which sweep into nothing the anxieties of the careful, and the frivolities of the thoughtless; which conclude, unanswerably, against all false estimates of moral condition, as grounds of hope towards God; and, if allowed to operate, force from the convicted conscience the alarmed exclamation of my text-What must I do to be saved?

Happy, my brethren, yea, thrice happy for those who, either by some startling providence of GoD or by the equally efficacious and more ordinary method of his grace operating through the written word, are brought to this point, and awakened to their true condition before the dream of life is surprised by the realities of eternity. For if there be a life beyond this present mortal existence, if death do not put a final period to our being, if joy or sorrow, and for ever, too, await us beyond the grave, what equally important inquiry can occupy the attention of accountable beings with that of the condition into which we shall pass when we drop these mortal bodies and enter upon a new and never-ending existence.

From this passage of Scripture, therefore, I will first lay before you some reflections calculated to explain and apply the text, and then give the answer to this anxious and most important inquiry-What must I do to be saved?

I. These words, we know, my hearers, were uttered by the jailer of Philippi, on occasion of the midnight earthquake which attended the imprisonment of Paul and Silas, because of the religion which they preached. This was an event very alarming in itself, and, connected with the circumstances which preceded the arrest of the apostle and his companion, well calculated to produce that deep impression of guilty fear, which imminent danger awakens in the conscience of the sinner. The man, indeed, was a Heathen; but he was not, therefore, without those apprehensions of futurity which are inseparable from human nature. The doctrine of those servants of CHRIST had been the subject of attention in the city, and was doubtless known to him. And the miraculous attestation to its truth which the earthquake afforded, produced, at once, full conviction of his danger as a sinner ignorant of GoD and unprepared to meet his righteous judgment; but with hope of deliverance through those VOL. II.-16

heralds of mercy, whose prayers and praises were thus visibly answered.

Are we, therefore, to expect such extraordinary manifestations of divine power now, my brethren and hearers, in order to awaken men to their danger as sinners, and convert them to GOD? No, by no means. On the contrary, we know that miraculous interposition has long been withdrawn from the gospel, and that the pretence to it, in any shape, is a mark of Anti-Christ. We also know, that even in the age of miracles all conversions were not thus produced, and the probability is, that such were few in proportion to the whole number of converts to the faith. Of this we have a particular instance in this same city of Philippi, under the same ministers, in the conversion of Lydia, by the ordinary operation of the HOLY SPIRIT, disposing the heart to believe and obey the truth as it is in JESUS.

With the proof of divine origin for Christianity, confirmed by centuries of opposition and success, and with a recorded Scripture, established as the word of GOD by the highest attestation, men are not now to wait or look for miraculous displays of the SPIRIT, and those who do, will wait and look in vain for aught but the deceits of an enthusiast's imagination. The providences of GoD are, indeed, so ordered as to work together with the warning and instruction of his holy word, to lead men to repentance, so great is his mercy to us ward; but independent of this it is now made the duty of all men, every where, to believe the gospel, to acquaint themselves with the will of God, to repent and cease from sin, and to pray earnestly for the light and succour of his HOLY SPIRIT, to make his word life and power to their souls.

The effect of thus obeying the divine precepts is just as certain as the promise of God to bless the means of grace, faithfully used, is sure and unbroken. And if men were only as desirous to be saved as GoD is that they should be converted in order thereto, the ordinary means of grace would be just as efficient without as with those extraordinary operations, which, after all, derive their whole moral effect from the influence of the HOLY GHOST.

The words of the text also suggest to us the hopeless condition of mankind by nature. What must I do to be saved? Hence, it appears, that in his actual condition the jailer was not saved, that he was made sensible of this, that he considered it a state of great danger, and was prompted to seek deliverance from it. Now it is very certain that the earthquake could not, of itself, do this. But the discoveries of the gospel, as preached by St. Paul, applied to the conscience by the SPIRIT OF GOD, were fully competent to show the true condition of man as a fallen creature, and of himself as one of that guilty race. Reflection and self-examination could not fail to strengthen this conviction of divine truth, which the earthquake confirmed, by showing him the imminence of his danger, and, by bringing his fears to a point, made him a sincere supplicant for the light of life. The words of the text, then, are not altogether the consequence of fear and alarm, but the result of reflection on previous information, quickened into effect by a visible display of the power of God; nor yet are they to be confined to this or to any other extraordinary instance of conversion to God, but, either in themselves or in the sentiment which they so strongly express, ought to be the heartfelt language of every child of Adam to whom the word of this salvation is sent.

