of excitement, as when first awakened to the awful responsibility of his condition, as a breaker of God's covenant, and a despiser of those exceeding great and precious promises, which have been so dearly purchased for him, so graciously extended to him, and yet so ungratefully and undutifully forgotten and despised by him. Many circumstances have conspired in this country to reduce religion to a very low ebb: it has now, from year to year, thanks be to God, been more faithfully and earnestly pressed on the attention of all classes; our Churches are more fully attended; our communicants have increased in number and in seriousness. Schools have been established instruction extended to the slave; vice has received, I trust, a check; and every profanation of God's law has been boldly and openly denounced. The good have been encouraged in raising their voices in favor of religion; the bad have been kept from so openly avowing their flagitious and infidel opinions and many have, under God, been brought to acknowledge the error of their ways. All this change must necessarily be accompanied with much excitement: and the object, therefore of the Pastor must be to take advantage of this feeling, yet so as to keep his people within the just limits of soberness and truth. He must be careful, by his manner and his matter, not unwittingly to cherish those vague and enthusiastic notions, which, taken up without reason, are too

often proof against all reason; and serve only to fill the minds of weak persons with much spiritual conceit, to offend the truly religious and sensible servant of God, and to furnish the infidel with fresh subjects, at which to aim the shafts of his ridicule. The Service of Christ is a reason-· able service, and the dignity of its truths requires that they should be deeply weighed in all their bearings; cautiously and reverently treated, especially in their abstruse points; and delivered from the pulpit in that plain and simple manner, which may at once affect and edify our people. No theological term should ever be introduced into a popular discourse, which is not instantly and clearly defined, so that the people may not run away with sounds only, but know what the term really implies. How much error and dissension would have been avoided, among those at least who really love the truth and seek for peace, if this rule had been more observed, and both priest and people had employed themselves, the one in teaching, and the other in learning, the first principles of religion, rather than in turning aside to "vain jangling," as the Apostle speaks of some in his time, "desiring to be teachers of the law, yet understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm!" In using, therefore, any complex term, such as regeneration, repentance, justification, faith, &c., let me recommend you, occasionally, to define the sense in which the

words are taken by you. Your own opinion will be better known, and much unprofitable opposition thereby avoided.

A few observations on some of the subjectmatter of your discourses, may not be here unprofitable.

Build up the obligation of a holy life on the foundation of the faith which is in Christ Jesus. A true and saving faith can never, in ordinary acceptation, be separated from good works: the one is as the root of the tree; the other, under the dews of God's grace, as its natural fruit.

In warning your people not to content themselves with the form of godliness, without the spirit, be careful not to lower in their eyes those forms, which tend, as means, to the preservation of that spirit. Your duty, as God's Ministers, is not to disparage His ordinances, but to explain their intention, and enforce their obligation they are of God's appointment-and are we wiser than HE who ordered them?

In speaking of the operation of the Holy Spirit, inculcate on your people, that, without His preventing, assisting, and sanctifying aid, they can neither think, nor speak, nor do, aught that is right or well-pleasing unto God in Christ: but teach them to look for His presence, not in their inward feelings, but in their outward acts. If," says the Apostle to his Galatian converts, "we be led by the Spirit, we shall also walk in the Spirit"

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in all those virtuous fruits or graces of the Spirit, which the Apostle subsequently enumerates.

In discoursing on the agitated question of regeneration, refer to its original meaning. Regeneration, in the sense of our Church, is not the progress-still less the maturity-of holiness, but the new birth-the first beginnings and disposition of the heart thereunto; the door, or entrance, on that course of salvation, which, reconciled unto God in Christ, the Christian child, if he live to years of discretion, must henceforward run through the faith, that is in Christ Jesus. Baptism is the ordinarily-appointed instrument whereby we are thus born again. In Adam we all fell, and became amenable to God's wrath: in Christ, we are raised again, and restored to God's favour, as at the first. As before baptism, through the sin of Adam, we were counted as sinners and aliens from the grace of God; so, after baptism, through the satisfaction of Christ, we are justified, and considered as righteous. "As by one man's disobedience many were made sinners; so, by the obedience of one," writes the Apostle, "shall many be made righteous." If the baptized infant die before the commission of actual sin, we believe that, in virtue of the covenant entered into with him at his baptism, he is saved: if he live, he must pass forward from grace to grace-from

this, his first justification, as his starting goal, and vantage-ground-unto that final salvation, which yet awaits the faithful and obedient Christian at the close of a life spent in his Redeemer's service. Address your people, therefore, as already under covenant; as no longer having to choose their religion, or the master whom they will serve; but as already God's in Christ Jesus, and bound, as His creatures, His subjects, His redeemed, to love, obey, and trust in Him.

With regard to that spiritual nourishment, of which the soul stands in need, and which is ordinarily conveyed through the sacramental ordinance of the Lord's Supper, explain to your people, that the bread and wine are not only the appointed representations of Christ's death and passion, but the sure pledges and means, whereby the body and blood of Christ are spiritually conveyed to the souls of the faithful. You will thus,

without appearing to combat the errors of the Romanist and the Socinian, avoid both those extremes, which, though by different roads, end equally in destroying the nature of a sacrament; the one by substituting the thing signified for the sign, the other by depriving the sign of its accompanying grace.

On the difficult question of predestination, confine your people to the clear passages of scripture : tell them--for you will tell them truly and scripturally that salvation is the gift of God,