of the Church, and to come to me or to any other minister in whose discretion and learning he may confide, and open his grief, in order to its being examined and removed. In the meantime, to all of you in general who have on your conscience no sin you will not forsake, and no scruple which, you cannot yourselves remove, I address the lan guage of our Church in that earnest exhortation she directs us to use on such an occasion as this, and, "according to mine office I bid you in the Name of God, I call you in Christ's behalf, I exhort you as ye love your own salvation, that ye will be partakers of this Holy Communion." Think, then, upon these things, I earnestly pray you, all ye who have hitherto neglected this Holy Sacrament through thoughtlessness and indifference. Rouse yourselves from that insensibility into which you are sunk. Think that every feeling of gratitude and duty to your blessed Lord calls upon you for obedience to His commandment. Think that you are called upon for the same obedience by a concern for your own interests, by all the regard that you have for the present and future welfare of your souls. Examine yourselves by the help of God's Holy Spirit, with a view to the worthily partaking of that Holy Sacrament, as on Sunday next; then draw near to the Lord's Table with faith, and in the full assurance that He will assist your sincere endeavours, and will hereafter most plentifully reward them. But if you obstinately persist in indifference to His commandment, and will not perform the conditions which He has ordained

for your salvation, remember, that you persist at your own peril: it is your own act if you now refuse to come to His Table, when the Lord is graciously pleased to invite you, and it will therefore be your own fault if the approach to His Table in heaven be shut against you, and if, when you cry "Lord, Lord, open to us!" He shall answer you in those dreadful words, "Depart from Me, I know you not !" God forbid that these terrible words should be used to any one of you, my brethren: nay, rather may He give you His preventing and assisting grace, that you may become and continue worthy partakers of Christ's Body and Blood; in which, if you do not worthily partake, i.e. if you partake not at all, "you have no life in you;" but if you do, "you have in you eternal life," and "Christ will raise you up at the last day."

SERMON XV.

Village Feasts.

HEB. X. 25.

"Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching."

WHAT

HAT day approaching? The day in which God will judge the world! the day of judgment! when all men shall rise again with their bodies, and shall give account of their own works. A fearful day indeed to them who are doing ill, and living without God in the world, nor consider how they are required to profit by the talent they have received. The day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men! If any see not the signs of this day's approach, then let him understand that the day of his own death is approaching and near at hand; and that is as the day of judgment to him, for there is "no repentance in the grave." Nor let him think that the state and condition of death is altogether as a sleep, to last we know not how long, or even, as unbelief suggests, never to have an end. As far, indeed, as the body is concerned, a sleep it is; so testifies that calm expression which the countenance in every corpse puts on when the sufferer has ceased to breathe.

But

this is true only of the body: the spirit sleeps not; nor is it without a conscious sense of good and evil. Think of those two who, when they died, are said to have been carried, the one "into Abraham's bosom," while the other "lifted up his eyes in torment." Should it be said, This is a parable, and not the relation of what really happened, I answer, True; but a parable is an image of the truth.

I know a person now living who was once drowned, but afterwards providentially restored to serve God by serving his country and his generation well; whereby he hath reaped a full measure of that reward which often attends the good and the brave in this life, for the encouragement of them who may be moved to tread in their steps and follow their example. For the powers given by Almighty God to them that have the government, are not only for the punishment of evil doers, but also for the praise of them who do well, and who are therefore the authorized dispensers of honours and rewards to such as merit them. When the body had ceased to breathe, and the last struggle of the drowning man was over, and all power to help itself was gone, there came indeed, so far as that was concerned, a dull and calm consciousness of rest: but the mind and memory were in proportion roused and quickened, and every scene and action of the past rose and presented itself in rapid succession to the imagination of the drowned person, with all their bearings and relations, and the character of good or evil that belonged to them, in the clearest and

liveliest manner, from the accident that had just occurred, to the earliest acts of conscious recollection of the child. There are many other instances like to this, that have occurred, but I mention it to shew not only the possibility, but the certainty and reality of a state of consciousness after death to which we shall all pass, and wherein of course the righteous and the wicked will be at once tormented or comforted according to their past lives.

There is no repentance in the grave! The present is the only time for that; "The night cometh when no man can work." "Behold! now is the accepted time! Behold! now is the day of salvation!" Let us be sure, then, that whatever is to be done, must be done now,-in which we have to look every one to himself, and imitate not the manners of those who go backwards instead of forwards, and seem fast losing advantages they have long possessed :-"Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more as ye see the day approaching!"

Our Lord has been pleased to say, "Whoso confesseth Me before men, him will I confess before My Father which is in heaven," and "Whoso denieth Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father which is in heaven." Nor is this to be understood of such a denial only as that of which the Apostle was guilty, when in the palace of the High-Priest he thrice denied that he had knowledge of One at that moment in the hand of His enemies, and about to be condemned to death, whom he had long consorted with, and