found true to his promises. The afflicted have found him a support; the dying have leaned on his arm; and the living now find him all that the heart desires to find in their God. I make use of this as an argument. It is the argument of history; of experience. You will not doubt that it is a legitimate argument, for they have had all the feelings of distrust, and complaining, and murmuring, which any can have now, and they have passed through all the circumstances which we can conceive of to test our confidence in God. It has been enough. They have been upheld, and have found it true that he would 6 never leave nor forsake them.'

My hearers, I have desired so to set this subject before you as to describe your state of mind, and to show you the propriety of being reconciled to God. I know not that I have succeeded in removing one difficulty from the mind; but I would trust that the remarks which I have made will not increase the perplexity. To you candidly I commit the remarks made; with God I leave them for his blessing. The conclusions which I think we have reached, are these

(1.) It is a duty to be reconciled to God :—a duty to him, for his government is just and right, and opposition to him is wrong.

(2.) It is unwise to maintain the state of mind in which many indulge-chafed and fretted against God, and yet using no means to ascertain his true character, and to be at peace.

(3.) The world is doing its Creator great injustice. It charges him with cruelty and wrong; holds him to be unworthy of confidence and love; is filled with hard. thoughts and fretted feelings; and is venting complaints and murmurings. Thousands murmur in their hearts; thousands complain openly; thousands curse him on his throne. What a world!

(4.) It is foolish as well as wicked to resist him. What can resistance avail against almighty power! Justice and wisdom, truth and love constrain us, therefore, to say to each one of you, 'Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace!'

SERMON IX.

REPENTANCE.

Acts xvii. 30. And the times of this ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men every where to repent.

THIS Command is as positive as any other in the Bible. It is simple and easily understood. From its obligations there are no exceptions made in favor of the great, the learned, the honored, the gay, the amiable, the moral. It is addressed to all men, in all climes, and in all ages of the world. It comes, therefore, to us, and is laid across our path. Repentance is here urged as the command of the Almighty. In other places it is declared to be indispensable to salvation, and we are assured that unless we repent we shall perish.

Yet men have many objections to yielding obedience to this command of God. At one time they allege, or they would allege if they were to express the real feelings of the heart, that they have done nothing which requires repentance. They have done no wrong which they have not endeavored to repair, and they are conscious of no crime. They are not idolators; they have not been guilty of murder, or robbery, or fraud, or falsehood. Their lives. have been upright, and why should they weep? At another time it is said, that repentance is wholly beyond the power of man; that it is a work which can only be performed by the aid of God; and the expression of wonder is scarce withheld that a command should be urged to do that which it is known will never be done but by divine assistance. At another time it is alleged, that the requirement is wholly arbitrary; that the terms of salvation have in themselves no intrinsic value or necessity; and that it is unreasonable that God should suspend eternal salvation on the exercise of repentance and faith. Why, it is asked, has he selected from all the exercises of mind these two as those in connexion with which he will be

stow salvation? Why these more than love, or hope, or joy, or zeal? Is there any such intrinsic fitness or value in sorrow and in faith in Christianity as to justify this selection as constituting the only ground of salvation? And why in this arrangement has he chosen these mere emotions of the heart in preference to a correct moral character as the conditions of his favor? Would it not be more worthy of God to make eternal life depend on virtue and benevolence; on honesty and truth; on the faithful discharge of our duties in the family and in public life, than on regret for the past, and on the mere exercise of faith? And why is it that he requires the man of many years and many virtues, and the youth of great amiableness and purity, to renounce all confidence in these virtues and all dependence on them, and to approach God weeping over the errors of a life? Can he require feigned sorrow? Can there be virtue in forced and affected tears? Again it is asked, why has God made the path to heaven a path of sorrow? Why must we go with the head bowed down with grief? Why has he made the road a thorn-hedge, and not planted it with roses? Are there no joyous emotions that might have been made the condition of salvation; nothing that would make the eye bright, and the heart cheerful, and the soul glad, that might have been selected of at least equal value with pensiveness and a heavy heart; with melancholy and tears?

