you from the kingdom of God. Nor would there be any thing arbitrary in this. A heart that is insensible to the claims of the gospel, that is cold and unmoved by the affecting scenes of Calvary a sinner that can stand all the day of his probation idle, in such a world as this, surely is not meet for the inheritance of the saints. Were you, therefore, not to commit another sin, were you to remain stationary as to moral character, you would be lost. By all that is heart-rending in the idea of eternal banishment from God, in the thought of lying down in everlasting sorrow, I would arouse you to reflection, and entreat you to lay these things to heart.

5. Another consideration is, no more powerful means will be employed to

awaken you to the concerns of your soul. You must know you cannot be saved in your present carelessness and indifference. You do not expect it. Consider what God has done to induce you to seek Him. His words are full of point and emphasis, calculated to carry conviction to every heart, to seal up every mouth, and to sweep away every excuse: What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it? How often would I have gathered you, and you would not. would not. That you might know God, his works have been spread out before you, showing forth his attributes; that you might early begin to serve him, parents and teachers have instructed you from the first dawn of moral being; that you might be convinced of sin, the broad and piercing light of the law has shined down into your heart; its high and holy precepts have been placed beside your conduct, that you might mark your deficiency; that you might escape the wrath of God, the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world has been set forth as the propitiation for sin. Ministers have preached, Christian friends have entreated, the Holy Spirit has been sent down to visit your heart, and still you are careless and unconcerned about the most solemn subject in the universe. Are you waiting to be moved? There is enough now bearing upon your heart to excite half the heathen world. The presence of one missionary moves all Birmah. The heathen have heard there is an eternal hell, and they are afraid of it; but you sit unmoved. They have learned there is an eternal God, and they desire to know Him; but you say, Depart from us, we desire not a knowledge of thy ways. They ask for tracts, while some here will not receive them into their houses. They regard with unspeakable interest a servant of Jesus Christ, and will take a three months' journey to enjoy the privilege of listening to his words; while you will suffer him to stand and stretch forth his hands without heeding his message. Ah! the poor heathen will rise up in the judgment and condemn you.

O ye careless ones, what shall be done to disturb your deep slumbers? If one rising from the dead would not make those hear who had Moses and the prophets, what new thing, or solemn thing, shall be said to them who, in addition, have Christ and the apostles? There is every reason to fear you will still sleep on. The fact that you are on the slippery brink of ruin, on the sides of a volcano ready to burst forth, does not alarm you; the fact that God stoops to warn you, and that he will not send another gospel, or make another display of his love before you, excites no interest. We are ready to exclaim with the prophet, Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night over the stupidity of sinners.

6. This carelessness is induced; it is not natural. When men first begin to violate their obligations, to depart from the living God, to live without prayer, to indulge in sin, conscience reproaches, their hearts smite them, sleep forsakes their eyes. A long process of hardening the heart is gone through with, before such a state of apathy is reached. Your indifference has all the force of habit. What saith the Scripture: Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil. A deceived heart turns the sinner aside, so that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand? A state of indifference, induced by the habit of neglecting the gospel fo years, will not be easily broken up. Novelty, which is a powerful auxiliary to truth, is lost upon such. If the mighty works which Christ wrought in Chorazin and Bethsaida, but which lost their effect by repetition, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, heathen cities, the first impression of such stupendous power had struck every mind-they would have repented. And if the same truths, which now leave careless sinners here indifferent, were delivered in the name of Christ to many sinners inhabiting the waste places of Zion, they would doubtless turn to the Lord.

This indifference, of which God complains, is voluntary. Go thy way, said

Felix to Paul, when I have a convenient season I will call for thee. He made his seriousness yield to his convenience. Who will say he was under a necessity to dismiss the apostle? He says no such thing. He might have taken a different course. And so might you have done, careless hearer; for you were not always as indifferent as you now are. When eternal things were pressed upon your regard, when the commandment came home to your heart, when the truth of God was felt, or a solemn providence filled you with seriousness, when you were agitating the question whether you should arise and go to your Father with the prodigal's confession upon your lips, who will say that an iron necessity bound you to the fatal course you took? What but a perverse will, an unbelieving heart, led you to dismiss your fears, to abandon your closet, to forsake the meeting for social prayer, to go back to the world? Ah! you must know that you acted deliberately; you would not come to Christ that you might have life; and now, if you die in your sins, if the Spirit of God never again awaken you, if you are left to sleep the sleep of spiritual and eternal death, it will be for ever true, that God called, and you refused; that he knocked at the door of your heart, and you would not open to him; that he stretched out his hands, and you would not regard him; that he sent his ministers to beseech you to be reconciled, and that you hated knowledge, and despised all his reproofs. 7. Another reason why you should be troubled is, this carelessness is a state of mind that provokes God to withdraw his spirit. This dead indifference springs from deep depravity; it is deeply criminal. If the heart were not deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, men would not be so insensible to divine things. In heaven there is no apathy; there ought to be none on earth. The truths of God possess sufficient interest and weight to excite every sensibility, to awaken every power. Must it not offend the Author of this record, to say that he has failed to reveal himself in a way to interest his creatures? They can be interested- —a romance, a fictitious scene, a work of the imagination, can hold them waking till midnight, while the gospel is nodded over, or wholly neglected. Ah! the cause is to be sought, not in the inspired record, but in the heart; it is enmity against God, not subject to his law, neither indeed can be. Men reject Christ because their deeds are evil; and continuing to reject him, they are in danger of being given up to blindness of mind, and hardness of heart. All habits gather strength by repetition. The man who sinned against his conscience the last Sabbath will be more likely to sin against it to-day. He who stifled conviction then is probably more disposed to do it now. In this way, God is provoked to leave them. His Spirit will not always strive with man. The sinner first sinks into indifference before he sinks into judicial sleep. O how many who were apparently not far from the kingdom of God relapse into stupidity, and never awake out of it. They have eyes, but they see not; their ears are dull of hearing, their hearts have waxed gross, so that they will not turn to the Lord. Wo unto you when God departs This is no uncommon case. In ancient times, God said, My people would not hearken to my voice; so I gave them up to their own heart's lusts. He then spake by prophets. If unbelief under the Old Testament dispensation thus provoked him, how must he regard those who reject his Son? You shall hear. Says Jesus Christ, O that they had known in this their day the things which belong to their peace; but now they are hidden from their eyes. God spake to the heathen, says the apostle, so as to take away excuse even from them; but they refused to hear, and their punishment is thus described: Because they liked not to retain God in their knowledge, he gave them up to a reprobate mind. And what will he do to those who turn away from him who speaks from heaven?

