that your destruction was necessary to the general happiness. Until you become wiser than God, and have detected him in a mistake, never use that plea again.

Abandoning all these horrible charges, will you at last cast yourselves down and say, I cannot bear it? Ah, you should have thought of this in season, when you were going on unconcerned in sin, and turning a deaf ear to all the warnings and entreaties of God; when all heaven and earth could not rouse you to a serious thought. Poor soul, I know you cannot bear it: and why did you not think of this before? But if you cannot bear it, neither can God bear to give up the order of the universe for you. He once pitied you and labored to save you, by means which have filled all heaven with astonishment and the Church on earth with tears. But now "he that made" you "will not have mercy on" you, "and he that formed" you "will show" you "no favor."

What more will you say? I insist again on an unwavering answer. Come, bring up your mind to a point and tell me, What more will you say? Ah, you will be "speechless." "Every mouth" will "be stopped, and all the world" will "become guilty before God." You will clearly see that you deserve nothing better than eternal fire and everlasting contempt. And when you see things in this light, what mountains of guilt will crush you down. If you had committed murder and felt that you deserved to die, what an amazing pressure of guilt would sink you to the earth. What then when you

feel in your inmost soul that you deserve everlasting burnings? Ah, it will be an awful day. No language nor imagination can reach the tremendous reality. Why will you not think of it in season? Why will you not fall down at the feet of Christ and cast your poor, sinking souls on him? On him was laid the weight of all your guilt, if you will but flee to him with a bleeding and believing heart. O come. "Why will" you "die?" Why need you die? There is plenty of "balm in Gilead," "without money and without price." Why will you not make it your own? After all the terrible views we have taken, there is no need that you should perish. You are reprieved for a season that a full and free offer of pardon might be made you. It is most sincerely made. With all your tremendous guilt, you shall be as welcome to mercy as the least sinner on earth. There is no malice in God. There was pity enough in him to send his only begotten Son to die for you. He is in earnest in making you the offer. It is not merely made to others in your hearing: he means you. There is nothing in the way of his receiving you,-nothing in the law, nothing in your guilt,-if you will only return. Come, for "all things are ready." God is ready; Christ is ready; the Holy Ghost is ready. Angels, and "the spirits of just men made perfect," stand ready to catch the joy and circulate it through all heaven. Are you ready? O come.

SERMON XIII.

THE STRAIT GATE.

LUKE, XIII. 24.

Strive to enter in at the strait gate; for many, I say unto you, shall seek to enter in and shall not be able.

It is a matter of unspeakable joy that while devils are left without hope, a way is opened for selfruined man to pass from the deepest pollution to spotless purity, from the lowest depths of guilt and wretchedness to everlasting happiness and glory. It becomes us with gratitude to raise our heads from pillows of despair wet with tears, to inquire after this glorious way of escape. It is said that Christ is "the way, the truth, and the life;" but when we read that "strait is the gate and narrow is the way," this is not to be understood of the Author of salvation, but of the conditions of life. Christ is not a narrow way, but wide enough for a whole world to go abreast. But the course of holiness, self-denial, and conflict, through which we must

pass, this is a strait and narrow way. The gate intended is not regeneration, but the whole course of labor and watchfulness through which we must enter into the kingdom of heaven.

In regard to the term strait, there are two English words thus pronounced, though very different in their form and signification. One is opposed to crooked; the other, which is here used, signifies narrow and difficult, which is also the meaning of the Greek word employed in the passage. The text therefore may be paraphrased thus: Strive, (or agonize, as the original word imports,) to enter in at the narrow and difficult gate; for many shall seek to enter in and shall not be able.

My first inquiry is, In what respects is the way to heaven narrow and difficult? It it difficult as it is obstructed by all the corruptions of the heart and all the appetites of the flesh. Every step is in direct opposition to the whole current of depraved

It is difficult as it is overspread with briers and thorns. "Through much tribulation" we must "enter into the kingdom of God." Indwelling sin causes much trouble, and gives frequent occasion for the application of a Father's rod. It is difficult as it is beset with spiritual foes. A world full of temptations, and two worlds full of tempters, do all they can to render the way impassable.

It is narrow as regards the matter of duty. The world are more loose in their ideas of holy-living, and contemn as superstitious that precision which christians observe. In numberless instances they think that if they believe or act so and so it is well,