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of your religion. Let the great motives of Christianity not slumber unheeded in your Bibles; but bring them (nay, rather pray God to bring them; for it is His work to do it aright)—bring them so to bear on your consciences, so to be mixed up with your first principles of action, that they may animate you to all gratitude, obedience, patience, and perseverance.

Will you then (for this is the question) will you be the decided Christian? You see what is meant-Will you "yield yourselves unto God?" It does not mean, Will you be gloomy and melancholy? It does not mean, Will you retire from social life, into the solitude of the desert, or the dreariness of the monastery? but, will you be the Christian indeed? Will you, wherever you are thrown by the providence of God, endeavour faithfully to love and serve Jesus Christ? Will you at his bidding, cheerfully renounce the sins and vanities which cannot make you truly happy, or he who is your friend, your best friend, will not ask you to renounce them. Will you believe on him; which is not merely a duty, but a great and blessed privilege? Will you be taught by his Spirit; be made humble, renewed, contented, consistent, and rejoicing Christians? Will you carry a Christian spirit of love and gentleness into all your duties? Will you (for again we come to that point) will you, "yield yourselves unto God?" Now that question is proposed to every one of you individually. Whose will you be? Whom will you serve? Two masters are offered you, whichever way you look: God and the world; God aud the flesh; God and Satan. Deliberate, choose, decide. But, O, if entreaties, if advice, if prayers of ours can avail, you will all, if you have not made the good choice before, now choose for God, and decide to be, through his grace, the faithful and decided Christian.

We do not wish to conceal, that there are difficulties in carrying out this choice. Our Saviour himself advises his disciples well to count the cost. We know that it is not a fashionable thing to give up ourselves to God. We know that in being truly pious there is a struggle to be maintained; a fight to be fought; self-denial to be exercised. We know all this; and it would be dishonest to wish to conceal it from you. But still, brethren, the motives, the grand and mighty motives, of the love of God, of the death of Christ, of his intercession with the Father, of the energetic grace of his Spirit; the heaven which he is gone to prepare a place full of greatness, blessedness, and glory, stretching beyond the narrow vale of mortal life, into the boundless regions of eternity; here are motives which ought to outweigh all difficulties, and to decide every one of your hearts for God.

Where, then, are the youths who will give in their names in secret to God this very night? Do it with deliberation; for it is a matter of vast importance: do it with much prayer; for God by his Holy Spirit alone can effectually enable you to "yield yourselves unto him :" do it with great humility; for our own sinfulness, and the freeness of God's love in Christ Jesus, alike concur to humble us do it with real faith; do it with grateful love; yea, do it with joyful praise.

You, my brethren, who have made this good profession of giving yourselves up to God publicly years ago, allow me now to ask, Are you confirmed, decided, and real Christians? Review at this season your own covenant engagements with God. Consider your Christian privileges; examine and compare whether your life and spirit at all correspond therewith. Let none of us forget, it is

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not baptism, it is not confirmation, it is not human ordinances, however excellent, that will serve. There must be personal penitence for sin; personal faith in the Redeemer personal earnest prayer; and personal devotedness to God. Have we any thing of this? Then let all be deepened and confirmed. Come not, we say to you-Come not, again, afresh to the rite of confirmation. Your public profession of faith and devotedness to God has been made before many witnesses: but act up to that profession; carry out that devotedness; renounce your sins; give up the world's vanities; mortify the lusts of the flesh, as you have promised to do: obey God's commands in their full spiritual sense and in order to walk truly, believe from the heart the noble articles of our Christian faith.

May I ask of those present who were confirmed in this parish three years ago, some of them-six years others of them-and eight years others (of whom we would not now lose sight) may I ask of them how they are going on in the Christian life? Of the numbers who were then confirmed, some have since gone into eternity; some are removed to distant parts; some, I have cause to know, and many I would hope, have been going on in a consistent Christian spirit, growing in knowledge, in love to God, and in devotedness to his service. Go on and prosper, I would say to all such: forget the things behind; reach forward to the things before. You cannot be too decided for God; you cannot love your Saviour too much; you cannot renounce sin too entirely. Let your faith become more simple, and it will be yet more influential. Be more in prayer: pray for spiritual affections, and holiness of heart. Show to those around you, that religion is not a mere jargon of words; not a mere profession of the lips: but by meekness, lowliness, kindness, gentleness, and practical holiness, adorn the doctrine of God your Saviour in all things.

