But can you see the true character of this moral monster without viewing it attentively? No-its unqualified ugliness was never yet visible to inconsideration. On the other hand, unless you admire that which is morally beautiful and divinely excellent; unless you are enamoured of it, for its own sake; and love it with an attachment derived from the apprehension of its supereminent loveliness, value, and utility; how can you, with unshaken fidelity, persevere in the cultivation of it? But can you appreciate the excellence of true religion and virtue without the diligent contemplation of this holy object? If your designs and plans, your actions and deportment, be regulated merely by a heart affected, or an imagination excited, while the soul is not exercised to discern between good and evil; your attainments in godliness must be few, and your virtue mutable as the shifting winds.

THIRD. Men do not reflect with adequate depth and seriousness, upon the diligent and laborious exertion necessary in the prosecution of a religious life. They form good designs, for which surely they are to be commended; but they form them precipitately and unthinkingly; they form them as though they had nothing to do but to say, and it must be done; to command, and it must stand fast; they form them without being sufficiently aware of the obstacles which they will have to encounter, or of the foes with whom they will have to wage determined conflict. They forget the exhortation of Jesus: "Strive to enter in at the strait gate; for many will seek to enter in, and shall not be able."* They forget these apostolical counsels: "Know ye not that they which run in a race, run all; but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtam." "Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities; against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore, take unto you the whole 1. Cor. ix. 24.

*Luke, xiii. 24.

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armour of God, that ye may be able to stand in the evil day, and having done all to stand."* There was a time, we read, and it is a melancholy piece of information, when many of the earlier disciples of Jesus "went back, and walked no more with him." Would to Heaven that the incident had continued without a counterpart even to the present day! So far is it, however, from being so, that every successive age of the church has witnessed the like infidelity in innumerable instances; and always from this principle of practical error; men count not the cost of Christian obedience. Hear the reprehension of this improvidence from the mouth of Christ himself. "Which of you intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, saying, this man began to build, and was not able to finish. Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able, with ten thousand, to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace. So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple."

It fares with numbers in the journey of life, as with the pilgrim, who, when the green summit of the mountain meets his eye, fancies himself near the end of his wanderings and his toils, until a full view of the intervening valley undeceives him. You enter upon the course marked out by religion, imagining no obstacles, anticipating no defeat. 'Easily, therefore, are your energies repressed. Temptations, perils, inconveniencies, take you off your guard. Thus surprised, you fall an almost unresisting prey. It escaped your notice, that, to insure success and safety, you should * Eph. vi. 13. † John, vi. 66. Luke, xiv. 27.-33.

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have added to your faith, fortitude;" that you should have armed yourselves for the combat; that you should have been sober and vigilant; ever active, and ever on the alert. You did not take time to think that attainments in the spiritual life are gradual; that virtue consists not in an interrupted and chequered course of individual acts, but in right habits; while these habits, again, are created by successive acts; that the transformation, of an habitual sinner into a man of piety and virtue, is rarely indeed the exploit of a moment; that every retreat protracts the contest; and that every advantage which you suffer to be wrested from you, renders the ground less tenable, the victory, more remote, and the danger more appalling.

I propose, through the blessing of God, to pursue this subject at evening service.

SERMON XXIV.

THE CAUSES OF INCONSTANCY IN RELIGION.

GALATIANS, V. 7.

"Ye did run well; who did hinder you, that ye should not obey the truth?"

MEN are mutable in that which is good. They permit themselves to be hindered in their upright course, and diverted from it. Assuming this as a fact, I proposed, in the discourse of this morning, to trace it to its sources; to expose the springs of an evil so hostile to the peace and ṣalvation of the soul.

It was demonstrated that these are not to be found either in deficiency of means, or in deficiency of motives. Not in deficiency of means; because God demands nothing from his creatures which they are not capacitated to perform. Not in deficiency of motive; because there is in the gospel an abundance of the most cogent motives; and especially because the promised influences of the Holy Ghost, and the promised recompenses of eternal glory and felicity, are inducements than which it is impossible that any should be stronger.

If, having run well the race of duty for a time, you suffer yourselves to be arrested in your bright career, you were cautioned to charge this unfortunate issue upon any thing, rather than deficiency in him who hath called you. You were invited to recognize the sources of this evil, the veritable springs of this instability, in your own bosoms. You were primarily directed to recognize them in that no more than