The leading discoveries of the gospel are, the fall of man by the commission of sin, the corruption of his nature, his consequent separation from GoD and condemnation to death temporal and eternal; and the recovery of this fallen creature by the undertaking of the LORD JESUS CHRIST, his consequent reprieve from the execution of the sentence, with the provision of adequate means for his renewal and sanctification by the gift of the HOLY GHOST. These are the great and momentous truths which are commanded to be preached among all nations for the obedience of faith, which every man must believe and apply to himself, and from which it follows, that the inquiry of my text, must, at some period, be the personal inquiry of all who shall ever come to GOD on the terms of the gospel. As fallen creatures we come into life, my dear hearers; as fallen creatures we shall pass out of this present short and uncertain existence into endless separation from GoD, unless these discoveries of

divine mercy are so realized as to convince us of the one truth, in such wise as to bring us to desire the other with all the intensity of a heart that feels its own ruin and hopelessness without help from GOD.

Now, who is here present to whom these discoveries are not made? who among you is ignorant of these awful truths, and incapable of drawing the just conclusions from them? and which of you knows not that death and judgment, that heaven and hell await the use made of them by accountable beings? And yet how few, comparatively, have ever seriously put to themselves the question of my text, have ever followed out the occasional misgivings of their own hearts, the alarms of sickness and danger, and the warnings of the word of God, so as to meet fairly, and faithfully to consider the state of their souls as saved or lost? Under such circumstances, my friends, why stand ye here all the day idle? Do you wait for some convulsion of nature-some sign from heaven to startle you into salvation? Is not the veracity of GoD sufficient for your faith to build the commanded duties of religion upon? sufficient for you to choose that good part which, even reason teaches, may be gain and cannot be loss? Is God's command to repent and believe the gospel of no force without a sign from heaven? O deceive not your own souls, and cloak not your love of sin by pretending an insufficient revelation. Know ye not, that they who continued to require more signs, in the midst of signs and wonders, were left to the hardness of their own deceitful hearts? A wicked and adulterous generation asketh after a sign, but there shall no sign be given unto it but the sign of the prophet Jonas. And have you not that sign in the death and resurrection of JESUS CHRIST, by virtue of which only the gospel with all its blessings has come unto you? O beware, lest that come upon you which is writtenBehold ye despisers, and wonder and perish, for I work a work in your days, a work which ye shall in no wise believe, though a man declare it unto you. A work, indeed, shall be wrought in confirmation of the gospel, which you shall see but it will then be too late to profit by it. An earthquake you shall have, in the convulsions of an expiring world, when the earth and the sea shall give up their dead; a sign from heaven, also, you shall have

in the Son of man coming in the clouds, with power and great glory. How will you then feel, how will you then look back upon the precious opportunities now slighted, and curse the wilful unbelief which has betrayed you to perdition. O let the overwhelming thought now fix the commanding truth upon your conscience, and occupy your meditations until it draws from your heart the solemn inquiry, what must I do to be saved?

For the text, furthermore, suggests the reflection, that there is something to be done on our part, in order to our being saved. The jailer was conscious that as he was, he was not savedwas not in a state of favour with GOD-and this very consciousness, as it was the ground of his alarm and inquiry, so was it the entrance to his salvation. Ought not, then, the same consciousness to produce the same effect now, and bring every person who has not a well-grounded Scriptural hope of God's favour through the LORD JESUS CHRIST, So to doubt the safety of his condition, as to inquire scrupulously into it, holding himself in readiness to forego whatever is in opposition to the gospel, and to embrace whatever it requires? This appears to have been the temper of the jailer, and, surely, it ought to be the disposition of all who, like him, have reason to fear their condition for hereafter to be either dangerous or doubtful. Religion, my dear hearers, the religion of JESUS CHRIST is not an abstract speculation of the intellectual faculty, but a system of practical truth for personal observance and improvement. What must I do to be saved? What is my particular duty? What am I to learn, and believe, and do, in order to escape everlasting destruction and obtain eternal life? But this is the commencement only the first fruits of a truly awakened sinner, of a sincere seeker after God, which must be followed up by doing whatsoever is commanded in the gospel. How thoroughly at variance, then, with this active engagement on so high an interest, is the loose indifference of these latter days to the discoveries of the gospel, to the high and holy hope which it gives to man? What thousands and tens of thousands are flattering themselves with the benefit of this hope, who have never resorted to those appointed means of grace by which it is certified and maintained,