is found in the history of every being. The demand may be uttered in every age and region of the world,-" Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?"

and but one answer can be returned-the answer of confession and condemnation. "There is

none that doeth good, no, not one:" "the good man has perished out of the earth, and there is none righteous among the sons of men :"" every mouth must be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God." There cannot be raised one solitary claim of exemption: sin is a wide-spread pestilence, which has penetrated every haunt and habitation of man, and insinuated into every bosom the poison of a disease, which if left to uncontrolled operation, would rankle till it reached a consummation of eternal death.

From these principles, a solemn and pointed application is suggested to ourselves. We are, by nature and by practice, involved in the moral circumstances described. There is upon us the plague-spot, there is infused into us the poison. We are too apt to elude and put away individual reference, and deal but in ambiguous and indirect admissions, without any contemplation or conviction of personal pollution and personal wants. You must endeavour to bring the matter home. You must try yourselves by the tests to which moral impulses and conduct should be submitted, and form direct conclusions as to the

position in which you do yourselves stand in the sight of God. Consider the divine characterperfectly just and holy; consider the divine law-corresponding with the divine character, demanding from men unspotted purity and entire obedience, and admitting no qualification or appeal; consider your own tendencies and habits, and see what aspect these present towards the attributes and will of him whose volume of truth is unfolded before you ;-it is surely impossible, when there is an accurate and enlightened recognition of all that is thus to be regarded, but that the conviction of guilt will follow, and that the confession will arise from each," Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight!" Be not satisfied with acknowledgments which merely refer to the general condition of the species, but aim thus to individualize and apply: except this be your course, it cannot be that any impressions will be made, in the least exerting practical influence, or in the least advancing the spiritual and permanent interests of the being.

We have spoken of the aggravations of sin, as exhibited in the nation to which the prophetic language was first proclaimed. Such aggravations, as they may exist in our own day, I would not seek in the realms, where the true God is not known, and among the abominations of the heathen, where deeds are done at which civilized men may shudder. The aggravations

of sin are to be found in their highest form, where there are instituted powerful means to deter from its perpetration, and where yet it is committed in spite of restraints eminently calculated to direct the soul to goodness. When such are the circumstances of transgression, it is the most heinous of all. Thus it was with the Jews in former ages; and we well know, how and where we may find the exemplification now. We turn at once to the country in which we dwell, to find the sins which are as the "scarlet," or the "crimson" dye. Ours is a country, signally favoured with means the best adapted to lead from transgression, and excite to obedience. Here are possessed, under a dispensation of matchless grace, the collected communications of inspired truth,-comprising a full revelation of the character and will of God, of the condition and danger of man, and of the mode by which divine mercy may be extended, and eternal salvation may be gained; and these are attended and enforced by appropriate ordinances, and by appeals and exhortations of a ministry most suited to arouse the conscience, to convince the understanding, and to affect the heart. They who select and proceed in the courses of guilt and impenitence, when surrounded by instrumentality like this, truly are incurring the deepest stain that human nature can bear; and we aver it, from the soundest conclusions of argument, and from the decided testimony of Scripture, that the most flagrant iniquity of all, is the neglect of the great salvation.

What multitudes of our fellow-countrymen are putting from them the word of God, and judging themselves unworthy of everlasting life! And oh! who can look around on the forms of carelessness and guilt that meet us in every scene, and not tremble to think, that in this home of knowledge and privilege, there is an excess of sin to which the very worst of Jewish transgression is not to be compared ?—My brethren, as it is the work of the preacher to concern himself especially with those who assemble in his presence, it becomes me to challenge, whether there be not instances of aggravation here, and whether among some of you, I may not decidedly verify the assumption of our text? Have not some of you, to whom has been given, in clear and in affecting manner, the statement of the truth of God, yet gone forward in life in the continued practical rejection of it? You have been warned and invited; you have heard the terrors and the mercies of the Lord; you have been met both by argument and appeal; and still you preserve unbroken the enmity of your hearts, and continue unchecked the transgressions of your lives. Perhaps you have had pious parents and friends, who have pressed upon you the oracles of heaven, with all the power that tenderness and authority could employ; and perhaps you have been placed amidst scenes of providential dispensation, whose occurrences were as the loudest calls to the repentance without which you must perish; but you are

unchanged and unmoved still! No guilt can be so daring as this no aggravation can be so weighty as this: they whose sin assumes such an order of perpetration, stand forth in the very front of the hosts of evil, unparalleled in the enormity of their rebellion. We conjure to a solemn consideration; we entreat for full acknowledgment, and penitent return; we would have it, that without delay all should utter the cry- "God be merciful to me a sinner !"-lest the opportunities of grace should pass away for ever, and lest there should be presented before the appalled and ruined spirit, the emblems of justice, and the condemnation of despair!

This assumption of enormous guilt, to which we have endeavoured to direct you, in the form of personal application, is intended, you will observe, to introduce an interesting and delightful theme for in the text

II. THERE IS PROMISED THE BESTOWMENT

OF PARDONING MERCY.

It might indeed have been imagined, that, after such repeated accusations of iniquity, there would succeed only a threatening of doom; and that the God whose law was violated, and whose majesty was insulted, would come forth in terrors, and pour upon the offenders the vials of his wrath. Is he not just? Is he not jealous of