"In the discharge of your public functions, I would recommend you to press upon the attention of your hearers those truths which belong to the great scheme of redemption, the lost and helpless state of man, salvation by the free grace of God, justification and acceptance through the righteousness of Jesus Christ, the necessity of the new birth, and of the enlightening and purifying operations of the Holy Ghost. These doctrines, which are expressed with so much clearness in the Articles of our church, are the essence and glory of that gospel which we are commissioned to preach; and though they are rejected by many as the corruptions of Christianity, yet I presume that you will contend for them as the faith which you are to deliver for the conversion of sinners and the edification of saints. If these truths are rejected because they are evangelical, and the more fashionable doctrine of a sincere though imperfect obedience, combined with a submission to a prescribed formula of religion, which leaves the heart unrenewed, be substituted in their room, we may gain the applause of those who trust in themselves that they are righteous, but we shall be guilty of an awful departure from the spirit and the design of our commission, and justly incur the displeasure of Jesus Christ. "To conclude: the hour is rapidly approaching when we, who are appointed as the stewards of the mysteries of the kingdom, shall be summoned into the presence of our invisible Lord, to give an account of our stewardship, when the motives which induced us to take upon ourselves the priest's office and which induced us to retain it, the manner in which we have spent our time, employed our influence and our wealth, and conducted the public solemnities of religion, will undergo a close and a severe investigation; and if we, the ministers of the sanctuary, should, when weighed in the balance, be found wanting, how awful will be our doom! Ezek. xxiii. 7, 8. "Happy, thrice happy that minister who, amidst all his infirmities, will be able to give up his account with joy; but woe, woe, woe to us if we be found unfaithful!"