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up in your behalf; and, in the case we are supposing of your attending on this ordinance aright, you will not neglect earnestly to pray for yourself. And if God has generally promised his Holy Spirit to them that ask him; we cannot suppose, that, in such case, your attendance on this ordinance, especially appointed for imploring the grace of the Holy Spirit, will be in vain. We cannot but entertain the well-grounded hope, that you shall be endued, gradually, indeed, and imperceptibly, but truly and efficaciously, with the Spirit of wisdom and understanding; the Spirit of counsel and ghostly strength, the Spirit of knowledge and true godliness; and that you shall be defended with God's heavenly grace, that you may continue his for ever; and that you may daily increase in the Holy Spirit more and more, until you come to his everlasting kingdom.

2. The humble hope and assurance of the divine favour is another benefit which follows a due attendance on the solemn rite of confirmation. Your heavenly Father, he assures us, waiteth to be gracious; and while in his temple you present yourselves, all you have and all you are, to his service; you may rest assured that the Lord your God will accept you. In this case, you will have especial ground to rely on the love and protection of him, who has said for your encouragement,

"I love them that love me, and they that seek me early shall find me.”

3. There is one other benefit attendant on confirmation, which is too important to be passed over without mention: and that is, the salutary influence which the recollection of so solemn an engagement may be expected to exercise over your conduct throughout your life. When you are tempted to yield to the corrupting influence of an evil heart, of an evil world, and of the evil spirit, it will surely strengthen you against the temptation to consider, how solemnly, on occasion of your confirmation, you enlisted yourself into the service of the God of your salvation. Surely such recollection must, through the divine blessing, give tenfold force to the powerful motive implied in the question, How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God? that God, to whose service I devoted myself by a pledge so binding, on an occasion so solemn and affecting?

My brethren, we have now considered the nature of confirmation, the grounds on which its observance rests, and the advantages which may be expected to follow a suitable attendance on it. It remains only that, in reference to those among you who HAVE already been confirmed, I invite you to examine how far you have borne in mind your obligations: that if you have neglected them,

you may humble yourselves deeply in consequence of that negligence; that you may reflect on the peculiar guilt which you have thus incurred; that you may seek pardon through the blood of Christ, and the sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience, while access is still to be had by you to the throne of grace; that you thus seek the Lord while he may be found, and call upon him while he is near. Or, should it appear, on such self-inspection, that you have in measure attended to those obligations, that you too may humble yourselves, that that measure has been so scanty; and that you may seek further supplies of divine grace, that you may henceforth abound more and more, and walk still more worthy of that holy vocation wherewith you have been called. What remains, too, in reference to those among you who have NOT yet been confirmed, but that I observe that it is not my present design to set before those who may feel desirous of attending this solemn rite, such hints as it would be their wisdom to listen to both previously and subsequently to such attendance: those hints I should be most happy to suggest on their personal application to me: but merely to recommend you to lay to heart what has now been said respecting the nature of confirmation, the grounds on which it rests, and the advantages of a suitable obser

vance of it, that thus it may, through divine grace, be the means of leading many among you to more suitable apprehensions respecting the rite in question, than is commonly entertained in these parishes! in which, I grieve to say it, the neglect of this rite has been prevalent to a degree, of which my past experience or observation has not furnished one single example.

I conclude with recommending all here present, and more especially the younger part of the congregation, to meditate seriously on the words, by no means inappropriate to the present occasion, which David, now on the verge of eternity, addressed to his son Solomon. (1 Chron. xxviii. 9.) "And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy fathers, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind: for the Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever."

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"O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!"

THE termination of any of those portions into which time is divided, has confessedly a tendency to lead us to reflect on that period when, with regard to us, time will be no more. Even the close of every day is calculated to remind us that the night cometh when no man can work. Much more then is the termination of any larger division of time, much more is the approaching close of a year suited to remind man, who at the longest is but "of few years," of the close of his

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