Some among that number, I fear, by continuing in carelessness and sin, are disgracing the public profession they then made. Then were our labours, our instructions, our sermons, our examinations, all thrown away? We cannot, and we must not, thus give you up. Again we entreat you to "yield yourselves unto God." For are your consciences easy while you are continuing in sins and vanities, which you have solemnly promised to renounce? Are you satisfied to go on thus? Shall the present fresh band of candidates for Christian profession outstrip you in the Christian race? Are you just where you were years ago? Nay, that you cannot be; for if you have been throughout that period, continuing in a careless, sin-loving state, then your habits of sin are become more confirmed; your hearts more hardened; and your case, I had almost said, more desperate; but I must retract that word: God forbid that I should consider any sinner's case as desperate on this side the grave. The grace of our Lord is still omnipotent: the Saviour is still able to save to the uttermost; his blood yet can cleanse from all sin. But I have to entreat you, in his strength, and in prayer for his Spirit, to make now another and a vigorous effort. Remember your peace, your happiness, your comfort, yea, your soul's life, are deeply concerned in this request. Only believe aright, and "all things become possible to him that believeth." We will not, and we must not, give you up. In regard to our approaching confirmation, should there still be any young persons, who, after much hesitation or diffidence, are at length persuaded and resolved to be confirmed; let them still come to us for preparation. Should

there be any who have honest doubts and difficulties as to any great point of faith in the Christian religion, it would be both our duty and our pleasure, to assist them to the utmost of our power. I account this one of the peculiar benefits of confirmation, that it brings ministers and their people somewhat more into personal connexion. And if, as I believe, the duties and trials and the afflictions which ministers are called to pass through, besides the benefit of their own souls, are also intended to prepare them to sympathize the better with one and with another of our people, then let us but know your difficulty; and perhaps in the school of Christ we may have been taught, or from the Scriptures we may have been shewn, what will give you assistance. But let there be none among you who trifle with the religion of Christ. It is not a manly thing to scoff at those truths which good men love, and angels admire, and at which the devils tremble. Weigh and consider the great articles of our faith. Study them, not through the medium of prejudices and misrepresentations; but as they stand in all their simplicity and majesty, connected with all holiness and comfort in the Holy Scriptures. Study them with prayer for God's enlightening grace and we shall, I am persuaded, see even those who were sceptical come forward, and rejoice to become, and to avow themselves through God's grace, desirous to be numbered among, his people.

May this, then, be the secret prayer of every one here present, both before leaving this place, and in the privacy of retirement this evening: "Lord, incline me by the great motives of thy Gospel to yield myself more and more unto thee, in body, soul, and spirit; and to become, through thy grace, the truly confirmed and decided disciple of Christ." Let that resolution thus made tonight, be registered in heaven let it be publicly made in the confession of Christ, on all due occasions, before men. Renew it solemnly from time to time, especially at the Lord's Supper. Thus live, dear brethren, as God's people, and as his redeemed servants. Thus endeavour, through his grace, to live devotedly, happily, and always rejoicing in the Lord, till death, as his messenger, shall come; and then again, in another and a sweeter sense, “yield yourselves unto God." It is your Father calls; let your soul run at his bidding: "Father, I come: Father, into thy hands I commend, I yield, my spirit; for thou hast redeemed me, O Lord thou God of Truth."

CHRISTIAN SYMPATHY.

REV. W. JAY.

SURREY CHAPEL, MARCH 15, 1835*.

"Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others." PHILIPPIANS, ii. 4.