Such are some of the feelings that spring up in the mind when we come to men and urge upon them the duty of repentance. My desire is, if possible, to meet these feelings, and to convince you that they are unfounded. I shall aim to show you that the requisition of repentance is not arbitrary, but that it is founded in the nature of things, and that a man MUST REPENT if he will ever enter into the kingdom of God. In doing this, I shall submit to your attention a series of observations, which will have. a direct bearing on the case before us.

I. In the first place, repentance is a simple operation of mind understood by all persons, and in some form practised by all. You cannot find a person who at some time has not exercised repentance. You cannot find a child who needs to be told what is meant by being re

quired to repent when he has done a wrong thing; and in the emotions of a child, when he feels sorrow that he has done wrong, and who resolves to make confession of it and to do so no more, you have the elements of all that God requires of man as a condition of salvation. You have broken the commands of a father. His law was plain; his will was clear. When the deed is performed, you reflect on what you have done. You see that his command was right; that you have done wrong by breaking his law, and have incurred his just displeasure. He has always treated you kindly; his commands. have never been unreasonable; and you cannot justify yourself in what you have done. You see that you have done wrong. By a law of your nature you feel pain or distress that you did the wrong. You resolve that you will go and confess it, and that you will do so no more. This is repentance; and this is the whole of it. You have. a friend. He has a thousand times, and in a thousand ways, laid you under obligation. He has helped you in pecuniary distress; shared your losses; attended you in sickness; defended your reputation when attacked. He himself, in turn, suffers. Wicked men blacken and defame his character, and a cloud rolls upon him and overwhelms him. In an evil hour your mind is poisoned, and you forget all that he has done for you, and you join in the prevalent suspicion and error in regard to him, and give increased currency to the slanderous reports. Subsequently you reflect that it was all wrong; that you acted an ungrateful part; that you suffered your mind to be too easily influenced to forget your benefactor, and that you have done him great and lasting injury. You are pained at the heart. You resolve that you will go to him and make confession, and that you will implore forgiveness, and that you will endeavor as far as possible to undo the evil. This is repentance; and this is all. Let these simple elements be transferred to God and to religion, and you have all that is included in repentance. Be as honest towards God as you have been many a time toward a parent or a friend, and you will have no difficulty on the subject. You will see that it was neither arbitrary nor unreasonable. The difficulty is, when you approach religion you are determined to find something unintelligible,

severe, and harsh, and you at once suppose that God in his arrangement is arbitrary and unkind.

I said that repentance was well understood by all persons, and practised by all. Nothing is more common on earth; on earth only. The angels in heaven having never sinned have nothing of which to repent; and of course it is unknown there. Devils, though having sinned long and much, have yet felt no regret at their crime, and have never been disposed to go and ask for pardon; and there is no repentance among them. Sinners that descend from our world to the world of wo, go beyond the reach of mercy and the desire of pardon, and there is no penitence in hell. But on earth what is more common? Who is there that has not exercised repentance? Who is there that has never felt that he has done wrong, and that has resolved that he would do so no more? No inconsiderable portion of every man's life is made up of regrets for the errors and follies of the past. No small part of the sighs and groans of the world are the bitter fruit of mistakes and crimes. No small part of the recollections of an old man are made up of remembrances of days of folly and of subsequent regret; of the indulgence of appetite and passion, and of the bitterly lamented fruits; of wrong thoughts, and wrong words, and wrong deeds over which he has had abundant leisure to mourn. These feelings occur on the remembrance of errors, follies, crimes. They invade the mind because we feel that we have done wrong, and that we ought to have done differently. They are not arbitrary. They are the operations of the regular laws of the mind; and they are operations which a generous and noble heart would not wish to check or prevent.

If such feelings actually occur on the recollection of the past, it is natural to ask why we should not expect to find them in religion? We see repentance every where else, and manifested in every man's life. We perceive regrets at the past starting up in the minds of men of all ages and all lands; and why shall it be regarded as strange that it is required in a system of religion designed to recall the world from error and from sin?

Further; the most deep and pungent feelings which men ever have are found in regrets for the crimes of the past. The mind no where else knows emotions so over