accept the unsearchable riches of Christ." He would wish, should it so please God to bless such instrumentality, to call the attention of those into whose hands these Sermons may happen to fall, to the solemn consideration of these peculiarly eventful times; and that each may strive, through the sanctifying influence of the Spirit of eternal truth, to become a practical illustration, in heart and manner of life, of the true believer's most ardent and daily prayer of "Thy Kingdom come:" that each may thus glorify the Saviour in being more and more conformed to his image, and so made "meet for the "inheritance of his Saints in light,"-here in the rich enjoyment of present peace, and hereafter in the full fruition of purchased glory.

SERMON I.

"THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES."

ST. MATTHEW xvi. 2, 3.

He answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say, it will be fair weather: for the sky is red. And in the morning, it will be foul weather to-day: for the sky is red, and lowering. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?

IT was the Saviour's rebuke to the Pharisees and Sadducees, (men, for the most part, shrewd, watchful, and learned in earthly things,) that they were regardless of those signs of their times, which called them powerfully to the consideration of heavenly things. Not to watch, therefore, for such ways of speaking to the understanding and to the hearts of mankind, as Almighty God, in his providence, uses and appoints, from external marks thereof, is a sinful omission of an enjoined duty. It is a duty

B

forcibly pressed upon all of us in God's Word. The Lord Jesus Christ, in another part of his Gospel, most strongly puts it before us thus: "Take ye heed, watch and know pray for ye "not when the time is:-And what I say unto

66

you, I say unto all, Watch." (St. Mark xiii. 33, 37.) This command for general watchfulness is not more plainly enjoined in sacred Scripture, than apparent as a duty from the acknowledged shortness of human life, and the manifest, because the experienced, uncertainty of every thing human. But the passage in the text has more immediate relation to the Christian duty of deducing spiritual good from whatever seems to mark a peculiar dispensation from local or from contemporaneous events, designated, in Scripture language, "signs of "the times."

It can scarcely be matter unknown to the congregation which I now address, that this subject has, of late years, been more and more dwelt upon; that it has been issuing from the press for public perusal, as well as preached from the pulpit for congregational attention and deeper thoughtfulness. My brethren, I would not withhold, in this place, the consideration of a subject, so generally discussed, from

SERMON I.

"THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES."

ST. MATTHEW xvi. 2, 3.

He answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say, it will be fair weather: for the sky is red. And in the morning, it will be foul weather to-day: for the sky is red, and lowering. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?

IT was the Saviour's rebuke to the Pharisees and Sadducees, (men, for the most part, shrewd, watchful, and learned in earthly things,) that they were regardless of those signs of their times, which called them powerfully to the consideration of heavenly things. Not to watch, therefore, for such ways of speaking to the understanding and to the hearts of mankind, as Almighty God, in his providence, uses and appoints, from external marks thereof, is a sinful omission of an enjoined duty. It is a duty

B

forcibly pressed upon all of us in God's Word. The Lord Jesus Christ, in another part of his Gospel, most strongly puts it before us thus: "Take ye heed, watch and for pray : ye know "not when the time is:-And what I say unto 66 you, I say unto all, Watch." (St. Mark xiii. 33, 37.) This command for general watchfulness is not more plainly enjoined in sacred Scripture, than apparent as a duty from the acknowledged shortness of human life, and the manifest, because the experienced, uncertainty of every thing human. But the passage in the text has more immediate relation to the Christian duty of deducing spiritual good from whatever seems to mark a peculiar dispensation from local or from contemporaneous events, designated, in Scripture language, “signs of "the times."

It can scarcely be matter unknown to the congregation which I now address, that this subject has, of late years, been more and more dwelt upon; that it has been issuing from the press for public perusal, as well as preached from the pulpit for congregational attention and deeper thoughtfulness. My brethren, I would not withhold, in this place, the consideration of a subject, so generally discussed, from