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grace. There must be minute and unreserved confession of sin, an utter renunciation of all self-defence, excuses and palliations; a disposition to lay the hand upon the mouth, and united with this a spirit of self-condemnation. We must admit all the aggravations of our sin, and look upon it, just as we may suppose God does. You shall praise God that he has borne so long with your misconduct, and be especially grateful that he did not cut you off in your sins, nor allow you to go on still sinning, and acting out your transgressions to the full extent of their nature and tendency. Set apart special seasons of devotion to humble yourselves before God, by fasting and prayer. Extraordinary cases require the use of extraordinary means. 'A day," says Mr. FULLER, "devoted to God in humiliation, fasting and prayer, occasionally occupied with reading suitable parts of the scriptures, may by the blessing of the Holy Spirit, contribute more to the subduing of sin, and the recovery of a right mind, than years spent in a sort of half-hearted exercises." Be neither surprised, mortified, nor offended, if for awhile, your fellow Christians who are acquainted with your lapses, should look shy upon you, and seem incredulous as to the sincerity of your repentance. "Wherefore should a man complain, a living man for the punishment of his sins. I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against him." Let the spirit of these passages be in you, and consider whatever you may be called to endure as light compared with what you have deserved.-In all your approaches to the Saviour, let it be under the character in which you first applied to him for mercy, that of a SINNER. If you attempt to approach the throne of grace as a good man, who has backslidden from God, you may find it impossible to support that character. The reality of your conversion may be doubtful, not only in your apprehension, but in itself. Your approach, therefore, must not be as one that is washed, and

needeth not, save to wash his feet; but as one who is defiled throughout, whose hands and head, and every part needs to be cleansed. Do not employ yourself in raking over the rubbish of your past life in search of evidence that you are a Christian. You will not be able in your present state of mind, to decide that question; nor would it be of any service to you if you could decide it. One thing is certain; you are a sinner, a poor, miserable, and perishing sinner; the door of mercy is open; and you are welcome to enter in. Let your past character be what it may, and let your conversion be ever so doubtful, if you can from this time relinquish all for Christ, eternal life is before you."-FULLER. In your approaches to God as a sinner, feel as much your need of Christ as you ever did: you can go in no other character than a sinner, and by no other way than Christ. God meets his returning children, just where he meets his repenting enemies, at the cross; and nothing is so eminently adapted to open all the springs of godly sorrow, as a believing contemplation of the death of Christ. There must be a simple dependance upon the Spirit of God for our restoration. We can of our own accord depart from God, but it requires the omnipotence of his grace to bring us back.-You must be satisfied with nothing short of a complete recovery; which includes two things, a sweet and comfortable sense of pardon; such a faith in God's promise of mercy, such a full reliance on the blood of Christ, as takes away all tormenting sense of sin and dread of God, and restores the soul to peace; and together with this, recovery includes such a victory over your corruptions, as that they shall lie wounded to death before you. And with all this must be united a holy and trembling jealousy over yourself, a spirit of deep humility, and abasing consciousness of weakness, a feeling of dependance, and a purpose of watchfulness for the future.

THE duties of the Christian profession are so numerous, so arduous, and so much beyond resources which we have in ourselves, that this volume would be incomplete in a very important and essential point, if it contained no distinct and explicit reference to the assistance necessary to their right performance. I devote this chapter, therefore, to a consideration of the work of the Holy Spirit, as the source of the believer's strength. There is a passage of scripture on this subject, so fraught with instruction, that it may be well made the basis of what I have now to advance, "If we LIVE in the Spirit, let us also WALK in the Spirit.”—Gal. v. 22. The premises in this text, contain a striking and beautiful description of the nature of true piety; "it is living in the Spirit :" and its conclusion, an equally beautiful description of its visible development and gradual progress, which is said to be walking in the Spirit. These are inseparable from each other: there can be no spiritual walking without life, and where there is life, there will be walking.

"he

The unconverted sinner is in a state of moral death; is dead in trespasses and sins." He has animal, intellectual, and social existence, but as to divine and heavenly things, he is as dead to these matters as a corpse is to surrounding

material objects; he has no spiritual perception, no holy sensibilities, no pious sympathies, no religious activity; he is destitute of all moral vitality. Regeneration is the transition of the sinner from this state into one which is its very opposite; it is the impartation and commencement of a new spiritual existence. It adds no new natural faculties, but only gives a right bias and direction to those which, as rational creatures, we already possess.

Is

There are two descriptions which the scripture has given us of this new and holy state or condition, into which divine grace brings us. The first is in our Lord's words, "That which is born of the Spirit is SPIRIT."-John, iii. 6. Spirit. This does not mean man's intelligent nature, i. e. his understanding, or reasoning faculty; nor his soul, i. e. his animal nature-these he has already-but it signifies a new moral nature, a spirit which enters into a man's spirit; a spirit put into himself. It is not a thing which lies upon the surface of a man, which consists in mere forms, ceremonies, or talk; but which enters into him, and seats and centres itself in his mind, and takes possession of his inmost self, as the soul of his very soul. Religion is SPIRIT: a something produced by the DIVINE INFINITE SPIRIT, and of the nature and likeness of its Parent, by whom it is begotten. It is a thing, as to its essence and true existence, invisible as the soul in which it dwells, but like that, animating a body with which it is united. When the prophet would speak diminishingly and with contempt of the Egyptian power, he says, "Their horses are flesh and not spirit." Religion, on the contrary, is not flesh, but spirit, as if there were scarcely any thing else that so well deserved the term, and all besides this new, holy, heavenly, divine nature, were too nearly allied to matter to be called spirit. The other term by which religion is described is allied to this; it is LIFE. How mysterious, how precious a thing is life! Nothing, in a general way, iş

better understood, yet nothing, upon the attempt to analyze it, more speedily, or completely, evades the power of scrutiny. What philosopher shall strip this little monosyllable LIFE, of all the mystery that hangs around it, and lay bare to our perception the principle of life? Religion is life; not animal, intellectual, or social, but spiritual. In looking into nature, we find a graduated scale of animated beings; the most insignificant vegetable is above the greatest mass of inanimate matter; the weed of the wilderness, for instance, is superior to the rock of Gibraltar, because the former has the principle of life. The least insect that crawls, is above the noblest vegetable production, the cedar of Lebanon, or the oak of the forest, because it has a higher kind of life, a principle of volition and locomotion. The child of a year or two old is, in dignity, above the noblest objects of inanimate nature, above the sun in all his glory; above the ocean or the forest; above the lion, notwithstanding his strength; the elephant, with his sagacity; or the leviathan, with his bulk; for that child has a rational mind, and is the subject, not only of intelligence, but of conscience and moral emotion. But a Christian has a principle of vitality in him, which is far above every other kind of life; the indwelling of the Spirit of God in his soul produces that which is the perfection of life itself; the climax of vitality; the top and flower of animated nature: so that the regenerated peasant is, in the eye of God, a being far more like himself, far more nearly allied to the Infinite, the Parent Spirit, than the greatest unconverted philosopher in the world. This divine life consists of that illumination of the judgment, by which not only the theoretic meaning, but the moral glory of spiritual things is perceived; together with that love to them in the heart, which is drawn forth in all the exercises of a course of righteousGod is light. God is love. Or uniting both together, ness.