the hope of eternal life for a cup, whose dregs he knows to be death and hell. We hear men say, they don't think God ever made a being to damn him, while they are doing all they can to damn themselves.

It is not recorded of Christ that he ever smiled. Yet sinners, unpardoned sinners, smile in the face of a frowning God, and with the gloomy prospect of an undone eternity before them. How strange!

It is melancholy enough to see a fellow-immortal doing that which we know he will hereafter wish he had not done; but to see him doing that which he himself knows, at the time of doing it, he will wish he had not done-nay more, to see him doing that which he intends hereafter to wish he had not done, this is something more than melancholy. What is it but the most extravagant infatuation, that would deserve to be only pitied, were it not that in being voluntary, it merits to be most severely condemned. What a use is this to make of the immortal mind; how dishonoring to the Maker of it; how disreputable to the mind itself!

If the question should be put to the vote, on the principle of universal suffrage, the Christian life would be voted out as unworthy and absurd. In like manner would the ballot of the great, and noble, and learned, and fair, decide it. They have done so; and where Christ has not been persecuted out of the world, he haз always been excluded from the court, the cabinet, and the drawing-room.

I suppose that if a belief of the clearest demonstration in Euclid's Elements, rendered a holy life necessary, there are many who would never be able to

perceive the conclusiveness of the reasoning by which it is established.

The natural man has indeed sense, and judgment, and affections; but his senses discern not spiritual objects, his judgment approves them not, his affections fix not upon them. He has no ears to listen to the words of eternal life, no eyes to see the glory of religion, no voice to give utterance to prayer and praise, no taste for spiritual enjoyments. Perception he has, but not of the things of the Spirit; memory also, but it receives not the impressions of divine truth; imagination, but the beauties and sublimities of religion cannot interest it. He feels a sense of obligation, but not towards God; he is susceptible of the emotions of gratitude, but not for those gifts that came down from heaven; he can feel concern, but not for the things which belong to his everlasting peace. He can be agitated by fear and excited by hope; but in vain do the realities beyond the grave address themselves to these passions of the human heart. He has a heart all emotion, but a Saviour's love cannot move it. He can sorrow for every thing but sin; can rejoice in every thing but the Gospel; can study with delight every subject but redemption; can be made happy more easily by any object than God. On him he leans not for support; to him he flies not for refuge; from him he asks no counsel in difficulty; to him he seeks not for consolation in trouble.

He who is unregenerate, has refused to be illuminated by the most brilliant of all lights, or melted by the most blessed of all influences, or healed by the most

sovereign of all medicines, or redeemed by the most precious of all prices.

Human nature demands more than illumination; otherwise our sins are only sins of ignorance; the periods of greatest light, would be the periods of the most singular virtue; and the best instructed in their duty, would be the most careful to do it. But this is by no means the case. The advancement of knowledge is not the promotion of religion. To teach men is not to reform them. The path of duty does not become pleasant merely from being strongly lighted. There must evidently be a new disposition in men ere they will obey God. As instruction will not reform men, so neither will persuasion, the accumulation of motives, and the presenting of them in the most clear and forcible manner, with the greatest urgency, and the warmest and tenderest expostulation, accomplish the desired object.

TOTAL DEPRAVITY.

Some object to the phrase total depravity, as expressing the moral condition of men. But that phrase, though technical and definite, is not so strong as the language of Scripture. There we are said to be "dead in trespasses and sins." The phrase means much, but what? Why, that men by reason of sin are the

The

subjects of death. There is an animal life; they are not dead with respect to that. There is an intellectual life; but they are not dead in reference to that. highest, happiest, noblest species of life, is spiritual life. They are destitute of that. Thus they are dead. That life is not languishing in them. It is extinct. They are not dying. They are dead in trespasses and sins; wholly destitute of spiritual life; altogether without holiness; having no love to God; for that life is love. It is certainly implied in this expression that the moral condition of men is hopeless, but for divine interposition. There is no power can reach a case of death, but God's only. A man, by human means and ministrations, may be brought back from the very state of dying; but when death has supervened, these means are vain. The least lingering spark may be so cherished, and fanned, and fed, as at length to burn up in a blaze; but if that spark goes out, it can be restored only from heaven. Now men are dead. Their case requires vivification, resurrection. Therefore God alone can reach it. The Christian character, that which renders one meet for heaven, is not any improvement of the native character, but a substitution of a new and different character. You must become not barely a better man than you naturally are, for that would imply that there is some native goodness; but you must become another and a different man. God says, "A new heart will I give you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh." Where then is the validity of the objection to the phrase, "total depravity"? Who would not as readily

have a friend say of him, "thou art totally depraved,” as "thou art dead in trespasses and sins?" If God insists on a new heart, must it not be because the old one is wholly incapable of improvement-totally depraved?

RUIN EASY YET DREADFUL.

She took and ate,

Oh, how easy it is to ruin one's self and others. But to raise the fallen mind and restore the ruined nature, how hard! No power can do it. Even with God, it is not mainly a work of power; else his Son would not have been obedient unto death. How short was the work of our undoing in paradise. and gave to him, and he ate, and it was done. But to undo that, how many generations it has occupied; how many beings it has engaged; what a sacrifice it may be said to have cost God; how many drops of sweat, and tears, and blood, it has called for. Oh, what agency has been found necessary to undo it! Soon the covenant of death was struck, but not so that of life and grace.

How easy it is to be undone for ever! It is but to sit still, and you die. It is only to do nothing. It costs no effort. Just "neglect the great salvation, and you shall not escape the damnation of hell."