day basking under its rays. But let me put you in mind, that unless you admit the light of the glorious gospel of Christ to shine in your hearts, you will still be the children of darkness, and confined in the blackness of darkness for ever. This is intolerably shocking, even in supposition. Suppose your sins should be the sins of men of learning and knowledge, the most daring and gigantic sins on this side of hell; suppose you should turn out sinners of great parts, fine geniuses, like the fallen angels, those vast intellects, wise but wicked. Suppose it should be your highest character, that you can harangue well, that you know a few dead languages, that you have passed through a course of philosophy; but as to that knowledge which sanctifies all the rest, and renders them useful to ourselves or others; that knowledge which alone can make wise to salvation, and guide you to avoid the paths of destruction, you shun it, you hate it, and choose to remain contentedly ignorant in this important respect; suppose your parents, who have been at the expense of your education; your friends, who have entertained such high and pleasing expectations concerning you; your careful instructors, who observe your growing improvements with proportional pleasure; suppose, that after all this generous labor, and all these pleasing prospects, they should see you at last doomed to everlasting darkness, for your voluntary abuse of the light you now enjoy ;-suppose these things, and— but the consequences of these suppositions are so terrible, that I am not hardy enough to mention them. And Of shall they ever become matters of fact!

Therefore, my dear youth, admit the light, love it, and pursue it, though at first it should make such discoveries as may be painful to you. By discovering your danger in time, you may be able to escape it; but never expect to remove it by the silly expedient of shutting your eyes. Be impartial inquirers after truth as to yourselves, as well as other things, and no longer attempt to put a cheat upon yourselves. Alas! how childish and foolish, as well as wicked and ruinous, would such an imposture be! The gospel, in this particular, only requires you to be honest men; and surely this is a most moderate and reasonable demand. Therefore, be ye children of the light and of the day, and walk as such, and then it will be a blessing to the world and to yourselves, that ever you were born.

XXIX.

A NEW YEAR'S GIFT.

"And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed."-Rom. xiii. 11.

TIME, like an ever-running stream, is perpetually gliding on and hurrying us, and all the sons of men, into the boundless ocean of eternity. We are now entering upon one of those imaginary lines of division which men have drawn to measure out time for their own conveniency; and while we stand upon the threshold of a new year, it becomes us to make a solemn contemplative pause; though time can make no pause, but rushes on with its usual velocity. Let us take some suitable reviews and prospects of time past and future, and indulge such reflections as our transition from year to year naturally tends to suggest.

The grand and leading reflection is that in the text, with which I present you as a New Year's Gift: Knowing the time, that it is now high time to awake out of sleep.

The Romans, to whom this epistle was written, were Christians indeed, in the judgment of charity; they were such whose salvation the apostle could point at as near approaching: Now, says he, is your salvation nearer than when you believed; and yet he calls even upon such to awake out of sleep. Even sincere Christians are too often apt to fall into negligence and security. Now such a state of dullness and inactivity is often represented by the metaphor, Sleep; because, as sleep disables us from natural actions, and blunts our animal senses, so this spiritual sleep indisposes the soul for the service of God and spiritual sensations.

Hence it follows, that to awake out of sleep signifies to rouse out of carnal security, to shake off spiritual sloth, and to engage in the concerns of religion with vigor and full exertion, like men awake. This is a duty proper at all times. There is not one moment of time in which a Christian may lawfully and safely be secure and negligent.

Yet the apostle intimates, that some particular times call for particular vigilance and activity; and that to sleep at such times is a sin peculiarly aggravated. Now, says he, it is high time for us to awake out of sleep; this is not a time for us to sleep; this time calls upon us to rouse and exert ourselves; this is the hour for action; we have slept too long already; now let us rouse and rise.

The reason the apostle urges upon the Roman Christians to awake at that time is very strong and moving; it is this: Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. Or, as he expresses it in the next verse, the night is far spent, the day is at hand. The gloomy, turbulent night of the present state is near over; the dawn of eternal day is just ready to open upon us; and can we sleep at such a time? What, sleep on the very threshold of heaven! sleep, when salvation is just ready to embrace us! sleep, when the dawn of celestial day is just about shining around us! Is it possible we should sleep at such a time?

The text implies that Christians should always be growing in grace; and that the nearer their salvation is the more lively and zealous should they be; and since it is nearer this year than the last, they ought to be more holy this year than the last. The nearer they are to heaven the more heavenly they should be.

