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O God, Gen. xlix. 18.
quickly, Rev. xxii. 20.
triumph, amidst the very sharpest of the conflict:
Thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to
triumph in Christ, 2 Cor. ii. 14. Blessed be the
Lord, my strength, which teacheth my hands to
war, and my fingers to fight, Psa. cxlix. 1.

Come, Lord Jesus, come
Witness those
Witness those songs of

Witness, once more, those tender, those instructive, those edifying conversations, which take place between the dying Christian and his pastor. The pastor addresses, to the dying person, these words on the part of God: Seek my face; and the dying believer replies: Thy face, Lord, will I seek, Psa. xxvii. 8. The pastor says: Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon thee, 1 John iii. 1. and the dying person replies; the love of God is shed abroad in my heart, by the Holy Ghost which is given unto me, Rom. v. 5. The pastor says: Seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God: the dying person replies; I have a desire to depart, and to be with Christ, Phil. i. 23. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: Wh‹ n shall I come and appear before God? Psa. xlii 2. The pastor says: Run with patience the race that is set before thee, looking unto Jesus, the au hor and finisher of thy faith, Heb. xii. 1, 2. The dying believer replies; I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, 2 Tim. iv. 7, 8. Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God, Acts vii. 56.

Such are the wonders which the grace of God displays, in favor of those who are in earnest to obtain it, and give themselves up to its direction. And such are the treasures, unhappy worldlings,

which you are sacrificing to a transient world, and its lying vanities. Such is the felicity which you experience, which you have already experienced in part, happy, happy Christians, whose condition is so far preferable to that of all the rest of mankind.

What now remains for me to do, after having employed my feeble efforts to draw you to God, by attractions so powerful: what remains, but to address my most fervent prayers to him, and to entreat that he would be pleased to make known those pure and exalted delights, to those who are, as yet, utter strangers to them; and that he may powerfully confirm, even unto the end, those to whom he has already graciously communicated them. With this we shall conclude the solemn

business of a day of sacred rest. We are going, once more, to lift up to heaven, in your behalf, hands purified in the blood of the Redeemer of mankind. Come, my beloved brethren, support these hands, should they wax heavy perform for us the service which Aaron and Hur rendered to Moses, as we are attempting to render the service of a Moses unto you. Assist us in moving the bowels of the God of mercy. And graciously vouchsafe, blessed Jesus, who, on the memorable day, of which we are now celebrating the anniversary, wert made higher than the heavens; set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; and who presentest unto God, in a golden censer, the prayers of all saints: Vouchsafe, blessed Jesus, to give energy to those which we are about to put up, and support them by thy all-powerful intercession. Amen.

N. B. The reader may here peruse the next sermon in the series, that on The Effusion of the Holy Spirit, which is the ninth of Vol. II. of Mr. Robinson's selection.

SERMON VII.

FOR A COMMUNION SABBATH.

MALACHI i. 6, 7.

A son honoreth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honor? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the Lord of Hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name? Ye offer up polluted bread upon mine altar; and ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? In that ye say, The table of the Lord is contemptible.

THO

HOUGH the spectacle, which the solemnity of this day calls to our recollection, did not directly interest ourselves, it would, nevertheless, be altogether worthy, separately considered, of detaining our eyes, and of fixing our attention. Men have sometimes appeared, who finding their last moments approaching, collected their family, summoned up their remaining strength, expressed a wish, in a repast of love and benevolence, to take a last, a long farewell of the persons who were most dear to them, and to break asunder, by that concluding act of social attachment, all the remains of that human affection which tied them down to the world.

What an object, my brethren, what a heart-affecting object, does that man present, who beholding himself on the point of being removed from all those to whom he was most tenderly united, desires to see them all assembled together, for the last time, and when assembled, addresses in terms such as these. "It was to you, whose much-loved society constituted the joy of my life, it was to you I took delight in disclosing the most secret emotions of my soul; and if it were still possible for any thing to call me back, now that my God is calling me away, it would be the inclination I feel, to prolong the happy days which we have passed together. But though the bands which unite us are close and endeared, they must not be everlasting. Is was in the order of human things, either that you should be called to close my eyes, or that I should be called to close yours. Providence is now declaring the supreme command, that I should travel, before you, the way of all the earth: it was my wish, before I undergo the irreversible decree, once more to behold the persons whom I have ever borne on my heart, to call to remembrance the sweet counsel which we have taken together, the connections which we have formed: and thus too it is, that I would take leave of the world. having given way, for a moment, to the expansions of my love for you, I rise above all the objects of sense; I am swallowed up of the thoughts which ought to employ the soul of a dying person, and I hasten to submit to the will of the sovereign disposer of life and death."

After

Jesus Christ, in the institution of this holy ordinance, is doing somewhat similar to the representation now given. His disciples were, undoubtedly, his most powerful attachment to the earth. The kind of death which he was about to suffer,

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