without infringing on the voluntary character of human actions, to gain access to the heart, no man can deny who believes in the Divine existence. That God does exert such agency is repeatedly affirmed in a record of unquestionable authority, and is therefore not an opinion but a fact; and although we know nothing of the internal working of the Infinite Mind on our minds, we know something of the methods which God ordinarily employs.

The conduct follows the will, and the will the understanding. We apprehend, therefore, that God's gracious influence on the soul very much consists in his causing clear and realizing apprehensions of things as they are, to abide in the mind. For this purpose he removes out of the way those hinderances, which, while they remain, and in so far as they do remain, prevent divine truth from being known and considered, and, consequently, from yielding its appropriate fruit.

One of those hinderances is inattention. Truth unregarded cannot be known, much less felt. The person "whose heart the Lord opens, attends to the things which are spoken."

Another hinderance is pride, whether of the understanding or of the heart. To remove this, it pleases God to shew to man what the facts of the case actually are, in reference both to himself and to his Maker; himself being of yesterday and knowing nothing, and God being of boundless knowledge and unerring wisdom; himself being morally abominable, and God being untarnished excellence.

Another hinderance is the love of the world, for the removal of which it pleases God to cause both the real and relative value of present and future things to be duly appreciated; the happy consequence of which is, that "things which are seen," being "temporal," appear as they actually are, to be next to nothing, in comparison with "things which are not seen, and eternal." These and other obstacles having been removed, the mind is prepared and disposed to fix its regard intently, permanently, and without prejudice, on "the truth as it is in Jesus." That truth, so contemplated, is seen in its native beauty, in its fair proportions, and in the benignant aspect which it wears towards the sinful, sorrowful, and mortal race of man.

Thus, trust in God, love to God, the hope of heaven, love to man, hatred of evil, and all holy heavenly, beatific, and beneficent affections are called into habitual exercise, and thus, also, the will is directed towards God and goodness, and the conduct is proportionably changed for the better. All this is in strict accordance with the nature of things, and with the constitution of the human mind. These are some of the methods which God employs in commencing and perpetuating his gracious work on the soul of man ;

but of the mode of his operation we neither know any thing, nor do we need to know.

The subject which we have been considering affords materials both for examination and for encouragement.

We may learn from it whether our creed and our practice, in relation to the topics discussed, are scriptural or erroneous.

Are you rendered careless respecting your affections and your conduct, by the consideration that it is God who worketh in you? You have the truth, but not the whole truth, and your wanting part of the truth, is equivalent to your imbibing a dangerous error. It is true that God worketh in his people to will and to do; but it is also true that the persons in whom God so works, both will good resolutions, and do good actions, and that this right willing and right doing on their parts, bears to God's working in them the relation which the effect bears to the cause; consequently, if you are a stranger to this willing and doing, there is great reason to fear that God has never wrought in you, and that, therefore, notwithstanding all your exultation on account of your imaginary knowledge and privileges, you are yet "in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity."

But are you, on the other hand, disposed to think lightly of Divine influence? You also are in error, because you receive only part of the truth, and the part of which you lose sight is the most important of the whole. If your habitual feeling be that of independence upon Divine aid, your experience is not that of a child of God.

The two facts of Divine and human agency are conjoined in Christian doctrine, and must not be separated in christian experience.

The subject is also fraught with encouragement for those who "hunger and thirst after righteousness," but are, at the same time, conscious of their moral weakness.

The very desire to know and do the will of God, my christian friends, strong and permanent as that desire is in your hearts, is a proof that God has done much for you, and a pledge that he will do more. "The Lord of hosts is with you, the God of Jacob is your refuge." What time you are afraid, trust in him. Pray without ceasing for his aid, and expect to receive it. Thus will you be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. "Wherefore,

my beloved, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who worketh in you to will and to do of his good pleasure!"

SERMON XIII.

AN EXPOSITION OF HEBREWS VI. 13-20.

BY THE LATE REV. W. ORME.'

HEB. VI. 13—20. For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself, saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee. And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men verily swear by the greater and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife. Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth within the veil; whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an High Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.

