Your own immortal souls! Do not let these things remain as things in uncertainty, but "examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves"," If your lives have been intemperate, careless, halfbelieving, unimpressed, dishonest, unchaste; if some of these sins, all of them, or any others, have been entertained by you, you may smite upon your breasts, and say without doubting, "it is a den of thieves." If that is the case, then in prayer, in honest, fervent, and repentant prayer to Christ, you must Scourge these sins out, or you will be lost. My brethren, self-examination-so frail is every man-will always bring in confession of sin and prayer for forgiveness. These things will cleanse the breast, and so will lighten the conscience. Moreover, if you will never let drop self-examination; if you will never stifle prayer for Christ's guidance and forgiveness; if you will never again cast behind you the good movements of the Spirit, such of us as shall meet here again when this season shall again return upon us, (for that we shall all meet again next Advent Sunday under this roof will not be granted, -some of us are now here for the last time,)-but such of us as shall be called together again when this day comes round again, having searched their hearts diligently, and followed after Christ in prayer, will find that their hearts have been purified; they 8 2 Cor. xiii. 5. will find that their bad feelings and desires, the wicked inmates, have been chased out and driven forth by the Spirit of God; they will feel, and they will be blessed in the feeling, that they are become the abode, "the temple of the Lord;" that their bosoms are God's dwelling-place, the "house of prayer." And so likewise they that will have left us will have gone with more comfort and a better hope, and their trust in the promises of Christ will stand, with more truth, upon the Gospel of the Lord God. SERMON II. Second Sunday in Advent. ISAIAH V. ii. He looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. THE THE first Lesson read to you this day in the Church Service opens with a parable, or, as the Prophet styles it, a song, touching the "vineyard of the Beloved." The "Beloved" is the Lord Jesus Christ, who is called afterwards in the Gospels, by the voice of God, "My Beloved Son;" and this parable came by the Spirit to Isaiah from Jesus Christ. It is very much like the parable of the vineyard and the rebellious husbandmen, which you will read as delivered by our Lord in the twenty-first chapter of St. Matthew, and in the twelfth chapter of St. Mark. In this parable in Isaiah's prophecy, and in both those chapters, by the vineyard is meant the Church of the Lord then established in Jerusalem. The words of the text are the complaint of the Lord against His Church, because it produced evil deeds instead of uprightness. "He looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes." C will find that their bad feelings and desires, the wicked inmates, have been chased out and driven forth by the Spirit of God; they will feel, and they will be blessed in the feeling, that they are become the abode, "the temple of the Lord;" that their bosoms are God's dwelling-place, the "house of prayer." And so likewise they that will have left us will have gone with more comfort and a better hope, and their trust in the promises of Christ will stand, with more truth, upon the Gospel of the Lord God. SERMON II. Second Sunday in Advent. ISAIAH V. ii. He looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought_f-i THE first Lesson read to you this day in the evil deeds inster it 3. r m ut tly were Sarah alone, faith's ness b." orth her |