the pale of their particular denomination? Are they in general, I do not say members of these churches, though I might say this, but those who have been trained from their early years under an able and faithful ministry in these churches? And, on the other hand, who are main supporters of those literary, charitable and missionary institutions of our land, which have been formed and are so nobly carried forward, not for the exclusive advancement of a sect, but to bless our country and the world? I may seem to be a fool in this confidence of boasting, and yet I do but duly magnify my office, and plead for the best interests of men, when I point you to these fruits of a stated and educated ministry.

3. We are reminded by this subject of the great importance of sound doctrinal preaching. It is certainly incumbent on the ministers of the Gospel to "reprove, rebuke, exhort ;" to show unto men their sins, and with all boldness call them to repentance and works meet for repentance. But to what purpose is it to call men to repentance without setting before them,in the light of truth,the occasion, the reasonableness, the obligation, the necessity of their repentance; that is, showing them the nature, authority and sanction of the divine law; in the light of this law, the nature, extent and guilt of their sin: and together with these, the sincerity fullness, freeness and adaptation to their necessities, of the offers of divine grace in the Gospel? To what purpose,to exhort them to love God, without presenting that truth by which his loveliness is seen and his claims are felt? Or to exhort them to grow in grace, without leading them on from step to step in that knowledge of God, in the view of whose glory alone it is possible that they should be changed after his image from glory to glory? He indeed discharges a needful office who comes and shows me what I must do, and tells me that I am a guilty, lost creature, if I refuse; but he who, at the same time, so brings before me the objects of faith-he who, through the Spirit, so takes of the things of Christ and shows them to me, that I am constrained to do it-he is the minister not of the law only, but of the Gospel-"not of the letter that killeth,but of the Spirit that giveth life." It was, I think, under this impression, that Paul describes the "good minister of Jesus Christ," as one who is nourished up in the words of faith and of sound doctrine"-one who, from his own knowledge of divine truth, and experience of its influences in sustaining and strengthening the life of God in the soul, is prepared as a good steward, to give to the household their portion in due season. It was under the saine impression that with such awful solemnity he said to his son Timothy, "I charge thee before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the quick and dead, at his ap

pearing and kingdom, preach the word; be instant in season, out of season, reprove rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine."

4. It is a grievious sin for members of the churches to forsake their pastors. My brethren, if you may not be carried about with diverse and strange doctrines, you may not go after those who preach such doctrines, nor permit your children to go after them, nor give them your countenance in their endeavors to draw others away. No motives of curiosity, no pretensions to candor and openness to conviction can justify this. These are indeed subjects on which, although you have your opinions, humanity and courtesy and even candor, would demand that you be willing to hear what may be said on the other side. But the leading doctrines of the Gospel are not of this nature. To profess to hold yourselves open to conviction on these, is to profess that you have need of being convinced. But with the Bible in your hands, and the profession of Christ on your lips, you are without excuse, if you are not already convinced-if you do not know assuredly what those doctrines are, and why you receive them as the true Gospel of the grace of God; and knowing this, you cannot, as you love God-as you love his truth and the souls of men, give countenance to one who preaches another Gospel. "Cease, my son," saith the voice of wisdom," to hear the instruction that causeth to err from the words of knowledge."

Subjoined to the caution in my text, and explanatory of it is the charge-" Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves; for they watch for your souls as they that must give account." This charge is no less binding on the churches now than it orginally was on the church of the Hebrews. We do not indeed plead for an implicit submission, or even adherence to those who in the providence of God are set over you as your spiritual guides. This injunction of the apostle pre-supposes their guidance and instructions to be in accordance with the word of Him to whose teachings and authority alone, they and you owe an implicit submission. If they speak not according to this word, if they are ignorant or false, if they are blind leaders or incompetent, Paul surely does not command you to obey or cleave to them; but you are not therefore to go off to the standard of false doctrine. You may desire, and in an orderly way seek, an able and faithful ministration of the Gospel. I know not what you may seek if not this; but even though it be not immediately obtained, you may not therefore forsake the church which is "the house of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth." Your regard for the truth of God, and the stability and honor of your profession forbids it; and if for this cause, how much more for those infinitely slighter

causes, on account of which it is so often and so inconsiderately done.

