pensable for me, and the heart is, unconsciously almost, substituting something in place of the new birth. You do not depend on the fact that you have been born again as the evidence that you will be saved. You depend on something else-something which in your case will render such a change unnecessary. And when you think of meeting God, it is not with the evidence that the heart has been changed, but with something else that may then answer the purpose, or may be substituted in its stead.

(3.) There must be true repentance for sin, and true faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. On this point, no one here will doubt what are the teachings of the Bible. "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believed not shall be damned." No declarations can possibly be more explicit than those which occur respecting the necessity of repentance and faith. They are addressed to all classes of mankind; they admit of no exceptions. The man who, in the fair sense of the word, is a true penitent, and has true faith in the Lord Jesus, is prepared to meet God; the man who is not a penitent, and who has not that faith, is not prepared to meet him. He may be prepared for other things, but he is not prepared for that hour when he will stand at his bar. He may be prepared to adorn a profession; to charm in the social circle; to preside on a bench of justice; to occupy an exalted office; to go as an ambassador to foreign courts; but he is not prepared to meet his Maker. He may be rich, honored, beloved, talented, learned, but he is not ready to meet God. You may be amiable, accomplished, admired, flattered, but you are not prepared to meet God. For the truth of this, I plant my foot not on human reasoning or conjecture; not on philosophy or fancy; but on the authority of the Bible.

The sum of what I say is this: To be prepared to meet God, we must comply exactly with what he requires. We must meet his terms. It is not what we would have supposed would constitute a preparation; it is not what we may fancy will answer the purpose; it is not what we may choose to substitute in its place. Arsenic will not supply the place of bread in supporting life, or oil the place of water in putting out a fire; nor will amiableness, and accomplishments, and learning, and external

morality supply the place of what God requires. You can find no substitute for reconciliation with God. You can find no declaration that you may be saved by morality, or amiableness, or integrity, and that I must be saved by faith in the Lord Jesus. You can find no evidence that you may be saved by an upright life, and by your rank in society, and the poor and the down-trodden only by faith in the Lord Jesus. God makes no such distinctions among mankind. There are no such classes and grades in his kingdom. There are no royal paths to heaven. There are but two classes of people on earththe righteous and the wicked. There are but two paths that mortals travel-the way to heaven and the way to hell. There are but two places at the judgment barthe right and the left hand of the Judge. There are but two worlds beyond-heaven and hell-one the abode of the penitent and believing-the other of the impenitent and the unbelieving. There are no Elysian fields-where the proud, the gay, the fashionable, the impenitent may dwell-fields of fancy, of amusement, of poetry, of the dance and the song or realms of irreligious literature and science, where those may dwell who do not like to retain God in their knowledge.

No one ever need to have made any mistake on this point. If any one is ignorant of what is necessary in order to enter heaven, it is his own fault. It is not needful that any one should live without hope; it is not needful that any one should meet God unprepared. So plain is the account of this matter in the Bible that he may run that reads; and if any man comes to a bed of death unprepared, he does it with his eyes open. There is not a child here who cannot tell what is needful to be prepared to meet God; and I am not mentioning any new thing to you when I remind you that what you are relying on for salvation is not what God requires. Your amiableness is not the love of God. Your morality is not religion. Your accomplishments are not faith in Jesus Christ. Your pride of heart and character; your dependence on your own righteousness, is not repentance. Your indifference to religion is not the peace resulting from reconciliation with God; your cultivated stoicism when you think of death, is not the Christian victory over the grave. Phy

sical and moral courage; the bravery which defies death, is not the qualification with which to meet God.

