tions of the heart, can no more avail to the saving of the soul, than can the knowledge of medicine, apart from its application, avail to the healing of the body.

Nay, more; if it avail to our hurt.

avail not to our profit, it must

The Word which came to save,

remains to judge. The light which was sent to cheer, remains to make visible the darkness of impenitent hearts, and reveal the 'sights of woe' which shelter there. He who was "set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel "" hath ordained that the manifestation of His knowledge should be, to "them that are saved, the savour of life unto life;" and to "them that perish, the savour of death unto death 2." The same fire which softens and melts the wax, hardens and dries the clay. The same adorable exhibition of Divine mercy which spreads out the richest treasures of hope and joy to him who loves to behold God's "presence in righteousness," and is "satisfied, when he awaketh, with his likeness," must cast, upon the soul of him who despises it, an heavier burden of reproach and misery. It is this consideration which annexes such awful responsibility to the privileges which we possess. It is this which has constrained men of sagacious discernment and ardent piety to declare and lament the fact that professors of Christian truth may become 2 2 Cor. ii. 15, 16.

1 Luke ii, 34.

3 Psalm xvii. 16.

hardened, even whilst possessing outwardly the choicest means of grace. It is this which induced one among them to resolve, at an early period of this life, that he would never more go among a people that had been hardened in unprofitableness, under an awakening ministry; and even to reckon it an advantage, that his lot was afterwards cast among a people who had never enjoyed that which is ordinarily and justly accounted a precious privilege; 'for if (as he tells us) they had been hardened under a powerful ministry, and been sermon-proof, I should have expected less '.' I share not indeed, to their full extent, the sentiments of him who has recorded these words. I never can deem that an advantage to myself which so obviously involves the condemnation of others; neither can I admit the right of any minister of Christ to make the outward measure of his success or failure, the sole rule for determining the quarter in which he shall or shall not pursue his ministrations; but I do urge you who live in the broad light of the Gospel day, and in the full hearing of the Gospel message, to consider the awful danger of remaining impenitent and unchanged amid these blessings. Is not the bare possibility of falling into such danger as that to which I advert,—the danger of becoming hardened in the midst of mercies, of falling to ruin in the midst of succour,-enough to shake off

1

1 See Baxter's Narrative of his own Life and Times: edited by Sylvester, pp. 20 and 86.

the heaviest slumber of the sluggish spirit, to alarm the formalist, to put to shame the hypocrite, and make the most careless professor of our holy faith arise, and call right humbly on his God? St. Paul, we have seen, in the hope which he had towards God through Christ, exercised himself "to have always a conscience void of offence toward God and toward men;" and the perilous persecutions which beset him, by his own countrymen or by the heathen, in the city or in the wilderness', and which, in the court-house at Cæsarea, seemed to put forth their fiercest and most appalling rigour, led him only the more earnestly to lean upon this hope, the more actively to maintain this exercise. And think ye, my brethren, because similar persecutions assail not yourselves, that there are no enemies to encounter, that there is no struggling to endure? Was it only in the days of Apostolic Ministry, that the truth of Jesus was an offence to the wisdom of the world? Did it belong only to those champions of the faith to bear the contumely of the proud, the reproaches of the slanderer, the mockery of the scorner? Was it only for them to feel the distraction of the flesh lusting against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh,— only for them to wrestle against the fierceness of temptation assailing them from within and from without, only for them to bear the agony of disappointed

1 2 Cor. xi. 26.

hope and fruitless labour? Your own experience will tell you what answer these questions must receive. Your own experience will prove how true is the declaration which hath said, that "offences must come1"-how, like the waves of the troubled sea, they pour on their restless tide from generation to generation, and swell and rage horribly around each one of you. The breath of heaven, indeed, changing with the changing seasons of existence, may change their form and aspect, but the roll of the deep waters ceaseth not. Upon them floats the vessel which bears you forward. On their surface does she pursue her course to the haven where you would be; yet, in them may she be swallowed up, and amid the deafening tumult of the storm, may all that was dear and precious in your eyes be lost for ever, unless you have fixed your hold upon that hope which is "an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus 2." That hope sustained St. Paul, and made him more than conqueror. That hope now is with yourselves. The foundation, upon which it rests, is secure and permanent as ever;-the consolation as strong. You believe this. You profess this. Take it home then to the inmost recesses of your soul. Keep it there by the power of that faith which ever

1 Mat. xviii.7.

2 Heb. vi. 19, 20.

waiteth upon God in prayer, and ever urgeth the prayer through the merits of His blessed Son. And may you feel, that, as the hope of the Apostle is your hope, so his security shall be your security; that whether in strength or weakness, whether in tribulation or sorrow, whether in life or death, "the eternal God" shall be your "refuge, and underneath the everlasting arms 1."

1 Deut. xxxiii. 27.