much as desiring the poison any more. A new taste has been introduced, so that the drug which seemed sweet and agreeable before, seems now no longer palatable. Now, though this parable be a very imperfect one, yet it shows distinctly the one feature in sanctification which I wish to bring into view, namely, its pleasantness. The Spirit which Christ offers sanctifies us never in the first way, but always in the second way-not by restraining us, but by making us new. By nature we love sin-the world and the things of the world—though we know that the wages of sin is death. Now, to cure this, I can imagine a man setting himself down deliberately to cross all his corrupted passions-to restrain all his appetites-to reject and trample on all the objects that the natural heart is set upon. This is the very system recommended by Satan, by Antichrist, and the world. But there is a far more excellent way, which the Holy Ghost makes use of in sanctifying us-not the way of changing the objects, but the way of changing the affections-not by an external restraint, but by an internal renewing. As it is said in Ezekiel: "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you an heart of flesh; and I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments and do them." Ah! then, brethren, if there be one poor sinner here who has been deceived by the detestable heresy of the world—as if the keeping of the commandments by the saints were a grievous and unwilling servicelet that man, this day, open his eyes to the true nature of Gospel holiness-that God does not offer to work in you to do, without first working in you to will. He does not offer to pluck from you your favourite objects; but he offers to give you a new taste for higher objects; and just as the boy finds it no hardship to cast away the toys and trifles that were his bosom friends in childhood, so the saint feels no hardship in casting away the wretched playthings that so long amused and cheated the soul; for, behold a new world hath been opened up by the Spirit of God, to the admiring, enamoured gaze of the believer in Jesus.

Behold, then, ye simple ones, that are loving your simplicity, what an argument is here to move you to immediate conversion to immediate acceptance of Jesus! If you will only put on Christ, behold, he offers this day to begin the work of creating you anew-not of crossing and restraining

you, and tying you down to services which you loathe, but of giving you a taste and a delight in objects which angelswhich every holy and happy being delights in. "Turn you at my reproof."

II. The call of the Saviour to TURN NOW ought to be obeyed by us, because conversion becomes every day harder. -There is no law of our nature that works with a surer and more silent power than the law of habit. That which at first we find the utmost difficulty in accomplishing, becomes easier upon every trial, till habit becomes, as it were, a second nature. Thus, in learning to read, how slow and how gradual is the progress made! until, trained by oft-repeated trial, the stammering tongue becomes the tongue of grace and fluency. Nay, so easy does the art become, that we at length forget to notice the very letters which compose the words we read. Just similar is the growth of habit in sinning. Depraved as is the natural heart, yet the ingenuous mind of youth finds something painful and revolting in acquiring the first oath which fashion or companionship obliges him to learn. The loose jest and the irreligious sneer, will generally summon up the blush of indignation in the cheek of the simple-hearted boy, newly ushered into the busy world. But who does not know the power of habit in rubbing off the fine varnish of the delicate mind?-who has not, within a few months, heard the oath drop as if with native vivacity from the tongue?—who has not seen vice and profanity pass unreproved, even by the silent blush of shame? As it is with these sins, so is it with the greatest sin of which humanity is guilty—the sin of rejecting the Saviour. There is a time in youth when the mind seems peculiarly open to the reception of a Saviour. There is a time when the understanding and the affections suddenly burst forth into maturity, like the rosebud bursting into the full-blown rose-a time when all the passions of our nature spurn control, and break forth with a reckless impetuosity; and all experience testifies that that is the time when conviction of sin may most easily be wrought in the soul—the time when the work and sufferings of the Saviour may with greatest hope of success be presented to the mind. It is then that the whole scene of Gospel truth flashes upon the mind with a freshness and a power which, in all human probability, it never will do again. The tenderness of a Saviour's love, if resisted

then, will every day lose more of its novelty and of its power to touch the heart-the habit of resistance to the word and testimony of a beseeching God will every day become more predominant-the stony heart will every day become more a heart of adamant-the triple brass of unbelief will every day become more impenetrable. Oh! my friends, it is fearful to think how many among us are every hour subjecting our hearts to this sure and silent process of hardening. Look back, brethren, as many of you may do, to the time when Christ and his sufferings had first an awakening interest to your soul. Look back to the first death in your family, or the first time you prepared to sit down at the holy sacrament. Were there not arousing, quickening feelings stirred in your breast, which now you have not? Had you not some struggle of conscience— something like a felt kicking against the pricks, in rejecting Christ-in putting away the tenderness of the tenderest of beings? But you were successful in the struggle-you smothered every disquieting whisper-you lulled every pang of uneasiness. The Spirit was striving with you; but you quenched his awakening influences. And now, do you not feel that these days of feeling are wellnigh past-that spirit-stirring seasons are becoming every year rarer and rarer to you? Deaths are more frequent around you; but they speak with less power to your conscience. Every sacrament seems to lose something of its affecting energyevery Sabbath becomes more dull and monotonous. true you may NOT feel all this. There is a state of the conscience in which it is said to be past feeling. But if there be any truth in the Bible, and any identity in human nature, this process of hardening is going on day after day in every unconverted mind. Oh! it is the saddest of all sights that a godly minister can behold, to see his flock, Sabbath after Sabbath, waiting most faithfully on the stirring ministrations of the Word, and yet going away unawakened and unimpressed; for well he knows that the heart that is not turned, is all the more hardened.

