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have you not decided for God? Have you any reason? What is it? Is it that you are young, and you will put it off for the present? You may die this year. Should it be so, what will be your eternal state? or is it the world? Is it pleasure? Is it lust? Is it evil companionship? Or is it mere thoughtlessness and unconcern, that has prevented your decision? My young friend! whatever it may be, put it beneath your feet. Let no barrier stand betwixt you and God. will be happy if you are pious. Happy amidst the troubles of life that you have a God to go to who will support you under them, and deliver you and watch over you as your Heavenly Father. You will be free; yes, FREE from those pangs of conscience, those TERRIBLE ANXIETIES that disturb the peace of those who are not decided for God.

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But, some of you may be saying, "I acknowledge the supremacy of the claims of religious truth: I believe the Bible; I see the impress of its divinity on every page; 1 admit its holy influence upon those who love God: I have seen that true religion is the basis of all true virtue; that it is the bond of domestic virtue, happiness, and prosperity; and that nothing can compensate for it in affliction and death. But still I feel that present things charm me more, and have a stronger hold upon my heart: I am living for those around me, my father or my mother, my husband or my wife, my child or my home. I should like to be religious, I wish to be, but I am not." Then why is it? The fact is, you have never been in earnest upon the subject. Have you ever gone to the throne of God in prayer, confessed your love of present things, and prayed for the Holy Spirit to subdue it, to regenerate your heart, and make you decided for God, for truth, for spirituality, and holiness; and if you have, have you continued to persevere as one who was in earnest? I should as soon expect at this hour of the evening, to see the beams of the meridian sun illumine the place in which we are assembled, as to hear that God had denied your request. No, he will not deny it. May I net, O God, with reverence, tell such a person at this moment, and in thy name, that thou canst not deny such a request? Hast thou not said, "Ask, and it shall be given you, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you. For every one that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened?" If ye being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him? Blessed Saviour, we believe thy words. Apply them to the hearts of the undecided, that they may come to thee with sincerity and true repentance, and obtain the blessing.

There is a second class: those who at one time gave pleasing indications of a religious state: who probably went so far as to make a profession of religion, but who have declined from the ways of God, and have gone back into the world. In what terms shall I address you? In anger? No, I cannot: your state excites no anger, it excites the deepest pity. You did put your hand to the plough, but you have gone back. You professed to have tasted of the powers of the world to come, but you have put them away from you: and you are now feeding upon husks, in a world from whose influence, at one time, you hoped you had escaped. How dreadful is your state! Every pious soul in this place pities you, and prays for you. Angels mourn over you: the Son of God weeps over

you, and

you have grieved the Holy Spirit of God. Who can rejoice over your state? The devils? Yes, they may. Can wicked men? No, they have remorse and conscience enough not to rejoice over you. They may have gratified a malicious pleasure in making you bad like themselves, but they cannot wish your damnation. How long will you remain in this state of backsliding? The whole of this year? No; let the first Sabbath of it determine your abandonment of your present course. You have felt that the way of transgressors is hard. You may have been tempted to go great lengths in sin; tempted to deny the truth of the Bible; to blaspheme the name of Christ; to desecrate the Sabbath: but have you sunk so low as to do it without remorse? I cannot believe it. Is the way of recovery open ? Yes; broad as the expanse of heaven; and God is saying to you, "Return thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord, and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not keep anger for ever. Only acknowledge thine iniquity: that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God. Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord."

There may be some young persons present this evening avowedly irreligious: some probably who are infected with scepticism and infidelity. You may have been trained up in this state, or you may have been led into it since you have arrived at the period of youth. Are you happy? Perfectly happy? I hear the response of such a mind: "I am not happy: I have no foundation for happiness: I have been trying to lay a foundation in the rejection of the Bible; in gratifying the propensities of my nature; in seeking to be free from the shackles of religion; in escaping from the influence of religious persons; in refusing to look into religious books; and in studying infidel publications: but I am not happy. I have walked in the counsel of the ungodly; I have stood in the way of sinners; I have sat in the seat of the scornful: but I am not happy. I have laughed at the pious; I have ridiculed their foibles; I have made a jest of their sanctity: but I am not happy. I have neglected prayer; I have forsaken the house of God; and I have come here to-night only out of curiosity, to hear what the preacher could say to a young man who is not happy." Gladly would I reply to you for an hour. Come to me, unhappy young man, at any hour in private, and we will go into the details of your case. But in your present state you cannot be happy. You may be reduced by terrible lengths of profligacy and infidelity to a state of brutish insensibility; but not elevated to happiness. "There is no peace, saith my God, unto the wicked." "The face of the Lord is against them that do evil." "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men." "To be carnally minded is death." "If ye live after the flesh ye shall die." The whole Bible must be proved to be false, before a wicked man can be the subject of enlightened and permanent happiness. Is there then no hope for you? There is: "Repent of this thy wickedness, and pray God: peradventure the thoughts of thine heart shall be forgiven thee." "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world." Enter upon the paths of repentance and obedience. Hasten to the cross: there plead, "Lord, remember me;" and this night you will be forgiven. Enter the paths of pure religion, and you will find that they are ways of pleasantness, and paths of peace. You will then, when

you have felt the blessedness of the Gospel, say, "The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver."

