the ministers of religion insist on the danger of self-deception, and paint, as do the Scriptures, the fearful doom of the hypocrite. Frequently do they exhibit the tests of Christian character, and unfold the rules and evidences by which any man may prónounce upon his pretensions to the Christian name. But the persons of whom we now speak are by no means self-deceived, neither are they acting the part of hypocrisy. By the employment of those very tests with which they are furnished, have they been led to decide unfavorably concerning themselves. They write gloomy things against themselves. They have come to feel that they are not, and never were true Christians. They have abandoned their hope. They are not a little disheartened because of their condition. They know not what to do.

When men of the world who have never professed to be any thing besides are addressed, they feel that their own state differs from such in many material points. They are already within the church. They are reputed to be Christians. At times they may be ready to wish that they were out of the church, occupying the same place which they did before they entered it. They are inclined to think that it would be better for themselves if it could be so. But now that they are already known as the professed disciples of Christ, many things combine to perplex them concerning the course which it would be proper for them to pursue. Shall they publicly confess that they are strangers to religion? Shall they withdraw from the church, erase their names from its records, and hereafter neglect its ordinances? This they fear to do, though at times they are almost forced to the act. Shall they remain as they are; pass through the forms of religion with conscience against them; organize their lives on the general principle of a reputable morality, and for the rest abide the issue? Their condition demands our profound concern. If the truth were known, many more would be found in this state than we have ever imagined.

To such as are ready to admit that they belong to this description of persons, I would say,

1. In the first place, look diligently, cautiously, intelligently into the reasons which lead you to such a decision. Is it with good reason, or otherwise, that you so judge in reference to yourself! It is possible that you are mistaken in your judgment, and need only to be corrected. Perhaps your gloomy opinion may be the result of a constitutional cautiousness of mind, or improper conceptions of the gospel of Christ, or depression of the animal spirits in consequence of bodily infirmity, disease, or other cause. The mere absence of all hope does not render it certain that you have no good ground to hope. There may be the very best evidence of Christian character where there is no happy hope, just as truly as there may be a confident hope where there are no evidences to justify it. Doubts concerning one's own piety often indicate a healthy condition of the conscience. They

imply anxiety and discrimination, and a desire to know the truth; and when compared with their opposite, a self-confident and presumptuous habit, are infinitely to be preferred. Great sensibility to pain is not the most dangerous symptom in disease.

A deep feeling of unworthiness is no evidence that you are not in your right place. You are mistaken if you suppose that any other feeling is becoming in one who hopes to be saved only by the mercy of Jesus Christ. You may possess the most profound sense of your personal unworthiness, and be ready to admit that all others are better than you; that there is no one more undeserving the privilege of being admitted to Christian ordinances: this feeling may be daily deepening and extending, and of itself presents no good reasons which should debar you from the table of Christ. You have been subject to great misapprehension, if you have ever supposed that you should feel otherwise, or have wished to feel otherwise; for no other feeling is becoming in one who trusts in the cross of Christ.

It may be, therefore, when better informed on these points, and exercising a more impartial discrimination, that you will find much reason to hope on your own account. On the other hand, if it be true that upon an intelligent survey of the evidences of Christian character; after making all possible allowances and exceptions in your favor, which a sound and pious judgment will permit; after the most careful and honest scrutiny into the motives and emotions of your heart, you come to the rational conviction that you have never been renewed by the Spirit of God; then to you I say,

2. Be grateful to God that your eyes have been opened to see your true condition before it was too late. This is a mercy which few appreciate. We have reason to believe that of those who enter the church on earth with hearts deceived and unchanged, few are ever brought to true and saving repentance. We think we see many reasons why it must be so. Many influences there are, whose natural effect is to perpetuate that delusion and confirm that impenitence. There is the manner in which that entrance was effected. It was upon examination. Those in whose piety and judgment all confidence has been reposed, pronounced favorably upon their qualifications for admission to Christian fellowship. These persons were questioned by the teachers of religion; the elders of the people looked into their experience, and they were ready to welcome them to the table of Christ. In consequence of this, it is not to be denied that there is a sense of security which is likely to endanger and ruin such as were self-deceived, when official judgment was thus given in their favor. Deceived they will, on this account, be likely to remain.

There is another influence at work which tends to the same result. There is a public separation made between the church and the world. It is visible; it is recognized by all the appeals

which are made by God's ambassadors. By a very natural process, there is a corresponding distribution and partition made by such persons, each for himself. The professed disciple appropri ates to himself whatever is designed for the consolation and blessedness of the people of God. Whatever is said concerning the guilt and danger of impenitence, and the necessity of conversion, is conducted off from himself to those who are confessedly in an impenitent state. Such appeals were not designed for him. They were intended for the great body of unbelieving men. There is a shield over his heart and conscience, through which the arrows of the Lord do not pass. A sense of security is generated by this habit, which we have reason to fear is but seldom effectually disturbed. Not as likely is he, on this account, to apply the truth which is really appropriate to his case. Besides all this, there is the certain effect produced upon the character by a participation in Christian ordinances, and the enjoyment of peculiar privileges. Very solemn it is to sit down. at the table of Christ. It is a very solemn thing to put to one's lips the cup which symbolizes the blood that was shed for our salvation, and to eat of the bread which reminds us of the body which was pierced and broken on the cross. What scene more. impressive, more awful, more tender, more fitted in every way to subdue and break the heart, can ever occur in the present life? We look in vain for any thing more powerful to affect us than this. But what if one participates therein with a heart unchanged? Is there not an effect produced upon his character which is absolutely fearful? Does he not acquire a power of resistance to truth, and love, and motives, which leave us little to hope? While his sense of security has been deepening, has not his heart really been growing hard proportionably fast? We cannot doubt it. We cannot conceal it from ourselves that there are reasons why those who are admitted to the number of God's people with hearts deceived and impenitent, will probably continue in that. state forever. We cannot but tremble when we admit the probability, that of those who eat and drink unworthily, very few are ever awakened and converted.