It is

How simple and how mighty an argument is here to persuade you to turn to God this day. This day we hold out to you all the benefits to be found in Christ-forgiveness through his blood-acceptance through his righteousness-sanctification by his Spirit. Reject them, and you add not only another act of sin to the burden of your guilt, but you add another hardening crust to your impenetrable

heart. This day refuse Christ, and, by all human calculation, you will more surely refuse him the next day; so that, without at all meaning to question the sovereignty of the Spirit of God, who worketh whensoever and on whomsoever it pleaseth him, the only conclusion that any reasonable man has a right to come to, is, that this day, of all days between this and judgment, is the best and likeliest for your conversion; and your dying day-that sad season of tossings and heavings, before the spirit is torn from its earthly tenement—is, in all human calculation, the worst day of your life for turning unto God. When the minister of Christ pulls aside the curtains of your bed, to speak the word of Jesus Christ, the ear that for a whole lifetime has heard the glad message of salvation all unmoved, will, in that hour, hear as if it did not hear. The heart that has so long turned aside the edge of the Word of Life, will then be like the nether millstone. "To-day, then, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts."

III. The call of the Saviour to turn now ought to be obeyed by us, because the Saviour will not always call."My Spirit will not always strive with man," was the warning of God given to the antediluvian world. “Now they are hid from thine eyes," was a similar warning given by the Saviour to Jerusalem. And the passage immediately following the text, expresses the same sentiment in still more fearful language. And who does not see the solemnity and power which it gives to the call of the Saviour, that the time is at hand when he will not call

any

more?

66

Behold yon majestic figure bearing on his body the marks of the Man of Sorrows; but bearing in his eye and words the aspect of Him "who liveth, and was dead, and behold he is alive for evermore." Behold, how he stands in an attitude of unmingled tenderness to sinners, even the chief! Behold, how the beseeching hands are stretched out! Hearken to the soft accents of mercy-of invitation-of promise: “I will pour out my Spirit unto you." But remember that attitude of mercy is but for a time; these beseeching hands are stretched out only for a time; these accents of gentleness are but for a time. The day is at hand when he shall come "with clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him; and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him." This is Christ's attitude of judgment. No more are the inviting hands stretched out beseechingly; for

the rod of iron is in his right hand, and his enemies are before him as a potter's vessel. His right hand teacheth him terrible things; his arrows are sharp in the hearts of the King's enemies, whereby the people fall under him. And oh! how fearfully shall his accents of tenderness be changed! "I also will laugh at your calamity;

I will mock when your fear cometh;
When your fear cometh as desolation;

And your destruction cometh as a whirlwind;
When distress and anguish cometh upon you."

Oh! what a day will it be, when the tender-hearted Jesus, that wept at the grave of Lazarus, shall laugh at your calamity, and mock at your terrors! The contrast between these two representations is so striking, that it cannot escape the notice of any one. But what I wish you to observe is, that it is not only a very striking change, but a very sudden one. The transition from kindness to indignation is here not gradual, like the change from day into night. There is no twilight, as it were; the transition is sudden as it is terrible. May not this be intended to teach us that God frequently ceases to strive with men, not gradually, but suddenly ?not only that death is frequently sudden, and that the coming of the Son of Man shall surely be sudden, as a thief in the night, but that the withdrawing of the beseeching Saviour from living men who long resist his call, is often sudden and irremediable? Awake, then, brethren, those of you who think it is all one when you repent and embrace the Saviour, provided it be done before you die. Awake, those of you who say: "A little more sleep, and a little more slumber; a little more folding of the hands to sleep." The sun of grace may set not like the sun of nature; there may be no calm and tranquil twilight, when thou mightest bethink thee of the coming darkness, and flee to Him who is the light of the world. However this may be, there is enough surely in the fact, that the Spirit withdraws from those who resist him, whether suddenly or gradually, to move every one of you this day to immediate conversion. It must be now, or it may be never.

On a winter evening, when the frost is setting in with growing intensity, and when the sun is now far past the meridian, and gradually sinking in the western sky, there is a double reason why the ground grows every moment harder and more impenetrable to the plough. On the one hand, the frost of evening, with ever-increasing intensity,