A SHORT SERMON.

"Where art thou?"--Gen. 3: 9.

GOD thus addressed the first human transgressor. "The voice of the Lord God was heard walking in the garden, in the cool of the day," it was the very day of the fall, for sin never fails to draw after it a quick retribution; and the Lord had come down to go the rounds of man's new abode, and see what he was about. But Adam fled at His approach; guilt could not abide His coming; fear seized upon him, and he hid himself. God found that sinner in a sad condition; guilty, afraid, trembling, wholly unprepared to meet His righteous Judge; and fearful was the sentence pronounced against him.

So God will reckon with every sinner. He will search out and punish every guilty soul. Think not to sin and escape. God may long delay, and seem to connive at your wickedness; justice may slumber and damnation be restrained; but the hour of retribution will come at last to each and to all; and it will be an hour of dismay, and trembling, and hopeless doom to the impenitent and unforgiven. For every man of us has a moral character and position of his own; and though he may fail to perceive it, and the world be ignorant of it, it is clearly defined in the sight of God, and perfectly understood by Him. The Omniscient eye beholds at this moment the actual character and habitation of each individual being; the Lord God is walking to and fro in the earth, as in the garden of old, to see what is done, to look after the erring, to awake the sleeper, to surprise the hypocrite, and make inquisition for neglect and transgression. He passes by the sinner in His word, or comes to him in some startling providence, and cries in his ear, "Where art thou?" His voice is heard by the Christian, demanding an account of himself, repentance for sins committed, a return to duty, holy living, and a readiness for the reckoning hour.

And where is the professing Christian to-day, while God is seeking him out in the sanctuary? It is easy to say where you ought to be, but alas, we fear that many of you will not be found there. And

1. The Christian ought always to be at his proper and assigned work. He has a peculiar and important work to perform. It is the work of salvation, of repentance and faith, of holy living and serving God. It is the work of prayer, of inward conflicts with

corruption, and striving against the world, the flesh, and the devil; the work of warning and entreating sinners to flee from the wrath to come; the work of imitating the example, and obeying the gospel, and advancing the kingdom of Jesus Christ on earth. There is no work so needful, so solemn and responsible as this; none, the neglect of which is attended with consequences so serious and lasting. It is a "high calling" in which the Christian is made "a spectacle unto the world, even to angels and to men." And God fails not to mark every dereliction, to note every hour, every gift and power not given to the work of salvation; and soon will He reckon with every laborer, and reward or punish, according as they have been diligent or negligent.

2. The Christian ought ever to be in his proper place. Whoever he be, and whatever his gifts, or station, or circumstances in life, there is a place assigned him in the mind and providence of God; and none can fill that place so well as he; and he ought to seek it, and stand in his lot; he shrinks from it or abandons it at the peril of his salvation. He has his own place in the family circle, in the church of Christ,-in every sphere of Christian duty and enterprise,—and in the world of guilt, and misery, and ignorance around him. He has his own place in the hour for private devotion, on the Sabbath, and during each day of the week; a proper place as a creature of God, and a sinner seeking life; as a disciple of the Divine Teacher; as a servant of the Lord who bought him; as a steward entrusted with many talents; as a frail and dying mortal hastening to judgment and eternity. And for such an one to be found out of his place in the day of God's visitation, to have run uncalled, or refused when bidden, or to have vacated his post untold, will be dreadful indeed.

3. The Christian ought ever to be in a state of mind to seek the Divine blessing. While in the line of duty, busy at his work, and radiating his sphere with the light of holy example, and pious precept, his heart will go up to God in earnest desire, and His approbation and love will be the joy of existence, a blessed reward. But alas! sin cherished, or duty neglected, not only loses us the favor of God, but what is, if possible, worse still, robs us of the disposition to desire or seek it. How many, for this reason, are serving God from constraint, and not from choice! To how many is religion a task, and the service of Christ a weariness, and prayer itself anything but a pleasure, because they engage in what they know to be wrong, or pursue their worldly business in a selfish and prayerless spirit, or enter into schemes of gain, or pleasure, or alliances in trade, or politics, or friendship, which the holy God cannot sanction; or they live so far away from Christ, and so aside from Christian duty in their whole spirit and course of conduct, as to be utter strangers to the joy and confidence of faith;

to walk in perpetual darkness and fear, and be "as the mountains of Gilboa," unrefreshed by rain or dew, sterile and desolate.

4. The Christian ought ever to be where God will be felt to be no intruder. Not until the first man had sinned, was there aught alarming in His presence; it was an evil heart that first saw anything in the creature to be ashamed of, or in the Creator to fear. While we are free from sin, the holy God will be welcome in our every thought, in our most secret places, in every path of duty and pleasure in which we are found. But where guilt is, the footsteps of Jehovah are terrible. To all who have an accusing conscience, the voice of God, whether it speaks in His Word, or in the judgments of His providence, is rending to the heart. While sin is indulged, and pollution retained, the omniscient eye is as a consuming fire. And O how many of God's visits are unwelcome even to his people! When in His Word He passes by and searches out their sins, and discovers to them their imperfections, and points. them to neglected duties, and sweeps away their false hopes, what murmurs and complaints are heard. Or when He comes to them in some severe trial or affliction, however deserved or needed the discipline, the visitation is apt to be anything but welcome. And in the event of death, what surprise and confusion come upon multitudes! the voice that bids them die how alarming! What would they not give to live a little longer?