But I am addressing many young persons this evening, who are truly pious; who not only appreciate religion, but who love it, and are daily bringing forth the fruits of righteousness and true holiness. You have been brought under the influence of religion by the grace of the Holy Spirit. God has revealed his Son in you the hope of glory. He has delivered you out of the power of darkness, and translated you into the kingdom of his dear Son. I need not pronounce any eulogy upon your state. Your experience has proved to you that a state of reconciliation, forgiveness, justification, and adoption into the family of God, is a state of enlarged and solid happiness. Never fail to acknowledge the great source of your happiness-the grace of God. Never confide in any earthly resources for the maintenance of spirituality, but in the grace and power of the Holy Spirit. Enter upon no compromise with the world, nor with sin. If you do, from that moment the world will gain an advantage over you, and your happiness sustain the shock of a moral earthquake. “Watch and pray lest ye enter into temptation." Cultivate a spirit of seriousness, watchfulness, and prayer. Enter upon a more thorough and prayerful study of the Scriptures. Seek to be more deeply impressed with the fact, that the increase of spirituality and the conformity of your hearts to the image of Christ, approximate you to the character of God, and to a fitness for heaven. Cultivate the love of Christ by an habitual study of his character, doctrines, and precepts. Let his love to you be correctly appreciated, and then yours will rise like the waters of a fountain, rising up to eternal life. Flee youthful lusts. "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." You have put on the armour, but the days of confiict are before you; be not therefore as those who are putting it off. See that you are well and fully employed. O, how much is to be done for yourself and for others! And while you look to your own soul, will you not care for others? Will you not assist in dispersing ignorance-in circulating religious knowledge-in ameliorating suffering, relieving poverty-in distributing the Scriptures, and in telling others of the salvation you have found? I believe you will. A new period of labour has opened upon us. What shall be its character? What shall be our doings? What shall be our history? Who can take the book, and unloose the seal, and read to us the history of the present year as to ourselves, our country, or the Church of the living God. It may be prosperous, or it may be adverse. It may be marked by no signal changes in the face of society; it may be a year of confusion, of political and ecclesiastical turmoil. Dear brethren, whatever may be its character—whatever may be the progressive developments as to political society-let us be in earnest about our religious state, our growth in grace, our preparation for heaven, and the increase and true prosperity of the Church of the living God. By and bye and we shall be, in relation to all the civil, political, and literary changes of the present scene, as though we had never lived. But to our religious state we shall never be dead: if it be neglected here, if despised here, we shall be alive to the insufferable and eternal punishment consequent upon our guilty state. But if it be begun here and perpetuated in heaven, we shall, in eternity, be alive to its blessedness and glory. The rest that remaineth for the people of God, the

inheritance which is incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, that will prove to us how true were the deep convictions of our present state, that "the law of thy mouth, O God, is better to us than thousands of gold and silver." The motto of the Israelites, when redeemed by the strong arm of God, was, "Onward to Canaan." Let ours, as redeemed sinners, be "Onward to heaven." Then shall we be embraced in that goodly number, who as the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion, with songs and everlasting joys upon their heads. Yes, we shall obtain joy and gladness: and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

THE ORIGIN AND CLAIMS OF INDEPENDENCY.

REV. J. BURNET.

SILVER STREET CHAPEL, JANUARY 8, 1835*.

"Then had the churches rest throughout all Judea, and Galilee, and Samaria, and were edified; and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were multiplied."-ACTs, ix. 31.

I HAVE selected these words, my friends, as the subject of the remarks that I intend to submit to you, because they bring before us a succinct, but at the same time a very striking and interesting description of the early churches of Christ, in that part of the world where the Gospel was at first diffused, and where the churches were at first formed. If this be a picture of the Church of Christ in Judea and in Samaria, after they had been formed by the inspiration of infallible wisdom-if this be a real picture of the interesting community, that first became the depositaries of that truth which brought "peace on earth," and "glory to God in the highest"-does it not then become an interesting question, in what way we are to enjoy the same privileges which they appear to have enjoyed; in what way we are to imbibe the spirit by which they appear to have been actuated; in what way we are, like them, to be "edified," and to "walk in the fear of God, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost," and, like them, thus to multiply our numbers by the diffusion of our principles; in what way we are, like them, to stand out thus distinctly from everything earthly, and be influenced by feelings that belong only to heaven, and originate only with the Spirit of the living God; in what way, in short, we are, like them, to become a fellowship separated from the earth, and growing in meetness for the community of heaven; while we exhibit here the germ of those feelings and of those affections, that are to be fully developed in our Father's kingdom?

In conducting such an inquiry as this, it is quite obvious, that, in order to be like them, we must ascertain the circumstances in which they were placed, and the authority by which they were constituted and governed. And, unless we can find elsewhere a different authority from that to which they yielded obedience, to which we are commanded to do homage; and unless we can find elsewhere a different church constitution and administration, from that which these churches possessed; we are then, as it appears to me, bound, in order to participate in their spiritual joys, to follow up the obedience which they yielded to the authority by which they were constituted and governed, and to adopt, in the outline, the principles by which these churches were ruled.

Now the subject to which I propose to direct your attention to-day, has been

* At the Monthly Meeting of the Congregational Ministers of London.

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