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UPWARDS of fifty Clergymen, of five Christian denominations, and belonging to sixteen different States, most of whom are well known to the public as authors, have allowed the Editor to expect from them Sermons for this work; among whom are the following:

Rev. Dr. Richards, Professor in the Theological Seminary at Auburn; Rev. Dr. Proudfit, Salem; Rev. Drs. Tucker and Beman, Troy; Rev. Dr. Sprague, Albany; Rev. Drs. Milnor, Mathews, Spring, Woodbridge, Skinner, and De Witt, New-York City; Rev. Drs. Alexander and Miller, Professors in Princeton Theological Seminary; Rev. Professor M'Clelland, Rutgers College, New-Jersey; Rev. Drs. Green, M'Dowell, Cuyler, and Tyng, Philadelphia; Rev. Dr. Bishop, President of Miami University, Ohio; Rev. Dr. Fitch, Professor of Divinity, Yale College; Rev. Asahel Nettleton, Killingworth, Conn.; Rev. Dr. Wayland, President of Brown University; Right Rev. Bp. Griswold, Salem, Mass.; Rev. Dr. Griffin, President of Williams College; Rev. Dr. Humphrey, President of Amherst College, Mass.; Rev. Dr. Beecher, President of Lane Seminary, Cincinnati; Rev. Professors Woods, Stuart, and Emerson, of Andover Theological Seminary; Rev. Dr. Fisk, President of the Wesleyan University, Middletown, Ct.; Rev. Daniel A. Clark, Bennington, Vt.; Rev. Dr. Bates, President of Middlebury College; Rev. Dr. Matthews, Hanover Theological Seminary, Indiana; Rev. Dr. Baxter, Union Theological Seminary, Va.; Rev. Dr. Tyler, Portland, Me.; Rev. Dr. Lord, President of Dartmouth College; Rev. Dr. Church, Pelham, N. H.; Rev. Dr. Leland, Columbia, S. C.; Rev. Dr. Coffin, Greenville, Tennessee; Rev. Professor Halsey, Western Theological Seminary; Rev. Drs. Perkins and Hawes, Hartford, Conn.; Rev. President Wheeler, Vermont University; Rev. Prof. Howe, Columbia, S. C.; Rev. Dr. Chapin, President of Columbian College, D. C.

THE SINNER ARRAIGNED AND CONVICTED.

DANIEL V. 27. Thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting.

JOB observes, that "the triumphing of the wicked is short." This remark was signally verified in the narrative connected with the text. Belshazzar, the monarch of Chaldea, was indulging in sinful and intemperate merriment, accompanied with profane contempt of the God of Israel. While employing the vessels, which he had plundered from Jehovah's temple, in profane appropriation to the honor of his idols and the sensuality of his guests, a mysterious hand appeared inscribing on the wall of his palace the ominous sentence which was translated by Daniel, and a part of whose import is given in our text. This portion. of the inscription described his character, and another his doom: and "in that night," says the sacred historian, "was king Belshazzar slain." "Thou art weighed in the balances and found wanting."

But, my hearers, there are balances in which we must all be weighed ; and if, when the scales are suspended and that scrutiny takes place, Tekel, as in the case of the impious monarch, should be inscribed on all our pretensions and stamped on all the claims we advance, how sad, how sorrowful beyond conception must our condition be. "God," we are assured, "has appointed a day, in which he will judge the world in righteousness;" and as through that ordeal each one of us must pass, it is the dictate of wisdom to ascertain, if practicable, by anticipation, what our situation is likely to be, when "time" to us "shall be no longer." The great inquiry then, arising from the text, in application. to ourselves, and to others for whom we feel concern, or in whom we take interest, is, on what individuals, or classes of individuals, is this sentence likely to be pronounced, and this censure liable to fall "in VOL. XI. No. 3.

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the day of our Lord's appearing." Who will then be "found wanting?" and "who shall be able to stand?" It cannot admit of question, that radically defective in character will be found all the openly immoral, whether their immorality be confined to the breast of one, or extend to the violation of more, or of all the commands of the decalogue. All who live and die in the commission of gross and flagrant sin, unrepented of and unforsaken, must fall under condemnation. "Be not deceived," says one who was authorized to decide on this subject, "neither fornicators, nor idolators, nor adulterers, nor drunkards, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor extortioners, shall have any inheritance in the kingdom of God." For " because of such things as these, cometh the wrath of God on the children of disobedience." But it can hardly be necessary to say much, to prove that in all the openly vicious there is a radical failure of the character necessary for heaven. This point very few will have the hardihood to contest.

But, as a general remark, which we shall establish and corroborate by several particular details, it must be asserted, that all unrenewed, unregenerate persons-who have not "put off the old man with his deeds, and put on the new, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him"-all who have not, in the language of the Bible, "passed from death unto life"-are, by him who is to decide the fates of men, pronounced unfit for the abodes of heavenly bliss.

