One who has clothed Himself with a | up chiefly of beings, not weak and ignorant, and powerless as ourselves, but who were once angels and archangels before the throne of God. Their wide intelligence and their stupendous might they still retain. As far as the hand which holds the curb brother's nature, and bears towards us far more than a brother's love. It is our privilege that in the book that testifies of Him there is an everlasting well-spring of comfort for us. We go there to read the promises of God, and faith by its eye discerns their ex-permits the exercise of their maligtent, and faith by its hand lays hold of them; and thus they become appropriated to the believer, and he goes forth rejoicing in his God. Yes, he can even glory in tribulation, because, as the apostle hath told him, "tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience," (that is, experience of the never-failing goodness and love of GoD), "experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed;" hope that rests not on the sand, but hope that is reared on a rock: hope which shall disclose to us scenes brighter and better and holier far, than any thing which our imagination could have depicted for us. nity, they are unceasingly occupied in bringing rebellion into the dominion of Him who cast them down; strengthening the hostility of his enemies ; and using every effort against those whom grace has reconciled, at one time pressing them with violent assault; at another time using the enticements of worldly things, as the temptations wherewith to ply them. Against enemies so mighty and so malignant, our puny strength would avail nothing. We must cast ourselves upon the protection of our GOD, and ask that He would put into our hands the sword of the spirit, which is his own word. Or if we look from the enemies who encompass the walls without, and turn our view within, we shall find traitors in the very citadel of the Again, from the word of God we derive the means of defence. You know that the Christian life is continually spoken of as a state of war-heart. fare, and now comes the very important inquiry, who are our foes? who are those with whom we are to engage in deadly conflict? If the struggle were only with human bone and muscle, if the contest were only to be maintained against the might of man's 'physical and mental powers; if we were called to engage in strife only with earth worms, like ourselves, the danger would be comparatively small. But " we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." Our enemies are chiefly those mighty beings who, though fallen from their first estate, still retain their energy, which is now directed to promote evil only. The army of our foes is made Our own lusts are there, our unsanctified affections, our carnal desires, maintaining an unceasing conflict with better principles. Where is the man who has ever obtained the mastery even over one evil passion; who has been able to prostrate one rebellious wish by his own unassisted effort? It may be, indeed, that some second principle of sin hath taken root and sprung up, and for a while hath overshadowed the first; or it may be, that the sense of temporal injury and worldly harm has so far prevailed, that the powers of a strong and determined character have been put forth to crush for a time the active and open operation of the evil principle. But it has never been driven from its strong hold, and brought into subjugation but by the force of divine grace. If we would come off victorious from the conflict with foes within, as well as with foes without, it can be only by wielding the weapon of heavenly temper, which the Lord puts into the hands of his own people. And, lastly, the reading of the Bible will tend to spiritualize the things of time with which we are surrounded. It will sanctify every object of this material world, through which our journey lies, and of which we form a part; it will give a voice to mute and inanimate nature, and make it speak to us of our Father, whose faithfulness is as the mountains that cannot be moved, and whose compassion goes forth to us as a river, whose springs shall never fail. The believer, wherever he is situated, on whatever object his eye may rest, sees something to tell him of his GOD. Is he on the sea shore, and his view cast over the wide waste of waters? he marks how is Father's mercies are countless as the sands, which he treads beneath his feet, and how his Father's love is boundless as the ocean on which his eye is gazing? Does he look out on ON THE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST. an emphatic argument for immediate 1 The judgments of GoD go abroad | but with whom you are now taking the most effectual method of drowning his voice, and disarming him of all his authority. Do not you per of delay is madness-that you are getting by every hour of it into deeper water-that you are consolidating a barrier against your future return to the paths of righteousness, which you vainly think you will be able to surmount when the languor and infirmity of old age have got hold of you against him, and he carries his friends and children to the grave, a few natural tears may bear witness to the tenderness he bore them-but that Spi-ceive that in circumstances every act rit, which gives to these judgments all their moral significancy, witholds from him the anointing which remaineth, and the man relapses as before into all the obstinate habits, and all the uncrucified affections which he has hitherto indulged in. The disease gathers upon him, and gets a more rooted inveteracy than ever: and thus it is that there are thousands and thousands more, who, though active and astir on that living scene of population that is around us, have an iron hardness upon their souls, which makes them in reference to the things of God, dark and sullen as the grave; and fast locks them in all the insensibility of spiritual death. Is there no old man of your acquaintance who realizes this sad picture of one left to himself, that we have now attempted so rapidly to lay before you? Then know, that by every deed of wilful sin, that by every moment of wilful delay in the great matter of repentance, that by every stifled warning of conscience, that by every deafening of its authoritative voice among the temptations of the world, and the riot of lawless acquaintance, you are just moving yourself to the limits of this helpless and irrevocable condition. We leave no doubt but you may have the intention of making a violent step, and suddenly turning round to the right path ere you die but this you will not do but by an act of obedience to the reproaches of a conscience that is ever getting harder. This you will not do without the constraining influence of that Spirit who is gradually dying away from you. This you will not do but in virtue of some overpowering persuasion from that monitor who is now stirring within you, that you are