bellion will assume a most palpable and terrible activity. Should He take off restraint, and let loose your conscience upon you, your heart would be hell in miniature. You would exclaim with Milton's fiend ;

"Me miserable! which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath, and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell;
And, in the lowest deep, a lower deep
Still threatening to devour me, opens wide."

The elements of perdition exist then in every unsanctified heart.

Now I urge the necessity of a change of your hearts on the ground that you are sentient beings, capable of suffering and enjoying beyond what flesh and blood can sustain. I urge it on the ground that you are immortal beings, and, as such, must suffer or enjoy the extremes of wo or bliss forever. I urge it on the ground that you are accountable beings, and have no right to destroy yourselves. The suicide has no right to take his own life; and you have no right to "destroy both soul and body in hell." You pervert the great end of your creation, if you do not become Christians. You destroy an amount of happiness which no created mind can estimate, if you continue to choose the way to death.

I beseech you, then, to be immediately reconciled to God, by that smothered principle of evil in your own bosoms, which, if death should take place, will instantly ignite and

"out-burn Vesuvius."

Again, I argue the necessity of a radical change of heart from the fact, that all real Christians ascribe their hopes entirely to such a change in themselves. There are no real Christians between the poles but attribute their hopes of heaven to a renovation of the heart. Pious ancestry, intellectual refinement, baptism, honesty, generosity, kindness, convictions, prayers, tears, they feel to be valueless as grounds of hope. They know that their feelings before regeneration partook, in no degree, of that "holiness, without which no man can see the Lord." Their hearts have been transformed by "the renewing of the Holy Ghost," and it is on this ground only, that they permit themselves to hope for heaven. Their deliberate judgment, arising from their own experience, is, that no person can safely hope for salvation who has not been born again.

Now, why will you not believe their testimony? They are credible witnesses. You would believe them on any other subject. Why not on this? If actual experience of any fact affords any advantages for judging and adds any weight to judgment, then the testimony of Christians to the necessity of regeneration, ought, on every principle of fair reasoning, to be admitted as decisive. " Marvel not," then, " that I say unto you, ye must be born again."

This necessity further appears from the nature of heavenly happiness. All the happiness of heaven consists in its holiness. The thoughts, affections and employments of all its inhabitants are perfectly holy. The honors, pleasures and emoluments of this world have no existence there. No glorified spirit would consent to lose a ray of the Redeemer's countenance for all the fame, and wealth, and pleasure of this lower world.

Now, who does not see the utter incompatibility of the feelings of the unrenewed heart with those which reign in heaven? Who does not see that, with such a heart, heaven cannot be enjoyed? Indeed, who does not see that, with such a heart, heaven must be abhorred? The element of connection between the two things does not exist; but on the contrary, there is between them a principle of violent and eternal repellency.

And yet, the unconverted sinner hopes to go to heaven. He may imagine a heaven above the sky which will suit the feelings of his heart; but it is as unlike the heaven of the Bible, as a Grecian elysium or a Mohammedan paradise. The felicity of a holy heaven can never be enjoyed by an unholy heart. Hence, the necessity of a total change in the moral temper of the heart.

But Jesus Christ has settled the point, that this change is indispensable to salvation. “ Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." "Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." "And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life."

Here, then, I rest the argument for the necessity of a change of the heart. All the experience of men, in three worlds, proves it; and He, who hath the "keys of the kingdom of heaven," demands the change as the condition of admittance.

III. The motives, which should induce you to become Christians, are numerous and cogent. But few of them can now be presented.

1. The unparalleled importance of the subject itself should move you to action. If a change of heart be necessary to salvation, who can be indifferent respecting it? This congregation of immortal youth, sitting in judgment on the question, whether they will give their hearts to Christ or not, is a spectacle which interests the universe. The question you are to decide is, whether you will be saved or damned; and it is a question of such overwhelming import, that it "might convulse the abyss and move the thrones of heaven." A question, involving such wide and interminable extremes, can be pondered and decided only while you are in this world of probation. The question, in its importance, admits of no parallel ; for there are no such enrapturing ecstacies as those of heaven, and no such insupportable despair as that of hell.

And can it be, my young friends, that you are to-day settling a question which involves so much? Can it be, that the lapse of one more hour may determine it forever ? I beseech you, then, to decide for God and for heaven. Throw not away your souls. Put not away from you everlasting life. Choose not for your portion everlasting death. Decide right, and decide now.

2. The uncertainty and brevity of life should