IV. It remains only to add a remark on the fourth point proposed-the enquiry when we should prepare to meet God? You anticipate what I would say. You know what is the requirement in the Bible on that point. You have heard, to painful satiety, the arguments and commands which require us to do it now;-to attend to it to-day; to defer it no longer. You are familiar with the fact that the Bible requires it to be done at once; that it demands that every thing else should give way for that; that this day may end your probation, and that there is slender probability that preparation will be made on a dying bed. I might content myself with laying this command across your path- Prepare to meet thy God.' I might go to the Bible, and bring appeals and commands almost without number, all pressing the point, Prepare to meet thy God.' I might take you to the sinner's deathbed, and describe his dying horrors, and pointing you to that sad scene, say to you, 'Prepare to meet thy God.' I might ask you to recall the cases of sudden death-when the young, the vigorous, and the lovely, die—and pointing you to their solemn warnings, say, 'Prepare to meet thy God.' I might ask you to go and walk among the tombs; to measure the length of the graves there, to find out whether any die as young as you; or to recall, as you stand there, the image of some dear departed friend, or the last accents and warnings of a mother, and say to you in that solemn scene, 'Young man, prepare to meet thy God.' Or I might attempt a description of the scenes of the last day -of the rising dead; of the descending Saviour; of the throne of judgment; of the alarm and horror of the sinner there; of the awful doom which awaits him-and, standing by anticipation amidst these solemn scenes, might say, Prepare to meet thy God.' I had thought of a different line of remark with which to close my appeal. I had thought of making your own sentiments speak out, and of exhibiting the reasoning which is passing through your mind; and when the command comes, Prepare to meet God,' I had thought to say to you, as you say to yourself, No-do not obey it now. It is doubtful whether it is for you. It is for that miserable

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wretch-the outcast of society. It is for that profane and drunken man. It is for the miserable heathen; that poor slave; the weather-beaten seaman; the prisoner doomed to die; the profligate young man; the bold blasphemer. It cannot be for you, so amiable, so upright, so moral. Regard it not-at least now. Enjoy that party which you have in anticipation; go into that gay circle where God is forgotten; refuse to be found among the anxious and the troubled, who enquire the way to life. Not for you, so young, so vigorous, so full of hope, so loved, so anxious to please all; not for you with such a chance of life, and with a character so amiable, can such a command be intended; not for you certainly now, whatever may be in future years. Enjoy the world. Make much of it. Drive on its pleasures and its gains; and forget the God that made you, and forget that there is a Saviour that died for you, and that there is a grave, a heaven, a judgment, and an eternity.' But I must not speak so. Ye young of either sex; ye children, youth, men; ye amiable, upright, accomplished, moral, there is a grave; a God; a heaven; a hell. I solemnly warn you as a minister of religion-myself soon to die—to be ready for death; and were it my dying message, would say with the last lisping accents of my lips, Prepare Now to meet thy God' Let not that sun set, I solemnly conjure and charge you, in view of the judgment of the great day, without having done something-without having at least once prayed-that you may be prepared to meet God!

SERMON XXII.

THE BURDEN OF DUMAH.

Isa. xxi. 11, 12. The burden of Dumah. He calleth to me out of Seir, Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night? The watchman said, The morning cometh, and also the night.-If ye will enquire, enquire ye. Return. Come.

THIS is a single prophecy; and a whole prophecy. It has no immediate connection with what precedes, or with what follows in the chapter; and if it were taken out of the place which it now occupies in the Book of Isaiah, and placed in any other part of the Book, or even of the Bible, I do not see but it would be as intelligible as it is now. It is a striking specimen of the manner of Isaiah when he is full of a subject, and when, as is often the case, the prophetic words flow from his mouth not like a gentle and fertilizing stream, but like a torrent that has been obstructed, and that now rushes impetuously over all barriers. It is also a specimen of his manner when he is ironical or sarcastic; and when he designs to convey some truth of vital interest that shall reach the heart of a taunting enemy of God and his cause. The prophecy is abrupt, concise, enigmatical, obscure. It is probably little understood by most of the readers of this wonderful prophet, as it has been by most commentators. Yet, notwithstanding its obscurity, it is seen to be beautiful; and there are few readers of the Bible who do not wish to understand it. It is capable, I think, of an easy explanation; and is adapted to convey most important instruction alike to the friends and the enemies of God:-to the former, when desponding and disheartened in view of personal trials and calamities, or in view of a persecuted and distracted church, or of a darkened world;-to the latter, when they are disposed to taunt the friends of God; to revile them in suffering; or to ridicule their solicitude for the coming of the kingdom of the Redeemer on earth.

It is a vital part of the work of the ministry to explain