1. Let us place in the balances the mere moralist, and bring his pretensions to the test. Some consider the whole of religion as consisting, the whole of "the duty which God requires of man" as contained in the performances and virtues, which are ordinarily comprehended under the common phrase, morality; whether the term embraces only those attributes of human character which consist in giving to every one his equitable due, or extends to those exercises of benevolence and charity, which form the constituents of distinguished philanthrophy; whether, simply, the righteous man "for whom," as Paul expresses it, ' one will scarcely die," or "the good man, for whom some would dare to die." All pretensions beyond these are regarded by the class to whom we now allude, as hypocritical, ostentatious, unnecessary or fanatical. But let us weigh, in the balances of the sanctuary, the claims of the moralist in the narrower or broader signification of the term. To what will these claims amount?. It will be seen, on examination, that these matters, which are considered as the whole, or at least as the principal part of duty, are regarded in but a secondary and subordinate light, by him who holds in his hands the scales of divine justice, and truly estimates the weight and worth of whatever is placed in them. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart," he asserts to be "the first and great commandment." To that of " loving our neighbor as

ourselves," he assigns only a secondary place, calling it "the second" commandment, and observing concerning it, that it is "like unto the first." What then, if weighed in the balances, is to become of the man, who lays it down as a principle, and acts upon it as the maxim of his life, that there is no religion and no divine requirement, beyond feeling and performing justice and mercy to our fellow men? When the law of God is thrown into one scale, and such a man deposited in the other, must not Tekel be inscribed on all his pretensions, on all his attainments, on all his expectations?

So thought and so felt some of the most eminent, exemplary personages that have ever lived. By whom has the character of Isaiah ever been impeached? Yet, he says of himself, "I am a man of unclean lips." Who has ever discovered a flaw in the character of Daniel, as delineated on the sacred page? Yet, Daniel said, including himself among his people, and involving himself in one common charge with them, "O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face, because we have sinned against thee. To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against him." How more than ordinarily brilliant shines the character of the patriarch who dwelt in Uz. Look at the attributes and actions of Job. He "was eyes to the blind, feet to the lame, a father to the poor. He brake the jaws of the wicked and plucked the spoil out of their teeth. When the ear heard him, it blessed him, when the eye saw him, it gave witness to him." Why? "Because he delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless that had none to help him: the blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon him, and he caused the widow's heart to leap for joy." He possessed, then, in an eminent measure, an unparalleled degree, that "pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father," which, according to the apostle James, consisted, as one of its primary and essential ingredients, in "visiting the fatherless and widows in their affliction." Surely, such a man must possess spiritual weight. Let us then place him in the balances: but he has seated himself there of his own accord, and to what discovery is he brought? To this: "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee; wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes:" which is perfectly tantamount to the confession, "I am weighed in the balances and am found wanting." And there he sat ashamed, confounded, and alarmed, till another object appeared in sight. That relieves and even transports him, and he exclaims, "I know that my Redeemer liveth." Weigh him after this, and he is no longer "found wanting;" he is complete in Christ," and can scan and survey the holy law of God in all the strictness of its requisitions, and the severity of its sanctions. For his Redeemer is in the scales with him, that Redeemer who "magnified the law and

made it honorable;" who " redeemed him from the curse of the law, being made a curse for him." But "without Christ he could do nothing, and was nothing ;" and he was constrained, in answer to the question, "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean ?" to reply, "Not one."

2. Another candidate for heaven, whose pretensions it may not be amiss to scan, is the religious formalist. He tells us, that he is punctiliously religious-his prayers and his alms-his church and his closet -the baptismal font and the sacramental table, all testify to the fairness and fullness of his claims to "sit in heavenly places." But Jehovah long ago weighed characters of this description and pronounced them wanting. Heartless forms without heartfelt experience will not answer. He had a people, who, in the days of Jeremiah, exclaimed with no small confidence, "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these." To this people, then, before and afterwards, thus "trusting in man and making flesh their arm;" thus "sacrificing to their own net and burning incense to their own drag," he had occasion to say, in the language of reproof and rebuke, by one prophet," rend your heart and not your garments;" by another, "to what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? Bring no more vain oblations: your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me: I am weary to bear them." "Ye that compass yourselves about with sparks of your own kindling, and walk in the light of your own fires, this shall ye have at my hand: ye shall lie down in sorrow." And "God manifest in the flesh," when on earth, found the posterity of the same people bolstering their frail and fallacious hopes upon a similar plea-" We have Abraham to our father." "Whose mouth he stopped," and whose vanity he suppressed, by adding, "God is able even of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham." Thus, too, boasted the Laodicean church, in reference to her fair, but superficial, exterior-" I am rich and increased in goods, and have need of nothing." And with similar fidelity, the Searcher of hearts prostrated her pride, by the allegation, "thou art poor, and miserable, and wretched, and blind, and naked," and ignorant, for "thou knowest it not." Thus must all, who "have a form of godliness," but ́ ́ "deny" or dislike "the power," expect, when "weighed in the balances," to be "found wanting."

3. Let us next examine the claims of the Antinomian. He is that kind of religionist, who sets the gracious gospel of Christ in opposition to the moral law of God; as if the former was intended, or at least calculated, to undermine, vacate, or destroy the latter. In direct subversion of such a theory, the author of Christianity gives the caution, plain, strong and salutary, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets, I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." The