5. The Christian ought ever to be where he can meet God in judgment without fear. To Him you must give account of all life's doings; and you know not how soon, nor how suddenly the summons may come for you. Others are dying around you, and passing away from these earthly scenes, and quickly your and my last hour will have come. If you ever repent of your sins and adjust your accounts for the final day, you must do it without delay. If you really mean to die in peace, to secure your eternal interests beyond a peradventure, you must live for that hour and end, maintain those habits of daily piety, and that character of holiness, which are the essential prerequisites of the heavenly state. Failing to do this, to how many is the hour of God's judg ment the hour of a fearful surprise, a terrible alarm, a withering rebuke! "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of My Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity!”

The Sinner has a character no less his own,-a moral habitation, distinct and defined to the eye of God. "Where art thou?" Every sinner is where he ought not to be-in a false position as

it respects God and truth, duty and salvation; and retaining his present character and place, he is sure to be undone for ever.

He is in his sins, he has never repented of them, nor forsaken them. They invest him with a character which challenges the abhorrence of God and angels; they tower round his path like Alpine heights of guilt and corruption; every one of them has a voice which cries to heaven for judgment; and if he is not rid of them, they will sink him into perdition with the weight of a mighty millstone. He is in the pathway of eternal ruin. His feet take hold on death. He is pursuing a career which ends in destruction. He is rushing with fury in his heart to the doom of the incorrigible. He is defying the wrath, and despising the mercy of the great God. And persisting in this course, he will soon have passed the limits of Divine forbearance, and sealed his eternal doom in hell.

He is in a state of awful condemnation. His sins have already found him out. The penalty of a violated law hangs over him. Conscience foreshadows the coming wrath. The chains of fear, and guilt, and misery, are woven by him. Heaven is out against his wickedness. The just and merciful God is against him, and the day of doom and vengeance is not distant.

He wanders in a land of darkness and gloom. Where the sinner is, the sweet light of day never comes; the voice of hope and peace is never heard; the notes of pardoning mercy never break on the ear and rejoice the heart. It is a region of sadness and gloom; the land of the shadow of death. Evil spirits walk it; dismal sounds are heard in it; and death and despair reign over it. The soul that dwells here finds no inward peace; dark thoughts fill the mind, evil passions rage, and all within and around is blight, and dreariness, and wretchedness.

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He walks on the brink of the grave, and the next step may be into it. He has no security for his life; he may die the next moment. God is bound by no promise or obligation to keep him alive a single hour; he is unworthy of life, and exists by mere permission of Sovereign Mercy. Death is always at his heels, ready to strike him down the instant leave is given, and diseases lurk in every path to waste and destroy. "Counting on long years to come," flattering his soul with the unction of a future repentance, may be snatched from life and hope without time to utter one for mercy-stand at the bar of eternity in all his unrepented guilt. The sinner is ever under God's immediate eye. He saw the first sinner when he took and ate of the forbidden fruit; He saw all his conduct, and knew all his thoughts during the hours which succeeded the transgression; He saw what fear, and shame, and conscious guilt seized upon him at his approach; and he saw him in his hiding place, vainly seeking to escape from pursuing Justice. God sees each one of these hearers, sees every sinner in all his

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ways. He sees him in secret, when he is bold to sin because no visible eye is upon him; and in the night-watches, when he hopes the darkness will veil his evil deeds. He sees him in those refuges of lies and false hopes to which he betakes himself, to escape from the truth and from his own honest convictions. He sees him in his family, in the sanctuary, and during the business hours of each day; in all his plans of gain and over-reaching, by day and by night, at home and abroad, in his thoughtful hours and in his merry moods, at all times and in all places, the flaming eye of God is upon him; it reads his inmost thoughts; it searches his path and knoweth all his goings; it penetrates the profoundest solitudes of his being, and pervades it in its length and breadth as with the light of a thousand suns.

He is in the hands of an angry God. Omnipotence surrounds him, and escape is impossible. He is in the power of Him whose arm spans the universe, and crushes worlds in the day of His wrath. He is at the disposal of One whose every favor has been slighted, whose mercy has been perverted, and whose justice has been insulted; and He will deal with the sinner as He pleases, in strict accordance with the fearful declarations He has made; and no creature shall dare to interfere, none shall be able to deliver from His avenging hand. Let that mighty One, whose authority, and goodness, and wrath, every living sinner practically despises ; let Him but utter the word, and the daring worm shall in a moment cease to be. What a position to be in! What a character to maintain! Merciful God! put forth Thy hand, not in wrath to crush, but in mercy, to save the creatures whom Thou hast made.