ing devotional exercises: serious recollection; humble and fervent prayer; and a steadfast purpose of amendment.

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1st. Thus saith the Lord, consider your ways;" "consider how great things he hath done for you," what special mercies have been provided for you, what precious means of grace bestowed upon you, without which all that God hath wrought for sinners might be yet unknown to you, and to your children, or at least, very irregularly and insufficiently made known to you. Recollect you have had the gospel preached to you, and the word of salvation read to you, in public and in private, for several years. Your children have been instructed in religious and useful knowledge. You have been warned by the judgments, persuaded by the terrors, besought by the mercies, consoled by the promises, admonished by the precepts, and encouraged in the ways of the Lord (Psalm xix., 11; 2 Cor. v.. 11; Rom. xii., 1; Psalm xciv., 19; Psalm cxix., 104; 2 Chron. xvii., 6.) The bread of life, in the commanded ordinance of the Lord's supper, has been offered for your acceptance; the waters of baptism, no less enjoined by Christ, have been sprinkled upon your offspring. All the vital truths of God's revealed will have been fully set before you; man's sin, and God's grace; man's unworthiness, and God's goodness; the sinner's guilty ruin, and the Saviour's gracious remedy; repentance towards God, faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ, and sanctification by the Holy Spirit. I entreat you to "meditate upon these things," to reflect whether they have led you to Christ, and produced in you a new and spiritual existence. If they have not, oh, let a serious recollection of these precious but abused mercies excite in you, 2ndly. Humble and fervent prayer. Let the recollection of God's prolonged and continued mercies and means of grace produce in you unaffected sorrow and seriousness of spirit for your past neglect and indifference of them. Oh, may a humbling sense of

your backslidings, lukewarmness, and unconcern, lead you to return to God, and seek him anew in penitence and contrition of heart! Confess your sins, and seek his face, and he will turn again and revive you, according to his own most gracious promise: "If my people which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin." Oh, that God, by his Holy Spirit, would give you a renewed sense of his redeeming and pardoning mercy, for then would spring up in your deadened affections, new life, and love, and fervour in his service. No longer could you be content to grovel in the dust of sin, and wallow in the filth of degrading pursuits and habits. No longer would you willingly walk in the darkness of ignorance and error. No longer could you find pleasure in vanity, or impurity, or carnal indulgence. No longer could you rest satisfied in living a careless, ungodly, and unprofitable life. Oh no, indeed! The quickening and enlivening influences of God's Holy Spirit would prick the heart, and the stammering tongue would be unloosed, and both in concert would find relief in some such penitential language as the confessions of our purely Evangelical Church, which are so suitably provided for her believing members, particularly in the communion and commination services. Dear friends! the utter indifference of some amongst you, and the careless inattention of others to the spiritual blessings with which you are so highly favored, are so distressing to me, as your minister, and so fatally injurious to your own souls, that I seriously propose to you, as a hopeful means of begetting in you a better and more thoughtful state of mind, that some portion of every day, however small, may be set apart for the purpose of fervent and special prayer; that there may be a revival of God's work amongst us, and within us, and that a season of refreshing from the presence of the Lord may visit and rest upon us (Psalm lxxxv., 6;

Acts iii., 9.) In the hope that you will be induced to accede to this proposal, and for the assistance of some who may not be able to find language for a special subject of prayer, I have supplied you with a form at the end of this address.

And, lastly, after serious recollection and fervent prayer, put in practice a steadfast purpose of amendment. Most of you, I fear, have been sadly remiss in the various duties which God expects of you, regular attendance at church, family worship and instruction, and secret and private devotion (Heb. x., 25; Eph. vi., 4; Gen. xviii., 19; Mat. vi., 6.)

