of God, and knows what holiness means. Holiness itself is happiness: He sees that Christ has apprehended him, that he may be holy. When he considers how little he has attained of this the true disposition for heaven, he follows after, that he may apprehend that holiness, for which Christ apprehended him: indeed his hope lies in the hold that Christ has of him, strong and invincibly firm ; not in HIS hold of Christ, which is never, by any means, so strong as it ought to be.

But is it not plain, O lukewarm Christians, that his state is very different from yours? When you were first awakened to a concern for your souls, you eagerly sought for pardon and peace in Christ. Sin was at that time so terrible a thing to you, that you endeavoured to keep clear of all approaches to it. Is then the doctrine of salvation by Christ, which you have now for years understood, to release you from your obligation to labour and endeavour after holiness? If you have found out, that formerly, perhaps you were needlessly scrupulous in some things, are you now to be quite loose and negligent, and to evidence very little difference between yourselves and the irreligious people of the world? Have you now really nothing to do; have you, in religion, no call for further exertion? Can you think it right to rest in an easy, dull, uniform way for many years, without any improvement in grace? If you can; may you not justly question whether you have any right foundation in Christ, and whether you have not been building your house on the sand*? His ways use to be reckoned ways of pleasantness, and all his paths to be peace. If you can be so indif* Matth. vii. 26.

ferent about walking in them, it may be questioned whether you know them aright, so as to love them.

It is not either for you or me to undertake to settle, whether, in your present state, you are true Children of God, or not. Rather do you give diligence to make your calling and election sure, by exercising yourselves in faith, hope, and charity; and by stirring up yourselves to take hold of God's covenant, and to walk as becometh Christians.

What, are there not many evils under which you labour? I am sure if you have spiritual feeling, you must be burdened; and the burden of your mind will be one of the most hopeful symptoms of spiritual life. Consider how it should be with you. If Christ has apprehended you, it is that you should feel, and think, and speak, and act in a very different manner from what you do at present. Indeed, if you were in ever so lively a frame, you would still be far from what you ought to be. But you should have real work on your hands, and be diligent in that work. You cannot be right if your religious employment consist in barely making a profession of doctrine. A preacher who would tell you of nothing else, and only bid you comfort yourselves that all was safe, might suit you best, but such preaching would be poison, not food for your souls. It would not deserve the name of pastoral instruction.

Come to particulars, I beseech you. Is that love. of the world, which you have, for years, laboured under, in any measure subdued? The nearer you approach to your latter end, are you the more earnestly engaged in preparing for it? Do you find your thoughts and desires more taken off from the

things of the world, and do you now long more to be dissolved and to be with Christ: Is your disposition more charitable, meek, patient, and more resigned to the Divine will? Are you less disposed to murmurings and repinings; to froward, perverse, and malignant passions and suspicions, than formerly? Is your tongue more under government, and less disposed to censoriousness: more apt to dwell on divine things, and to be less engaged in trifles, than formerly? Are you doing good with more cheerfulness, and are your thoughts and imaginations more subdued? Burns the flame of divine love more in your souls? But I shall spare other particulars. Only I ask you concerning your besetting, constitutional, sin, whatever it be? What is its state? Are you always disposed to vindicate it, or even so blind as not to know it?

I know that the most holy and the most sincere are always the most humble. And when particulars come to be examined, they are ready to cry out unclean, unclean." They see themselves to fall far short of their duty. But are you of those who make this an excuse for standing still and doing nothing? And do you look on your sins rather as weaknesses, for which you are to be pitied, than as evils which alienate you from God, and for which you deserve to be condemned? Assure yourselves, if this be the case, that Christ did not come to save such proud persons as you are. And you have reason to fear lest you be found at last, among those to whom he will say, "I never knew you. The real Christian can, after all, rest only in Christ; but when he does so, he is not content with remaining under the power of his sins. He daily labours against

them; and rests not till he obtains a growing victory over them. I exhort you, Brethren, diligently to examine yourselves, and to seek for this certain evidence of a safe and excellent spiritual condition, that so an entrance may be ministered to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

I speak, lastly, a word to careless and profane persons. What says the drunkard, the swearer, the sabbath-breaker, the lover of pleasure more than lover of God? What answer will YE give to this important question? Are YE following on to apprehend the things of Christ? Your consciences tell you ye have nothing to do with Him. Ye have never begun to be Christians. Satan is your master. Tremble, if ye be not hardened beyond feeling and exhortation: and repent to the saving of your souls.

If a man think all is well with him, merely because he is honest and quiet, and peaceable, in society, he surely deceives himself. To be so is, unquestionably, right and laudable; it is even a necessary branch of duty, as I have repeatedly observed; but it is neither the whole nor the best part of duty. To learn to love God; to renounce our own righteousness; to believe in Christ alone for salvation; to be heartily thankful for redemption through his blood; and, by the love of Christ, felt in the soul, to be stirred up and constrained to live soberly, righteously, and godly, these things are necessary to make a Christian. If words can prove any thing, the Scripture shows us these great truths every where. And when any man begins to seek for this inward religion, he will find, from the opposition and rebellion

of his corrupted nature, that he needs that NEW BIRTH of which the Scripture speaks, and he will pray for it sincerely. But if bare honesty and external propriety of conduct make a man fit for heaven, how comes it that, in all ages, there have not been found greater enemies of Christ's Gospel, than some of this very character have been? Is this the religion of Jesus? Is this the whole mystery of godliness? Many have had this without the smallest portion of Christianity: There have been Pagan moralists who, by their lives, might cover with shame those, who call themselves Christians.

Brethren, consider, "To apprehend Christ, to win Christ, to be found in him," is what St. Paul teaches. Go and learn what these and such like expressions mean. Examine, search, pray, inquire where truth lies, and learn real Christianity now, lest you learn what it is, when it will be too late to save your precious and immortal souls.