"EVERY one for himself, and God for us all." Now is not this a precious maxim? And yet you continually hear it; and it contains, it expresses, it breathes, the very soul, creed, philosophy, morality, and religion of thousands in this vile, selfish, catch-penny world. But you are not to follow the multitude to do evil, but to follow after righteousness, to follow after things by which you may edify one another, and act from principle, and Christian principle too. And therefore I bring forward this morning another maxim, and instead of saying, "Every one for himself, and God for us all," we say, "Every one for another, ✔ and God for us all." This was the maxim of our inspired Apostle. Witness his address to the Corinthians: "Let no man seek his own, but every man another's wealth." And witness the words which I have now read: "Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others."

If I were to beg a female to be virtuous, or to urge a man not to love money, and not to steal; it would probably be deemed a charge; at least it would be considered as an insinuation. But exhortation, be it remembered, does not always imply censure or reflection; yea, it is not always an excitement to begin, but frequently an encouragement to persevere, and to increase, in well-doing. For when a thing is remarkable and lovely, we always wish it to be more so; and we naturally desire that excellency of every kind may have free course and be glorified. Hear the language of our Apostle to the Thessalonians: "But as touching brotherly love, ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another. And indeed ye do it toward all the brethren which are in all Macedonia: but we beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more." And to whom was the passage before us addressed? To the Philippians; a church remarkably dear to the Apostle, and whose members were pre-eminent for the qualification here recommended. You will observe, that this is the only one of all the Apostle's epistles that contains in it nothing of blame and never was there a people more disinterested than these Philippians. Observe this in one particular instance-in their liberality towards the Apostle himself: "Now, ye Philippians, know also, that in the beginning of the Gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church communicated with me as concerning giving and receiving, but ye only. For even in Thessalonica ye sent * On behalf of the Surrey Chapel Alms' Houses.

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once and again unto my necessity. Not because I desire a gift: but I desire fruit that may abound to your account." And so when they heard that he was a prisoner at Rome, they made a collection of the converts among them, and sent the present to him by the hands of one of their pastors or deacons and, therefore, says he, "I have all things, and abound: I am full, having received of Epaphroditus the things which were sent from you, an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well pleasing to God. But my God shall supply all you need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus." Yet these very people, these unselfish and generous souls, these are the people he admonishes in the words of our text, "Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others."

You will not wonder, therefore, that I address the same words to the people of Surrey Chapel this morning; a congregation from the very beginning distinguished by their benevolence, and the praise of whose generosity is in all the churches. Let us then consider what this admonition forbids, and what it enjoins. And while you resolve to avoid the one, and to pursue the other, may the God of peace be with you. Amen.

Let us first endeavour to explain and qualify the admonition as to WHAT IT FORBIDS. "Look not every man on his own things." Why not? Who is likely to look upon them if he does not himself? Reason and Scripture, then, combine to enforce upon us self-attention.

And therefore you may observe, in the first place, that you may, and you ought, to look upon your own things, as to the soul; to see that this be pardoned and renewed; that this has a title to heaven, and a meetness for the inheritance of the saints in light; that this be fed with the bread of life, and clothed with the garment of salvation: there, indeed, your care is to be supreme. The one question, which, above every other, you are to ask is, not "What shall I eat, and what shall I drink, and wherewithal shall I be clothed?" but, "What must I do to be saved?" The salvation of the soul, my dear hearers, is the one thing needful: and therefore you are commanded to "work out your salvation with fear and trembling :" therefore you are commanded to "labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life" therefore you are commanded, to "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness." "Ah," says Bunyan, "when I was first awakened, nothing surprised me so much as to see how my fellow-creatures were affected by their temporal troubles: I had enough of these; but their pressure was nothing to that of my apprehension of the wrath to come: and no indulgence in any thing else could relieve me, until he said unto my soul, 'I am thy salvation.''

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Again, you may, and you ought, to look on your own things as to your bodily health. Not that you are to be finical and fanciful; afraid to put your heads out of doors; dangling about always with an apothecary at your heels: no, but to maintain a rational care of it, in the use of proper means. health is a most invaluable blessing: it is the salt that seasons, and the honey that sweetens, every other enjoyment. It is to be valued not only on the ground of enjoyment for what would affluence be without health ?-but also on the score of usefulness. How many of the duties of life and of religion must be either

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