By his grace enabling you, awake from the sleep of spiritual death; slumber no longer in careless inattention to your souls, and thoughtless independence of the means of grace: "Let the time past suffice to have wrought such madness," for surely it is now, if ever, "high time to awake out of sleep." There are many evil habits practised by you, and plain duties neglected which must be amended, if you value the favour of God, and expect to enjoy his blissful presence in heaven. Your continued wicked abuse of the Sabbath morning, the best part of the Lord's-day, must, especially, be corrected. You must care more for the soul, and less for the body, before you can expect any real blessing to rest upon you or your children. This criminal neglect of Sabbath morning duties appears to be the besetting sin of this district, and it is the more grievous, not only because it is so general, but because it plainly shews neither a disposition nor intention to please God nor to honour his ordinances; but an obstinate, dogged determination not to give up any carnal indulgence, or to make any serious effort in the way of salvation, or amendment of long continued and ungodly habits. Once more, after the repeated but unavailing entreaties upon this subject, I solemnly and beseechingly say to you, amend this evil practice at once, and "look to yourselves," that you lose not

those mercies and blessings which a God of mercy has so graciously provided for you.

Another contemptuous neglect of God's ordinances existing amongst some of you, that are parents, requiring amendment, is the ignorant cruelty of not bringing your infant children to church to be baptized. Our church declares, "the baptism of young children is in any wise to be retained in the church, as most agreeable with the institution of Christ." Most undoubtedly! Scripture, as well as our Church, requires that all should be baptized, particularly infants, for the command given to the Apostles, by Christ himself, is: "Go teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost." Now, as there must be infants in all nations, and as the privilege of belonging to God's people and family extends to every one born into the world, therefore it is that every infant should be dedicated to Christ by the solemn ordinance of baptism. History too, in accordance with scripture and our Church, confirms the validity of infant baptism. For 1500 years after Christ, no writer can be found to speak against the importance of the right of infant baptism, much less against it as unscriptural. Many opinions, indeed, amongst men of various nations and times, even in the early ages of the gospel, have been known to differ as to the precise time when infants should be baptized; but, until the last 300 years, no instance can be adduced denying the importance, or doubting the blessings of infant baptism. Let these proofs satisfy your minds of the unnatural negligence of withholding your children from the privileges and benefits of infant baptism, which Christ commands, which our Church requires, and which the history of the purest ages of christianity confirms.

Baptism, rightly administered, and duly received, is a highly exalted privilege. Christian parents feel it to be an honour and a blessing to belong to God's

family; and, if they love their children, it is strange indeed that any can live in the neglect of so clear a duty as dedicating them to Christ, and praying that the same mercies may be imparted to them as they themselves enjoy.

It may not, perhaps, be out of place to remark (as such passages of scripture are commonly quoted as conclusive against infant baptism) that when the Apostles said to their hearers-" Repent and be baptized," they addressed adults of the Jews or Gentiles, for there is not a single instance in the Word of God of any person born of christian parents, ever being baptized when grown up. All the instances in the Acts of the Apostles are of persons who were Jews or Gentiles, hence it is fair to infer that christian parents invariably had their children baptized when infants. (Acts ii., 38, 41; viii., 12, 38; x., 47, 48; xviii., 8.) Jewish children were dedicated to God at eight days old, why not then the infants of christian parents? Baptism answers to the rite of circumcision. God's principles are unchangeable, as he himself is unchangeable. Whether or no baptism should be administered by partial or total immersion, or by affusion; i.e. by dipping, pouring, or sprinkling, is of very secondary importance, since water is merely the outward part of this sacrament, and, to contend about these matters as essentially requisite, or to make them distinctive badges of denomination, is trifling with sacred things, and most unprofitable to the Church of Christ.

Not to have your children baptized is unscriptural, cruelly negligent, and unnaturally disregardful of Christ's offered mercies. With this strong conviction on my mind, I say to you, amend your past neglect in this respect. Bring your children to be baptized. Get believing sponsors to come with you to the font. Pray for a blessing upon the rite, that your children may rot only receive the outward part of baptism, but that they may be born of the Spirit. Do not take this solemn