My brethren of this church, you will not suppose that it is with any particular application to you, that I have been led to a consideration of this subject on the present occasion, further than as it is applicable to the churches generally at this day. Instability marks our country and age, and the causes of it are everywhere multiplied. On this account an able and faithful minister is the more highly to be prized; and we the more rejoice with you in the prospect now opened to you. The solemn bearing-the deep, the everlasting importance of the relation which these solemnities are designed to consummate, I need not explain to you. The choice of one to be to you a minister of Christ, and his consecration to the office-of one to be to you and your children the messenger of the Lord of Hosts, and to watch for your souls with reference to the day when you and he must stand before the judg-, ment-seat of Christ to receive your sentence for eternity-of one to meet you from Sabbath to Sabbath in public assembly, there to lead your worship before the throne of God, and dispense to you the word of life, and by all the influence he can exert or call down upon you and your children, make it the single business of his life to form you and them for a glorious immortality; what single transaction is there in the progress of life which you or he will remember with deeper interest in the ages of eternity. In this transaction you will naturally suppose that he who now addresses you feels a peculiar interest. The feelings of a father towards him on whom your choice has fallen cannot but embrace those to whom he is to sustain so dear and sacred a relation; while the years that have fled away since once, in youthful days, I stood in this sacred place, before him who for nearly half a century had been your pastor, admonish me that I must soon have done with earthly things. Should he who is now to succeed to his place remain in it half that time, and be to you a faithful minister of Christ and should you receive him as such, and obey the word by him dispensed to you in the name of the Lord, and, after you and I and he shall have finished our course, should we all meet before the presence of Him who died for all, washed from our sins in his blood, then shall I give thanks to God that he gave me such a son, and made him such, and you, that he gave you such a minister, and bound you to him for Jesus' sake; and he more than we all, will give thanks for the grace conferred upon him in putting him into the ministry, and the mercy which he will have obtained of the Lord, through your prayers, to be faithful. Such a result,glorious beyond all our comprehension as it is, is not too glorious for the riches of divine grace to bestow, or our hearts to hope for. Be this then our united and unceasing aim, relying only, and relying con

stantly and joyfully on him who said, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things, whatsoever I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Amen.

"Then began he to upbraid the cities where most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not: Woe unto thee Chorazin! woe unto thee Bethsaida! for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.-Matt. xi. 20. 21.

woe.

We have here the merciful and grieved Saviour pronouncing a woe. He pronounced it; he repeated it. How presumptuous and mistaken the speech of those who affirm, that the gospel has no It has a woe, and it is upon those who have lived under the sound of it, beholding its wonders, listening to its invitations, but who have not repented and embraced it. Woe unto thee Cho razin! woe unto thee Bethsaida! for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. "They would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes." The woe, then, is in part for having let pass unimproved the proper season of repentance. If in your circumstances, Christ means to say in this passage, these old inhabitants of the world would have repented years ago-would have repented under some of the earlier calls and exhibitions of the Gospel. You have passed these and have not repented. The woe then is based in part upon the diminished probability of your repentance, as persons who have past the most fitting season of repentance.

Let us then here consider some of the grounds of peculiar exposure to the gospel woe, in the case of those who have long been under the gospel, without yielding to it. The fear is, the danger is, that they will die without repenting.

1. Because, first, they have witnessed, without saving conviction and effect, the peculiar and attesting works of the gospel. We refer now to those works which demonstrate this scheme of mercy to be the scheme and truth of God; to those things which are both evidence and motive. In the time of Christ and the apostles, they were chiefly miracles. To miracles the Saviour alludes in the text. "If the mighty works which were done in