Therefore it is that we say to you who have been brought to an intelligent conviction, that you have no evidences of conversion, though in the bosom of the church; that you have reason to thank God for his mercy in having dispelled your delusions, broken up your security, and brought you to a knowledge of yourself. You might have slept on, and deceived yourself as do others, till life was all over. The Spirit of God has not deserted you. You are not given up to believe a lie. God is still waiting to be gracious to you; and the proof of it is already before you for your encouragement.

3. It is important for you to understand, in the next place, tha you cannot retreat to the world. You cannot go back; you can not exclude yourself from the church. Upon this point there

are many prevalent errors, both of opinion and practice. Many who like you have come to the conviction that they never knew any thing of true religion, have resolved that they would silently withdraw from the communion of the church. They absent themselves from the Lord's table. They perhaps give no more attendance on the ordinances of the Lord's house. Convinced that they are strangers to piety, they consider this a good reason why they should, of their own accord, retire from Christian fellowship.

All such are under a palpable mistake. There are none appointed in the Church of Christ to grant permission to any who may desire it, to withdraw and return again to the world. No man within the church has the right to assume this permission for himself. The Scriptures recognize but two ways in which any communicant can ever be removed from the church on earth. The one is by the direct agency of God himself. Death removes one after another, and takes them into eternity. But death does not absolve any one from his solemn vows; he transfers the true Christian to the church in glory, to abide there forever. The other method is by exclusion because of offences. For the preservation of her own purity, the continuance of her own institutions, as well as the discipline and recovery of her own members, the church has been invested with the power of cutting off such as offend and will not be reclaimed. When admonition has failed, and all suitable efforts have been frustrated, then is the church required, in the name of her great Lord and Head, to pronounce such excluded from all Christian rights and privileges. Ever after, unless they repent and return, such are to be held as heathen men and publicans. Other than the two methods which I have now described, death by the agency of God himself, and exclusion in the manner and for the reasons which have been defined by our Lord himself, there is no way of being disconnected from the church of the living God. He is subject to a great misapprehension who supposes that he may withdraw at his own pleasure.

For, in the first place, such a withdrawal, if it could be permitted, would not absolve one from the vows which have already been made. Once made, they can never be retracted or broken. The language of the church to such as come to the Lord's table is in substance: "Let it be impressed on your minds that you have entered into solemn relations which you can never renounce, and from which you can never escape. Wherever you go, they will be upon you. They will follow you to the bar of God; and in whatever world you may be fixed, will abide on you to eternity. You can never be again as you have been. You have voluntarily, publicly, and unalterably committed yourselves, and henceforth you must be the servants of God." There is no retreat, no retirement, no crowd, no cavern, no island of the sea, no spot in all the creation of God to

which you may betake yourself, where the solemnity and obligation of these vows will not rest upon you. Retrogression, therefore, is not to be thought of for one instant.

Besides all this, if you are not a Christian now, your obligation to be a Christian is not diminished in the least by any change in your outward circumstances and relations. You cannot escape from that duty. It is omnipresent, like the air you breathe. Are not the crowds of living men, heedless, impenitent though they be, under obligation to believe and obey from the heart? Does not God lay righteous claim to their services? Ought they not to be the disciples of Jesus Christ? Will not their guilt be great, and their punishment intolerable, if they refuse? Is it to such that you would think of withdrawing? Withdraw from what? Not surely from responsibility. Not from the duty to be from the heart a believer in Jesus. Had you the wings of the morning, you could not fly beyond the reach and jurisdiction of this equitable requirement. To retire from the church, even if it were permitted, would not lessen your obligations, or lighten their pressure, or diminish their solemnity, or absolve you from the moral government of God.

Withdraw from the church! To what would you go? To the world again? To the unbelief and heedlessness of impenitent men? But this is to rush upon a certain destruction. To such, nothing remains but a looking-for of judgment which shall devour the adversaries. Hope there is none in that quarter. Absolutely certain is it, that all such as obey not the gospel of God will be visited with tribulation and anguish. To go back, is to go back to perdition. There is nothing in a state of unbelief which can comfort your heart or illuminate your prospects. To go back to the world, is to go back to infamy and death. Retreat is cut off. Whatever is to be done, we cannot go back, unless we have made an agreement with hell, and with death are in covenant, and the last hope has gone out, and our resolution is formed to meet our inevitable fate in the sullenness of despair. It is not so with you. Evident is it, then, that you must hope for relief from another quarter; instead of retreating, you must advance. You are shut up to an onward movement. You can move only in one way. True wisdom it is to say, "Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life."

When convinced of this, the next direction is obvious.

4. Begin now, begin anew those very acts which are necessary to pardon and life, in the case of those who have made no pretensions to religion. It is a great mistake, into which many fall, to suppose that when the hope of forgiveness is once obtained, then they are no more concerned with that class of truths which are addressed to those in an impenitent state. It is to be received as a general rule of great practical importance, for all to continue to hear and repent and pray, just as if these