strengthening and multiplying around you the wiles of an entanglement, which all the strugglings of death-bed terror cannot break asunder-that you are insulting the spirit of GOD by this daily habit of stifling and neglecting the other and the other call that he is sounding to your moral ear, through the organ of conscience: and oh! the desperate folly of such a calculation ; think you that this is the way of gaining his friendly presence, at that awful moment when the urgent sense of guilt and danger forces from the sinner an imploring cry as he stands on the brink of eternity? "How long ye simple ones love simplicity, and the scorners delight in their scornings, and fools hate knowledge. Turn ye at my reproof; behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my word unto you, because I have called and ye refused: I have stretched out mine hand and no man regarded; but ye have set at nought my counsel, and would have none of my reproof. I also will laugh at your calamity—I will mock when your fear cometh. When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind ; when distress and anguish come upon you; then they shall call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me. DR. CHALMERS. Ephesians, iv. 20-25.-" Ye have not so learned Christ-if so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus; that ye put off concerning the former conversation, the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." WHAT arm is there that grapples with Satan, the author of evil and the prince of this world, but the arm of Christ the Son of GOD? There is none. What religion is there under heaven, which gives the lusts of the flesh no quarter, but the religion of the Gospel? There is none. Every other founder of a system, every other master of a school has been an apologist for an abettor, a flatterer of sin. Whether Greek or Roman, or Mussulman, each produced the impression he did, each extended the peculiar creed he did, only because he neither acknowledged fully, nor exposed to the utmost the natural depravity of the human heart. Each found man in his iniquities, and each left him so. The cause of each was prolific in conversion, only as it allowed man to follow the propensities of his fallen nature-only as a means it encouraged the play of the more cherished vices within, or as an end held out the promise of a yet deeper indulgence in the sensualities to which he is prone. VOL. V. Jesus alone confronted Self-Jesus alone struck at the life of the darling idol-Jesus alone put forth a resolute and determined hand to extract and destroy, root and branch, the awful produce of the forbidden fruit. And hence, the backwardness of men in the reception of his divine authority— hence, the eagerness to catch at every argument that would invalidate the claims he set up--hence, the cavillings at the testimonies to his missionhence, the questionings of the truth of his miraculous powers-hence, the obstinate withstandings against the force of his searching appeals-and, hence, comes out the secret, why, in the space of nearly two thousand years the principles he came to establish, have so slowly progressed; comes out the secret, why, the boundaries are so narrow in the mass of nations where his faith may be found; comes out the secret, why, in the bleak and barren wilderness of the great world we inhabit, only so small a spot presents itself that is green, and living K I may know upon earth, and every vision of joy that I may realize in the world of eternity? The conclusion is inevitable, that, while the man is liv with the influences of his spirit; comes out the secret, why, in the very compass of a Christian profession, there should be so few who are Israelites, indeed,-why, where there is a low-ing in sin, and loving the sin in which ing from a thousand hills in our spiritual Canaan, there should be so melancholy a spectacle of the lean and ill-favoured kine of Egypt. Oh! if the Gospel of Jesus might be holden with our loved and reigning vices, if only it would permit the gratification of one of our corrupt inclinations, if it would but let alone the favourite sin, what a willingness would there be to receive it! What a sweep would there be in its conquests! How rapid its march from field to field, until the subjugation were that of universal empire. Now, do not suppose that this is mere guess work, that this is idle assertion, but pause in self inquiry. Let the man, who, as yet, hath not become decided in his profession, who hath not, verily and truly, put upon him the robe of Jesus' discipleship, ask why he is otherwise minded; let him sit in communion with himself, dissect his affections, lay bare his whole heart, and I am sure he will discover the cause of his own half-compliance of his half-service, in the hidden sin, in the love of the unsurrendered sin. Yes! but for that fondled offspring of the guilty soul-but for that dandled baby of the carnal affections, the whole man were not almost but altogether Christ's; whilst it is that deceitful lust, which now renders ineffectual the ministry of reconciliation, makes powerless the voice of GOD speaking through the Gospel of His dear Son, and forces the awful alternative of a soul saved, or a soul lost. Is such a soul mine? And can the sweet morsel which I am rolling under my tongue, the iniquitous indulgence I will not give up, be the price for which I am bartering away all the peace that he lives, he is yet under the sentence of condemnation-he is yet the selfexcluded from the mercies of the new covenant-he is yet without Christ, and, while remaining in this state, without hope, he is yet, and is not fever in the world—and paralysis in the world—and accident in the world? (Accident! as it is improperly called, for there is nothing out of the control of Divine Providence there is no contingency of circumstance which is not of the appointment of GOD. And oh, be careful of entertaining the merest notion, that aught can exist independently of Him! Be fearful, by the jealousy of his nature, to have another God besides Him.) And what if I should be suddenly siezed by the burning fever, or stricken by the deadening paralysis, or crushed by the awfully sudden accident? where would my spirit be? Now, in the days of Saint Paul, there were men who were thus living in the profession of Christ, but in the commission of wilful sin; who had fallen into the fearful ignorance and delusion, that a follower of Jesus might be, at one and the same time, a follower of Satan, that he might serve two masters. And to expose this delusion, and to save from falling into so grievous an heresy, was the burden of the Apostle's spirit, in the chapter out of which I have taken my text. "But ye have not so learned Christ, if so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus, that ye put off, concerning the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that ye put on the new man, which, |