call that has been sounded in our ears, from our very infancy. Every time we have seen a Bible in our shelves, we have had a call. Every time we have heard a minister in the pulpit, we have had a call. Every time we have heard the generous invitation, "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye unto the waters," we have had a solemn, and what ought to have been a most impressive, call. Every time that a parent has plied us with a good advice, or a neighbour come forward with a friendly persuasion, we have had a call. Every time that the Sabbath bell has rung for us to the house of God, we have had a call. These are all so many distinct and repeated calls.

These are past events in our life, which rise in judgment against us, and remind us, with a justice of argument that there is no evading, that we have no right whatever to the privileges of the eleventh hour.

This, then, is the train to which we feel ourselves directed by this parable. The mischievous interpretation which has been put upon it, has wakened up our alarms, and set us to look at the delusion which it fosters, and, if possible, to drag out to the light of day, the fallacy which lies in it. We should like to reduce every man to the feeling of the alternative of repentance now, or repentance never. We should like to flash it upon your convictions, that, by putting the call away from you now, you put your eternity away from you. We should like to expose the whole amount of that accursed infatuation which lies in delay. We should like to arouse every soul out of its lethargies, and giving no quarter to the plea of a little

more sleep, and a little more slumber, we should like you to feel as if the whole of your future destiny hinged on the very first movement to which you turned yourselves.

The work of repentance must have a beginning; and we should like you to know, that, if not begun to-day, the chance will be less of its being begun to-morrow. And if the greater chance has failed, what hope can we build upon the smaller?—and a chance too that is always getting smaller. Each day, as it revolves over the sinner's head, finds him a harder, and a more obstinate, and a more helplessly enslaved sinner, than before. It was this consideration which gave Richard Baxter such earnestness and such urgency in his "Call." He knew that the barrier in the way of the sinner's return, was strengthened by every act of resistance to the call which

it.

urges

That the refusal of this moment hardened the man against the next attack of a Gospel argument that is brought to bear upon him. That if he attempted you now, and he failed, when he came back upon you, he would find himself working on a more obstinate and uncomplying subject than ever. And therefore it is, that he ever feels as if the present were his only opportunity. That he is now upon his vantage ground, and he gives every energy of his soul to the great point of making the most of it. He will put up with none of He will consent to evasions. your none of your postponements. He will pay respect

to none of your more convenient seasons. He tells you, that the matter with which he is charged, has all the urgency of a matter in hand. He speaks

to

you: with as much earnestness as if he knew that

you were going to step into eternity in half an hour. He delivers his message with as much solemnity as if he knew that this was your last meeting on earth, and that you were never to see each other till you stood together at the judgment-seat. He knew that some mighty change must take place in you, ere you be fit for entering into the presence of God; and that the time in which, on every plea of duty and of interest, you should bestir yourselves to secure this, is the present time. This is the distinct point he assigns to himself; and the whole drift of his argument, is to urge an instantaneous choice of the better part, by telling you how you multiply every day the obstacles to your future repentance, if you begin not the work of repentance

now.

Before bringing our Essay to a close, we shall make some observations on the mistakes concerning repentance which we have endeavoured to expose, and adduce some arguments for urging on the consciences of our readers the necessity and importance of immediate repentance.

1. The work of repentance is a work which must be done ere we die; for, unless we repent, we shall all likewise perish. Now, the easier this work is in our conception, we will think it the less necessary to enter upon it immediately. We will look upon it as a work that may be done at any time, and let us, therefore, put it off a little longer, and a little longer. We will perhaps look forward to that retirement from the world and its temptations which we figure old age to bring along with it, and falling in with the too common idea, that the evening of life

is the appropriate season of preparation for another world, we will think that the Author is bearing too closely and too urgently upon us, when, in the language of the Bible, he speaks of “to-day,” while it is called to-day, and will let us off with no other repentance than repentance "now,"seeing that now only is the accepted time, and now only the day of salvation, which he has a warrant to proclaim to us. This dilatory way of it is very much favoured by the mistaken and very defective view of repentance which we have attempted to expose. We have somehow or other got into the delusion, that repentance is sorrow, and little else; and were we called to fix upon the scene where this sorrow is likely to be felt in the degree that is deepest and most overwhelming, we would point to the chamber of the dying man. It is awful to think that, generally speaking, this repentance of mere sorrow is the only repentance of a death-bed. Yes! we will

meet with sensibility deep enough and painful enough there with regret in all its bitterness-s with terror mustering up its images of despair, and dwelling upon them in all the gloom of an affrighted imagination; and this is mistaken, not merely for the drapery of repentance, but for the very substance of it. We look forward, and we count upon this→→→ that the sins of a life are to be expunged by the sighing and the sorrowing of the last days of it. We should give up this wretchedly superficial notion of repentance, and cease, from this moment, to be led astray by it. corruptions at the power of them.

The mind may sorrow over its very time that it is under the To grieve because we are under

the captivity of sin is one thing-to be released
from that captivity is another. A man may weep
most bitterly over the perversities of his moral con-
stitution; but to change that constitution is a dif-
ferent affair. Now, this is the mighty work of re-
pentance. He who has undergone it is no longer
the servant of sin. He dies unto sin, he lives unto
God. A sense of the authority of God is ever pre-
sent with him, to wield the ascendancy of a great
master-principle over all his movements-to call
forth every purpose, and to carry it forward, through
all the opposition of sin and of Satan, into accom-
plishment. This is the grand revolution in the state
of the mind which repentance brings along with it.
To grieve because this work is not done, is a very
different thing from the doing of it. A death-bed
is the very best scene for acting the first; but it
is the very worst for acting the second.
pentance of Judas has often been acted there.
ought to think of the work in all its magnitude, and
not to put it off to that awful period when the soul
is crowded with other things, and has to maintain its
weary struggle with the pains, and the distresses,
and the shiverings, and the breathless agonies of a
death-bed.

The re-

We

way

2. There are two views that may be taken of the
in which repentance is brought about, and whichever
of them is adopted, delay carries along with it the
saddest infatuation. It
It may be looked upon as a
step taken by man as a voluntary agent, and we
would ask you, upon your experience of the powers
and the performances of humanity, if a death-bed is
the time for taking such a step? Is this a time for