of him who announces it; and as if their own opinions were ultimately the real standard of truth.

My brethren, it is with deep anxiety that I would entreat you to inquire honestly into the manner in which you are at this moment receiving the word of God. Few delusions are more perilous than those which are woven round the heart in the very house of God. You flock weekly to the sanctuary; you listen to the voice of Scripture; you confess your sins in prayer; you take the sacred emblems of the Redeemer's death, in the sacrament; and doing this, you fail altogether perhaps to inquire into your actual belief or rejection of the creed which you have adopted. Perhaps many may be in the habit of decrying as absurd and methodistical, the very tenets which their lips accredit; and have up to this day never discovered, that their prayers habitually have belied their hearts, and that they have mocked God with confessions, the real import of which they completely deny!

My brethren, this is a solemn allegation. Would that every individual in this congregation could rebut it with honest humility and faith! How joyful a theme would such a rejection be to my heart! But very different would be the aspect of our society if all who are here present really believed the truths which the Scriptures,

and our liturgy in accordance with those Scriptures, press upon their attention! If you think this a hard saying, take, I pray you, the Scriptures, and compare them honestly with your own opinions, and, what is of far more importance, with your own feelings. But, alas, numbers care not to ascertain their spiritual condition; put the form into the place of the spirit of religion, and draw their habitual enjoyments exclusively from worldly sources. Whata mournful discovery would candour make to the human soul, were its voice allowed to be heard! But pride and passion stifle its accents, and each soul-wasting delusion keeps possession of the heart. Sometimes, however, the mighty voice of truth is heard. God speaks, and man listens; God proclaims, and man believes; grace triumphs, and man is saved! Let us consider our second point.

II. THE ACTUAL POWER WHICH THE APOSTLE MARKED THE WORD TO EXERT OVER THOSE WHO RECEIVED IT AS THE WORD OF

GOD. "Ye received it not as the word of men, but of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe." The word of God is exceedingly mighty when it is heard as the voice of God. "The voice of the Lord," says the psalmist, "is powerful: the voice of the Lord is full of majesty the voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness the voice of the Lord breaketh the

cedars." When the Son of God dwelt in the world, the accents of his word produced the most glorious effects. At his bidding, the swelling waves sunk into a calm; at his voice, the leper was cleansed; at his command, the dead came forth to life. In succeeding days the word of inspiration, the same voice in fact, which had thus controlled the natural elements, effected, at one moment, the conversion of three thousand enemies to his gospel! In days yet more recent, the apostle declares to the Thessalonians," Our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance." Believers are said to be born of God, by the incorruptible seed of the word," which "word" is, on another occasion, called "the sword of the Spirit;' "even sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even unto the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." And, in the text, it is said to work effectually in those who believe it.

In the way of conviction, the word of the Lord is astonishingly active. A man shall be dead in trespasses and sins, utterly insensible to all the claims of God; to all the turpitude of sin, to all the terrors of future judgment, and to all the sweet solicitations of love and grace: he shall hear words which may have been familiar to him from infancy-but he shall now hear them

as the voice of God-he shall receive them as such, and they shall at once penetrate to his heart! A single sentence shall rest in his mind, like the barbed arrow, which no skill can extract. His conscience shall awaken. Remorse, agitation, a dread of wrath, these shall seize upon his soul; and the sea, lashed by the storm, shall be a just picture of his bosom. No wisdom shall be able to counsel, no tenderness shall be able to soothe his heart. He has heard the voice of God, and no man can belie its meaning to his soul. Its accents are too terrible to be forgotten; they are the accents of Jehovah.

But let him hear another voice; and this also as the voice of God: let him catch the accents, "Son, be of good cheer; thy sins are forgiven thee!" "God so loved the world as to give his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Let him receive this word as the word of God, and it becomes the effectual word of consolation, even as the former voice became that of conviction. For when God's word speaks "quietness, who shall excite fear?" The tempest is calmed, and the waves are still. The accents of Jehovah are now as melody to the ear, and they lull at once all the terrors by which the soul had been previously agitated. The blood of Jesus, by that word sprinkled upon the heart, is effectual to its full relief. The

terrified sinner, now" rejoices with a joy unspeakable, and full of glory." Thus mighty is the word of God. "It returns not to God void, but it accomplishes that which he pleases, and prospers in the thing whereto he sends it."

So likewise, as the voice of sanctification, it yields the same striking results. When the word abides in the heart, and is there hid by the power of God, it effectually restrains from sin, and guides to all virtue. "He cannot sin," says the apostle of the true believer, " because his seed," that is the "incorruptible seed of the word," "remaineth in him." The word of God is the treasury of promises and precepts, which furnishes him who believes them with all the noble and lofty motives which bear up the soul above the sordid objects of this world's ambition, and which excite it to the pursuit of those which are godlike and eternal. Unbelief destroys the power of the word: but when that word is heard as the voice of God, it is of inconceivable strength. It allays fear; it disarms the world of its power to intimidate or allure; it gives firmness and zeal to patience: it inspires a hope, which lives like a burning flame amidst the ocean waves; it fortifies the spirit in every conflict, and is mighty, through God, to pull down every strong hold of sin and Satan, and to render the believer more than conqueror over every form and continuance of danger. What is a martyr's