My chief design, at present, is, to lead you to know the time, and to make such reflections upon it, as its nature and circumstances require, and as are suited to our present conditions.

The first thing I would set you upon, as a necessary introduction to all the rest, is the important but neglected duty of self-examination. Methinks it may shock a man to enter upon a new year, without knowing whether he shall be in heaven or in hell before the end of it; and that man can give but a very poor account of the last year, and perhaps twenty or thirty years before it, that cannot yet give any satisfactory answer to this grand question. Let us therefore resolve, this day, that we will not live another year strangers to ourselves, and utterly uncertain what will become of us through an endless duration. This day let us put this question to our hearts: "What am I? Am I a humble, dutiful servant of God, or am I a disobedient, impenitent sinner? Am I a disciple of Christ in reality? or do I only wear his name, and make an empty profession

of his religion? Whither am I bound? For heaven or for hell? Which am I most fit for in temper? For the region of perfect holiness, or for that of sin and impurity? Shall I stupidly delay the determination, till it be passed by the irrevocable sentence of the Supreme Judge, before whom I may stand before this year is at a close?"

If I should push home this inquiry, it will probably dis, cover two sorts of persons among us, to whom my text leads me particularly to address myself: the one, entirely destitute of true religion, and consequently altogether unprepared for a happy eternity, and yet careless and secure in that dangerous situation; the other, Christians indeed, and consequently habitually prepared for their latter end, but criminally remiss or formal in the concerns of religion, and in the duties they owe to God and man. The one sunk in a deep sleep in sin; the other nodding and slumbering, though upon the slippery brink of eternity. Now as to both these sort of persons, it is high time for them to awake out of sleep. And this exhortation I would press upon them, first, by some general considerations common to both; and then by some particular proper to each respectively. The general considerations are such as these:

I. Consider the uncertainty of time as to you. You may die the next year, the next month, the next week, the next hour, or the next moment. And I once knew a minister who, while he was making this observation, was made a striking example of it, and instantly dropped down dead in the pulpit. When you look forward through the year now begun, you see what may never be your own. No, you cannot call one day of it your own. Before that day comes, you may have done with time, and be entered upon eternity. Men presume upon time, as if it was en tailed upon them for so many years, and this is the delusion that ruins multitudes. How many are now in eternity who begun the last year with as little expectation of death, and as sanguine hopes of long life, as you have at the be ginning of the present! And this may be your doom.

Therefore, if sinners would repent and believe; if they would obtain the favor of God and preparation for the heavenly state; and if saints would make their calling and election sure; if they would be of service to their families, their friends, their country, and mankind in general, now is the time for them to awake out of sleep, and set about

their respective work. Now is the time, because this is the only time they are certain of. Sinners, you may be in hell before this year finishes its round, if you delay the great blessings of religion any longer. And saints! if you neglect to improve the present time, you may be compelled to shoot the gulf of eternity, and launch away to unknown coasts, full of fears and perplexities.

II. Consider the shortness of time as to you. Time, in its utmost extent, including what is past from the creation, and what is future to the conflagration, is nothing to eternity. But the time of your life is vastly shorter. That part of time which is parceled out to you, is not only uncertain, but extremely short; it is uncertain when it will end, but it is absolutely certain it will end very soon. You cannot hope to surpass the common standard of long lives; and that is but seventy or eighty years. A shorter space than that will probably convey you from this world to heaven or hell. And is it not time then for you to awake out of sleep?

III. Consider how much of your time has been lost and misspent already. Some of you that are now sincere servants of God may recollect how late in life you engaged in his service; how long you stood idle in his vineyard, when his work was before you and his wages in your offer. How many guilty days and years have you spent in the drudgery of sin, and in the base neglect of God and your immortal souls. Others of you, who have the noble pleasure of reflecting that you devoted yourselves to God early in comparison to others, are yet sensible how many days and years were lost before you made so wise a choice, lost in the sins and follies of childhood and youth. And the best of you have reason to lament how much of precious time you have misspent-how much of it has been wasted upon trifles, or in an over-eager pursuit of this vain world. Does not the loss, upon the whole, amount to many days, and even years? And a day is no small loss to a creature who has so few days at most to prepare for eternity.

As to many of you, is it not sadly evident you have lost all the days and years that have rolled over your heads? You have perhaps managed time well, as to the purposes of the present life; but that is the lowest and most insignificant use of it. Time is given as a space for repentance and preparation for eternity; but have you not