tread no farther the path where many have fallen to rise no more.'

IV. Once more. The heart deceives itself in its promises of reformation and amendment. I cannot dwell on this. Permit me to ask of you, how many resolutions you have formed to repent and be a Christian-all of which have failed. How many times have you promised yourself, your friends, and God, that you would forsake the ways of sin and live for heaven-all of which have failed. How often have you fixed the time when you would do this? And yet that time has come and gone unimproved. At one time you resolved to repent and be a Christian when you had enjoyed a little longer the ways of sin. God granted you the desires of your heart, but the time has not come when you were willing to be his. At another time you resolved to repent should you be laid on a sick bed. You were sick, but you then found-what you will always find-that a sick bed is no good place to prepare to die. Then you resolved, and in solemn covenant promised God, that if you should recover you would devote your life to him. You rose from your, bed, and you forgot him. At one time you resolved to be a Christian when you should be settled in life; then when you had more leisure; then when the cares of life should cease. At twenty, at thirty, at forty, at fifty years of age you may have resolved to turn to your Maker should you reach those periods—but on some of you the snows of winter have fallen, and yet a deceitful and a deceived heart is pointing you to some future period still. It deceived you in childhood; it deceived you in youth; it deceived you in manhood; it deceives. you in old age. It has always deceived you as often as you have trusted it in all circumstances of life-and yet you trust it still. It has deceived you oftener than you have been deceived by any and all other things—oftener than we are deceived by the false friend; oftener than the traveller is deceived by his faithless guide; oftener than the caravan is deceived by the vanished brook; oftener than the bow deceives the hunter; oftener than you have been deceived by any and all other men. There is no man whom you have not trusted more safely than your own heart; no object in nature that has been as faithless

as that—and I appeal to you if it is not deceitful above all things.

In conclusion, I make three remarks:

(1.) There is danger of losing the soul. The heart has deceived you in all the journey of life thus far; it has deceived you on all the points pertaining to salvation; it is 'still deceiving you. It has deceived you about your own character; about your real objects of attachment; about your power to resist temptation; about your resolutions for eternity. It has deceived you whenever and wherever you have trusted it on these points, and it is now deluding you with vain promises and expectations about the future. What shall hinder it from playing this same game till death shall close the scene, and you shall go to a world where delusions are unknown?

(2.) The heart of man is wicked. You have a heart which you yourself cannot trust. It has always deceived you. You have a heart which your fellow-men will not trust. They secure themselves by notes, and bonds, and mortgages, and oaths, and locks, and bolts;-and they will not trust you without them. You have a heart which God regards as deceitful and depraved, and in which he puts no confidence, and which he has declared to be "desperately wicked." But who does confide in the heart of man? The tempter, the seducer, the Devil. The tempter knows that men may be led astray. The seducer knows that allurements may be presented so strong as to undermine our virtue, and lead us to ruin. And the great adversary of God, practised in wiles, and understanding fully the human heart, knows that that heart may be led into sin. And I ask whether that heart in which neither God nor man; in which neither we nor our friends can put confidence, is a heart that is good and pure? Is it such a heart as is fitted for heaven? I answer no -and you respond to my own deep conviction when I say it must be renewed.

(3.) Finally, I would warn you affectionately of danger. I would conjure you to wake from these delusions to the reality of your condition. I would beseech you to look at truth, and be no longer under the control of a deceived and a deceitful heart. Life is too short to be playing such a game. There are too great interests at stake

Of

to be thus the prey of delusions. Death and the grave cannot be made a foot-ball with which to amuse ourselves; nor are heaven and hell mere creations of the fancy. all places, the earth is the least proper to be made the scene of deceptions. In the world of despair-if delusion were possible-it would mitigate pain, and would endanger nothing. Nothing there can be worse, even in imagination, than the reality. But here every thing is at stake. You play and sport on the verge of a precipice from which if you fall you rise no more. Death is real; and the grave is real; and hell is real; and the judgment is real. Not one of them is the work of fancy; not one can be changed by the imagination. It will be no fiction when you come to die; it will be no delusivę pageant when you shall stand at the judgment seat; it will be no day-dream when you shall hear the Judge solemnly say, "Depart accursed into everlasting fire." You pass on through scenes of affecting reality to another world. O go not to awake first to the reality of the scene when these eyes shall have closed on all the vain pageantry of this world, and when you will have awaked from your deiusion only to say "the harvest is passed, the summer is ended, and I am not saved."

7

SERMON V.

INDECISION IN RELIGION.

1 Kings xviii. 21. And Elijah came unto all the people and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? If the LORD be God follow him: But if Baal, then follow him.

WHEN these words were uttered, the ten tribes had revolted, and had established a kingdom by themselves. The throne was occupied by Ahab, a prince distinguished for wickedness and impiety. The worship of Baal had become the common religion of the kingdom of Israel, and there were comparatively few worshippers of the true God. Elijah assembled the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel for the purpose of testing, by a public miracle, the question whether JEHOVAH or Baal were the proper object of adoration. In regard to the state of things existing at that time in Israel, we may remark

(1.) That a large portion of the nation was decidedly inclined to the worship of Baal. That worship was patronized and countenanced by the king and queen; probably by most of the royal family, and, as a matter of course almost, by the mass of the people. So extensively did that worship prevail, that it was easy to assemble no less than four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal on this occasion, to make a public trial of the question whether JEHOVAH or Baal were the true God.

(2.) There were some who were as decidedly the friends of JEHOVAH. They were indeed few in number. Elijah thought himself alone; and was greatly disheartened at the thought that he was the only one left who acknowledged the true God. Yet God said to him that he had reserved to himself seven thousand men who had not bowed the knee to the image of Baal, (1 Kings xix. 18; Rom. xi. 4); thus proving, that even in the most discouraging circumstances, and in the widest prevalence

of irreligion, there may be more real piety than the desponding hearts of the few friends of God may suppose.

(3.) There was another, and evidently a large class, that was undecided. This was the class which Elijah particularly addressed in the text. They were hesitating and doubting; they were undetermined whether to acknowledge JEHOVAH as the true God, or whether to bow down before the image of Baal. What was the ground of their hesitancy we are not informed, but it is not improper to suppose, that on the one hand they were inclined to the worship of Baal because it was the popular religion; because it was patronized by the sovereign; because the way to office might have depended on conformity to it; and because it imposed few restraints, and permitted great license in the indulgence of corrupt passions; and, on the other hand, there was the remembrance of what JEHOVAH had done for their fathers; there was the conviction of conscience that his religion was pure and true; and there were his solemn commands to worship him alone, and his well-known denunciations against idolatry.

This class particularly Elijah addressed. He called on them to come to a decision. He demanded that they should make up their minds, and come to some settled determination as to the course which they would pursue. He urged that if JEHOVAH was the true God, it was but reasonable that they should devote themselves with undivided affection to him. If Baal, it was as reasonable that the worship that was due to him should not be withneld, and that they should not approach his altars with divided hearts and with wavering minds. JEHOVAH OF Baal, whichever was the true God, would be better pleased with settled views and determined purposes, than with irresolution and indecision, and with a system of worship that vibrated between one and the other.

The doctrine which is, therefore, taught in this passage, is the unreasonableness of indecision on the subject of religion. In discoursing on it, my object will be,

I. To classify those who are thus undecided; and H. To urge some reasons for an immediate decision. 1. Those who are thus undecided may be regarded as comprising the following classes.