the flesh, but after the Spirit. If grace should exist in the soul, though only as the grain of mustard seed, or as the handful of leaven, it will inevitably increase: being confident of this, that he who began the good work will carry it on to the day of Jesus Christ. No one grace of the Spirit is ever alone in the soul; for the change effected in conversion by the Holy Ghost is a change of nature, and extends to all the faculties of the moral constitution; to all the exercises of the rational creature.

Indulgence in those habits and transgressions, which indicate the total dominion of the corruption of nature, are evidence that no saving change has taken place; for whosoever abideth in him sinneth not. By the very same rule, he who from spiritual motives relinquishes one evil course, relinquishes also all, so far as his spirituality prevails over innate corruption; for whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. It is perfectly true, that he that sinneth in one point against the law, is guilty of all; because he resists that authority from which the whole law derives its binding power: but it is equally true, that he who exercises any grace of the gospel, has the seed of all the graces planted in him, and cultivated by the Spirit of God. By the law is the knowledge of sin; but life and immortality are brought to light by the gospel. Such then is the nature of the Christian's new life, that any one gracious exercise, well ascertained, warrants you in the conclusion, I am born of God.

2. There is great variety of Christian attainments; and this fact must be remembered by him, who would succeed in selfexamination.

In a congregation met for the public worship of God, according to the laudable practice which obtains in Christian countries, it is reasonable to expect that we shall find many descriptions of character. Here, we meet together, the rich and the poor, the young and the old, the man of leisure and the man of business. Here, we meet those who have made a public profession of religion, and many who have not as yet approached under the oath of God, the table at which the saints enjoy the communion. The bride, the Lamb's wife, and the daughters of Jerusalem, enter together into the sanctuary. Real Christians, too, whether they have or have not made a public profession, exhibit great variety of religious attainments: and the standard of one will not answer to ascertain the measure of another. There is, it is true, one rule by which all cases must be tried and judged, the word of the living God; but this rule itself describes a variety of graces, and of degrees in each of these graces, which it is necessary to understand and to compare with our own experience. The difficulty lies in judging impartially according to that rule. It requires attention and discernment, to ascertain the facts in our own case, to ascertain the law as it is laid down in the scriptures, and to apply correctly the unerring standard to that of which we are conscious in our own minds.

It is impossible not to be influenced, in some measure, by the estimate which we form of the religious character of others. Your opinion of one is too high; and comparing that opinion with your own attainments, you are discouraged. Your opinion of another is too low; and, upon comparison, pride starts up in your own heart. One of your acquaintances is intelligent, and of superior integrity and tenderness in all the concerns of religion. You make this the criterion of godliness, and again you despair of your own piety. Another is childish, and frail, and disorderly; again you become too confident of your personal goodness.

"Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant." One is distinguished by his humility, another by his charity, a third by his patience, a fourth by his joy. One is zealous, and another is deliberate and constant, Let not these diversified gifts confound you, or render your exertions, to understand your own character, abortive. "There are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all."* Beware that the variety of objects does not occasion an indistinctness of perception and a confusion of ideas that may prevent a discovery, in endeavouring to find what is the religious state of your own souls. Great attainments do not belong to babes in grace; and you would be only practising a deception upon yourselves, should you expect to find in every true believer the meekness of Moses, the wisdom of Solomon, the mild but stubborn and uniform integrity of Samuel the prophet, and the triumphant assurance of Paul the apostle.

The circumstances of the times have an effect upon Christian attainments. They have so, as moral causes influencing temper and conduct; and still more, as considered by the omniscient God in the distribution of his gifts of grace-He adopts the rule, as your day is, so shall your strength be. In times of persecution, boldness, prudence, and fortitude, are peculiarly required and provided. In times of abounding error, there is need of discrimination and fidelity; for heresy comes that they who are approved, as being of the truth, may be made manifest.* In times of general devotional excitement, extraordinary emotion is no certain sign of piety. Social sensibility is infectious; but true religion is by the grace of God. Crowds may ignorantly weep at hearing of the sufferings of Jesus Christ, who under other circumstances would cry out for their idols. The condition of body has itself an influence in producing the varieties of Christian exercises. The same holy principles may operate upon the bedridden female, and the vigorous and healthy missionary of the cross; but the mild and silent endurance of the one, is distinguished from the calculating and enterprising spirit, and the ceaseless activity of the other.