from you.

Let me say, in conclusion, your indifference will ultimately be broken up, and will aggravate your condemnation a thousand fold. The wrath of God is

revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness of men; and though the retribution sleep, it will come, and will not tarry. The measure of iniquity may be long filling up; but when it is full the judgment will be inflicted. The Jews were spared forty years after the Savior wept over their devoted city, and in the midst of his tears pronounced the irreversible sentence; but the cloud burst at length, and swept them away.

And, careless sinner, you may be continued,—the Sabbath may dawn upon you, the voice of prayer may fall upon your ears, while you sleep securely in your sins; but the summons of death will come: Give an account of thy stewardship, for thou mayst be no longer steward. You may reject the gospel, and despise its overtures, but that summons you cannot reject, that mandate you cannot despise. Then you will be indifferent no longer. Your dream of delusion will be dissipated; your vain thoughts will be expelled; your sweet hopes will perish like the spider's web. The awful realities of judgment and eternity will produce a conviction which will deepen for ever; the trial of the last day will correct your errors; the sentence of the Judge will destroy your self-complacency; the chains and darkness of the eternal prison will convince you, too late, that God is righteous when he judgeth.

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O, to awake in the world of despair, and find, from the actual infliction of God's wrath, what an evil thing it is to sin against God; to know, by irreparable loss, the value of blessings despised, of blood trampled in the dust, of grace rejected! How will it imbitter the soul to dwell upon scenes once passed through on earth, during a short probationary season! The light that now shines, if it do not guide to heaven, will add deeper shades to the darkness of the pit. Recollection will be an endless source of misery to the lost. Son, said Jesus Christ to the rich man in torment, REMEMBER that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things. What words can express the anguish of that soul thus reminded of lost opportunities, of slighted offers, of a Savior rejected, and a Spirit grieved? "O, had it not been for my foolish pride, my senseless avarice, I might now have been robed in purity, and seated at God's right hand: but I would not yield to the truth-I contended with God, and justly perish." Let these anticipated lamentations from the world of wo rouse you to a determined effort to throw off this lethargy that now settles upon you-call upon God-cast yourself at his feet—act for eternity with a more than mortal resolution-settle the point to-day, as you will wish you had done, at the judgment--you cannot be indifferent to religion long—there is but a step between you and death-O be indifferent no longer-if you wrap yourself in the delusion that to-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant— that time will be given you for repentance, though you now bury your talents and neglect the means of grace; in such an hour as you think not the avenger of blood may be upon you, and you may perish miserably for your presumption. Will you not, then, from this moment seek the Lord with your whole heart? Will you not call upon him while he is near? Will you run the desperate hazard of having all this work to perform on a dying bed? Defer the work, and your “dreadful end” may only furnish another warning to such as in health "forget God." But now give him your heart, and your life shall be peace, death a welcome messenger, and your eternity a scene of unmingled happiness and triumphant glory. AMEN.

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1 JOHN v. 10.—He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself.

THERE are many evidences to establish the truth of the Christian religion. We have the evidence of its first witnesses, who have declared unto us what they have seen and heard, and whose credibility is established by history. The supernatural occurrences, which have attended the establishment and propagation of our religion, are demonstrations of its truth and reality. The fact, that it has existed so long in the world, and survived every attempt to destroy it, is a strong evidence in its favor. Its intrinsic purity, and powerful efficacy exhibit another convincing testimony of its divine authority. All these considerations, with many more that might be mentioned, go to establish the truth of our holy religion.

But the best evidence which a man can have on this subject is his own experience. Of this evidence, the apostle speaks in the text, “He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself." From this declaration of the inspired apostle, it VOL. VII.-No. 10.

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