In the first part of this chapter the apostle is warning his brethren against the danger of apostacy; and, while he does this, and points out the fearful consequences that would result from it, he confesses his confidence in them, that they had received the truth, and that it had produced its proper effects in them, and that they would be enabled to hold it fast, and obtain the promised inheritance. Yet he judges it necessary to address to them the word of exhortation, to excite them to pursue such a conduct as would lead to the possession of those promises which remained to be enjoyed: "That ye every one of you do shew the same diligence, to the full assurance of hope unto the end: that ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises." It is of great importance that we connect the proper influence of that

This Discourse is a portion of a series of expository lectures on the Epistle to the Hebrews, delivered by the late Rev. W. Orme, and completed a short time before his decease. They were taken down in short-hand by the Rev. Rutton Morris, whose intention it is to present them to the public.

fear, which ought to be maintained, with the hope which we should cultivate, that our minds may be sustained. The individual who entertains no fear, is not likely to be powerfully operated upon by the warnings and admonitions of the word of God, and to be guarded against the temptations to which he is exposed; hence he may go on from one degree of evil to another, till he becomes incapable of those salutary impressions which the word of God is suited to produce, and he may be thrown down into that state which is denounced. If fear too much pervades the mind, and the individual has not sufficient confidence in God, or in his own state, he is incapable of entering into the enjoyment of the promises, and he may fall short, by calling in question their truth. The combination of these should be the study of each individual: when we consider our depravity, the wreck made by many, and feel the interest we have in the great salvation of the Son of God, we do not want motives to cultivate these dispositions; but we are not continually to be engaged in these considerations: we must look out of ourselves to what God has done, and to the revelation God has addressed to us; and, while we contemplate the goodness and faithfulness of God, and consider that his saints have never been forsaken, the soul is lifted up, and we experience their transforming nature, and catch the very spirit which they are calculated to produce, and which arises from the nature of the future hope. It is to this subject we must call your attention this morning: this the apostle now sets before the Hebrews. He had the fullest confidence that all God's people, the heirs of the promised inheritance, would be put in session; that whatever might happen, God was able to support and to preserve from falling. He exhorts them in the preceding verse not to be slothful, and, from the case of Abraham, he introduces an illustration of the means by which the promises are inherited.

There is a particular force in the word "for," in verse 13, i. e. as for example-not as assigning the reason of what had gone before; but it is designed to operate as examples will always operate when fairly brought before us: "we desire that every one of you do shew the same diligence" which those manifested who now inherit the promises made to them upon earth: for example; "when God made promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no greater, He sware by Himself." There is something exceedingly apt in the introduction of Abraham on this occasion. He was addressing himself to the descendants of Abraham, who were accustomed to look to him with veneration: they could not object to be called to the exercise of patience, when even Abraham was not put in possession of the promise till his character had been tried, and his principles matured. God did not bestow upon Abraham the things which he had promised

till he had been tried. So, if the Hebrews were called to suffer, the promised rest of glory still remained. When suitably affected with this, they had no reason to complain, or to be discouraged, for when their faith and patience should have been tried, they would be put in possession. The apostle makes a quotation from Gen. xxii. 17, &c. "Blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice." You will observe this transaction took place many years after Abraham had been called to leave his country, and go he knew not where. He believed God's promise, that he should be the father of a numerous posterity, that from that posterity the Messiah should be born, and that that land should be given to them. Some of the things promised, he obtained in the present worldothers were fulfilled only after he was gone - others again after a long succession of ages had rolled away-and some still remain to be fulfilled. Abraham received a promise, that he should have a son from whom the Messiah should descend: twenty-four years had been allowed to pass away before Abraham received this sonthat son was born preternaturally, when there was no probability of the promise being fulfilled, to shew that nothing can be an obstacle to the fulfilment of God's promise; then he was called to offer him up, and, after he had obeyed, he received a solemn confirmation of the promise, that God would bless him with a numerous posterity, to whom he would give that land, and that the Messiah should descend from him. How much this is to the apostle's purpose! The promise is: "Surely, I will bless thee." The words are equivalent to the Hebrew superlative, and are used to convey an idea of the magnitude of the blessing" and multiplying I will multiply thee," or, "I will greatly multiply thee."

Jehovah "swore by himself, saying, Surely I will bless thee." Observe this was not the promise of a son, for that son had been born; but it was the promise of the Messiah, and of a numerous offspring connected with the Messiah, and of an eternal inheritance; as an earnest of which Abraham was put in possession of the earthly Canaan. After receiving a son and being called to immolate him, and receiving him, as it were, a second time, God condescended, by a solemn oath, to promise that the Messiah should spring from him, and that he and they together should enjoy the blessed inheritance. Ages rolled away before the Messiah made his appearance; and the promise of the heavenly country remains yet to be fulfilled. Abraham, with all before the throne whose spirits are made perfect, and who behold the Saviour, are yet resting in the exercise of patient expec