rebellious subjects. We deserve nothing at his hands. He owes us nothing. Punishment we do indeed deserve, "if He were extreme to mark what is done amiss;" yet He declares, that punishment is his strange work. He has reversed the attainder, by the sacrifice of his Son. The attainted rebel, instead of disputing about the terms of reconciliation, instead of proposing terms of his own, thankfully accepts what the King offers. Though our pardon hangs on a firm belief in the great truths he has revealed, let us not so explain these as to hazard or neglect the duties he has enjoined us to perform. If our faith, though sincere, is often weak, let us remember, that our obedience is even more imperfect. than our faith; and let us, by fervent and unremitting prayer, labour at once to build up our faith, which is weak, and to perfect our obedience, which is defective.

God not only pardons as a merciful King, He enacts laws as a wise legislator; still the old revolutionary principles are continually breaking out; to check which, the Sovereign proposes terms as proofs of our allegiance. He does by no means annex salvation to them, but He requires them as marks of our repentance, as confirmations of our loyalty. He requires them as evidences both of our faith and of our submission. By the infusion of a new spirit of life consequent on His pardon, the acquitted rebel adopts a new set of principles, which show themselves by overt acts, suggested and nourished by fervent prayer.

We are aware that the term "evidences," used

above, is to many no less revolting, than those which we have previously noticed, but by this excessive affectation of disinterestedness and refining on the promises, we shall come to do away all moral obligation, we shall attenuate the substantial realities of Christianity into a meagre theory, reduce the fruitful principle of practical religion to a dry and unproductive speculation, a barren thing, to which nothing that is perceptible, palpable, tangible, and practical, is necessarily appended. Christianity is substance as well as

essence.

On the other hand, it is but too notorious, that the terms here humbly attempted to be vindicated and restored to their true signification, are too frequently made the sum, the entire whole, of religion, till the spirituality of the Gospel, and the great peculiarities of the religion of Jesus, are smothered in the heap of frigid human ethics.

It is by the promises annexed to these conditions, that the Christian is gradually brought to consider prayer, not merely as a duty, but to value it as a privilege; and the more earnestly he cultivates this spirit of supplication, the more deeply will it enable him to penetrate into the recesses of his own heart. The more he discovers the evils which he there finds, he will be so far from being deterred by the discovery, from approaching to the fountain of mercy, that it will lead him to be more diligent, as well as more fervent, in his application there. Nothing so

faithfully reveals to us our spiritual exigencies, nothing can quicken our petitions for their relief so powerfully, as the conviction of their actual existence. In this conviction, in this earnest application, the Christian at length feels the efficacy of prayer in its consolations, its blessedness, its transforming power.

440

VAIN EXCUSES FOR THE NEGLECT OF PRAYER.

THE MAN OF BUSINESS. CASE OF NEHEMIAH. PRAYER AGAINST THE FEAR OF DEATH. CHARACTERS TO WHOM EARNEST PRAYER IS RECOMMENDED.

THERE are not a few, who offer apologies for the neglect of spiritual duties, by saying they believe them to be right, but that they are tempted to neglect the exercise of them by idleness or business, by company or pleasure. This may be true, but temptations are not compulsions. The great adversary of souls may fill the fancy with alluring images of enjoyment, so as to draw us away from any duty; but it is in our own choice to indulge, and through grace to repel them. He may act upon the passions through outward objects, which introduce them to the mind through the senses, but the grace of God enables all, who faithfully ask it, to withstand them.

If we were not at liberty to reject temptation, sin would be no sin. It is the offer of the grace of resistance not used, which makes the offender to be without excuse. All the motives and allurements to sin would be ineffectual, would we keep up in our minds what are its " death spiritual, death eternal!

wages" - death;

Of all the excuses for the neglect of prayer, the man of business justifies his omission to himself by the most plausible apologies. Many of

this class, active for themselves, and useful to the world, are far from disputing either the propriety or the duty of prayer; they are willing, however, for the present, to turn over this duty to the clergy, to the idle, to women and children. They allow it to be an important thing, but not the most important. They acknowledge, if men have time to spare, they cannot spend it better; but they have no time. It is, indeed, a duty, but a duty not to be compared with that of the court, the bar, the public office, the counting-house, or the shop.

Now, in pleading for the importance of the one, we should be the last to detract from that of the other. We only plead for their entire compatibility.

We pass over the instance of Daniel, a man of business and a statesman, and of many other public characters, recorded in Scripture, and confine ourselves to the example of Nehemiah. He was not only an officer in the court of the greatest king of the East, but it was his duty to be much in the royal presence. He was, on a particular occasion, under deep affliction; for Jerusalem was in ruins! On a certain day, his sadness was so great, as to be visible to the king, at whose table he was attending.

The monarch enquired the cause of his sorrow, and what request he had to make. He instantly 66 prayed to the God of heaven," doubtless to strengthen him, and then made his petition to the king, for no less a boon, than to allow him to