You would require, in a special manner, to remember, that there are different degrees of grace, when you compare yourselves with the saints set before us in scripture as an example. How vastly different the attainments of the apostles before and after the day of Pentecost. Who would take for the same person, that stood trembling at the door of the high priest's palace, when the maid-servant of Caiaphas charged him with being a Christian, that Peter, who, in the assembly of Priests, and Rulers, and Elders, in the presence of Caiaphas himself, said, "Be it known unto you all, that Jesus Christ, whom ye crucified, God raised from the dead. This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other?" +

The saints under the Old Testament, it must also be considered, lived under a different dispensation. The measure of their inward piety is in those cases which are extraordinary, (and these are most conspicuous) too high for the ordinary standard of common Christians; but the measure of their doctrinal information, and their outward character as members of society, do not furnish a correct criterion of evangelical intelligence and morality. They had not so clear and copious a revelation as we possess: nor were the laws of social religion so plain, so spiritual, or so well understood, as they are since the promulgation of the New Testament. Among them that are born of women, there is not one greater than John the Baptist, nevertheless, he that is least in the kingdom of heaven, is greater than he. The character of Abraham, of David, and of Solomon, as it respects the several degrees of inward holiness and spiritual mindedness, is too high a criterion for the state of our gracious affections; but in outward domestic deportment, these saints are in some instances by far too low examples for our imitation. No decent religious society would now receive into the visible communion of the church, the Father of the faithful, while keeping Hagar as a concubine, David with his numerous wives, or Solomon his son, notwithstanding their piety, their inspiration, their eminence, their wisdom, and the certainty of their title to the kingdom of God in heaven.*

3. God effectually calls his redeemed children, in different periods of life, and under different circumstances.

Regeneration is in all instances the same holy change, and religion itself is in all men the same; yet it is necessary, in surveying the ground upon which the saints build their assurance of salvation, to advert to the different circumstances under which the grace of God was in the first instance communicated. Some saints have, in the very circumstances of their conversion to God, certain means of ascertaining their own state-peculiar means which are not common to others. Some of the elect are regenerated in their infancy-Some, in advanced years, are suddenly, and as if it were by miracle, changed in their sentiments and affections and some are so gradually instructed in Christian doctrine and morals, that the precise time of spiritual quickening is not to be discovered by the most careful reflections.

Infants are not capable of understanding the doctrines of divine revelation, or of exercising faith on the testimony of God: they know not their own relation to the moral law, the nature of sin, of holiness, of pardon, and of penitence. The formation and execution of the covenant of grace are as far from the reach of their intellectual faculties as are the rules of civil society, or the arts of the husbandman and the manufacturer. The child is, however, man, in miniature; and has the capacity of being gradually instructed in language, in science, and in arts, in proportion as time promotes the developement of innate genius. He has in like manner the capacity of being renewed and sanctified, whensoever the Holy Spirit chooses to produce this saving change upon him: and, in proportion as the rationol faculties are exercised and unfolded, the converted child will display the graces of repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. The same divine power, that causes the bones to grow in the womb of her that is with child, and breathes into the infant nostrils the breath of life, is perfectly competent to the spiritual renovation of the living soul. Jeremiah the prophet was sanctified before he came forth from the womb ;* and John, the forerunner of Messiah, was filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb. The ordinances of the covenant of promise, under its various dispensations, dispensed to children in their earliest days, and as they grew up before the Lord, appear to me also to be predicated upon this principle, that children are capable of being born again; and of course, pious parents have not only a right, in submission indeed to divine sovereignty, to expect a blessing upon domestic instruction; but also to exercise a hope that those of their offspring who are called away to the world of spirits before they arrive at years of maturity, have, in fact, been renewed in their minds before they were snatched off from the evil to come.‡

* Jer. i. 5.

+ Luke i. 15.

+ By this hope alone we can satisfactorily explain the problem, 2 Sam. xii. 15, 23. David seemed inconsolable while his beloved child lay under the agonies of a mortal disease; but so soon as he was informed of the death of his infant, he arose from the earth, "washed and anointed himself, came into the house of the Lord, and worshipped: then he came into his own house, and he did eat." His conduct appeared inexplicable to his domestics: but he himself explains the principles upon which he acted. "He said, While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept: for I said, who can tell whether God will be gracious to me, that the child may live? But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? can I bring him back again? I SHALL GO TO HIM, but he shall not return to me."

The prophet David knew that there is no knowledge in the grave. He was one of those who by faith obtained the promise of the resurrection, and desired to see the heavenly country. To him it could be no consolation to go down with his child to perpetual oblivion. To the heavenly city he was himself going; and where, he by faith expected to be; there he expected to meet his infant offspring. I SHALL GO TO HIM. The pious parent had assurance of his own salvation, and he is confident also of the safety of his departed child. How different from this was his conduct, how vastly different his expressions, at the death of another