greatness of God, such is the glory of God, such is the power of God, that were it not for this medium we should "fall as men dead" at the sight. I cannot look upon the sun in his brightness; I must have some medium through which I can see the sun; so in the Lord Jesus Christ 1 perceive somewhat of the glory of God reflected to me. I see the glory of God in the Son of His love. God, as it were, stoops to my infirmity, and lets Himself down to my littleness.

But, observe, in the next place, the excellence of the object. Ah! beloved who can declare it? What an unfolding of the wise, the great, the gracious, the good, the benevolent, the omnipotent God, is revealed by Jesus Christ! Oh! what a God is this God whom men turn their backs upon! There is nothing so low and trifling and worthless, but they prefer this thing to God. Ah! beloved, if thy soul were brought into real acquaintance with God, how it would abhor itself in dust and asbes!

Observe, too, what is the great end for which all this is to becommunion with God here, and eternal communion with God in heaven. It is that we may be filled with His love here, and filled with His love to all eternity.

Let me conclude, my brethren, with one or two observations. May the Lord help me to speak to the heart and to the conscience.

If this be the great object with the Lord Jesus Christ, this ought to be your great object and my great object, acquaintance with God. Some of you have trod the mazes of His providential labyrinth. Some of you are in poverty-no work perhaps-ah! many of you know not what it is to awake in the morning with no work to do—and having no money. Some of you are in sickness, some of you are tried in your children, some in your wives, some in your families, some with some secret crook only known to Him. Oh! the secret of being acquainted with God in it all! This is His school, this is His place of tuition, this is His seminary. By His providence He brings you into acquaintance with the world-the world's poverty, the emptiness of the creature, and brings you more into acquaintance with Himself. How often do we find it in the changing of the world, the changeableness of some of our friends, or the fickleness of some of the children of God! We thought that we could not do without them, or they without us; and now we find that we can do without them, and do well without them. What do we learn out in

the midst of the changeableness of the creature?-that the Unchanging is our portion. He knows no fickleness, but loves to the end, in poverty, in weakness, in ignorance, in nothingness, and in unworthiness. Oh! beloved, it is in this school that the Lord brings us into acquaintance with Himself. Oh! seek a`deeper acquaintance with Him, in all the means of grace. It is an easy thing to appear as a saint of God to your fellow men-but how are you at home? What canst thou say? what is thy delight in secret prayer? what is thy faithful dealing with conscience? When you have had rebukes from me, have I been as a Nathan to you? Oh! beloved brethren, when you go to your homes, in your closets pour out your souls to Godbe honest before Him! Seek it in all the means of grace, especially secret prayer, the rebukes of conscience, and the honest aim to do His will. And this too in Jesus; above all, in Jesus. It is when the eye is off Him, we never can thrive. Oh! walk in Him, walk with Him as a child with a Father, looking to God in the Beloved. Oh! we can truly say there is not a child of God here, however weak his faith may be (they are not the most strong who think themselves to be the most strong-I do not take all for granted that men tell me about their assurance-sometimes I see in circumstances that mark but little strong faith, that which seems to despise weak faith -it just proves that they know little of what strong faith is)—but take one of the weakest ones that hear me, one who is always ready to be cast down, and I would not exchange the position of that soul, with any of the world around-take the first man that passes this chapel-no, not for ten thousand worlds. Oh! what a thing it is to be ignorant of God! Do I want happiness? God is happiness. Do I want peace? God is peace. Do I want safety? God is safety. Do I want to live above time? God can lift me above time. Do I want that which can make me to triumph, in the prospect of an eternal world? God is that which can make me to triumph. And you that are strangers to Him, olr! that a sense of your wretchedness and misery may be laid upon your hearts this day; and from this moment may you seek to know Him, and lie low before Him in dust and in ashes, and cry to that God in Christ, whom no one ever seeks, nor ever shall seek, in vain.

>

A SERMON,

BY THE REV. J. H. EVANS, M.A. PREACHED IN JOHN STREET CHAPEL, KING'S ROAD, BEDFORD ROW, ON SUNDAY MORNING, OCTOBER 4, 1846.

"They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world."Luke xx. 35.

Is it true, that there is a world, infinite, unchangeable, eternal? and is it true, that I am hastening on to it? Is it true of us all, without one exception, as true of the youngest as the oldest? Is it true, that that world is either a world of happiness, unutterable happiness, or a scene of unutterable misery, and that there is no return from it; that no one did ever retrace his steps from it? Then how comes it to pass, that we think so little of it; that the great mass of our fellow-men think not of it, live much the same as if it were a fable, and that even they who have their eyes opened, and their hearts turned and changed by the sovereign and effectual grace of God, so little think of it; that it requires an effort in them all; that we none of us seem naturally to think of it, and that when through especial circumstances, and a peculiar power put forth by the Holy Ghost in our minds and on our hearts, we rise up to take some nearer view of it, it doth so soon subside, it seems to sink from us, we scarcely can be said to dwell upon it?

Most true;

One may say, indeed, that sin is the cause of all this. depraved must our natures be, that so it should be. But it is no small part of our depravity, that it is so. No doubt, the god of this world especially busies himself in leading us to be satisfied with things as they are below, to dwell in them, to endeavour to make up our bed in them, and repose in them, and rest in them. But it is a sad truth, and an awful truth; it were well, for it to have its deep abiding in our souls this day. Let us, first of all, consider what "that world" is; and then, secondly, who they are, that shall be accounted worthy to obtain it. "They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world."

I. The world that we are looking forward to, is a world of perfect light. Our dwelling here is in twilight. "We see through a glass darkly; we know but in part." We know very little, and we know but in part. How little we know of sin-of sin's true evil! We talk of it, preach about it, pray about it, write about it, argue about it; yet how little we know of it-of the true nature of sin as that one thing "which God hates!" How little we know of the emptiness of this world! Many are learning the lesson painfully, having cistern after VOL. XIII.-No. 462.-November 5, 1846.

2 H

cistern broken before their eyes; and yet how little we truly feel it! How little we know that this is an empty world, unable to satisfy the cravings of an immortal soul! How we rest too often in the fond affections of the creature! Some gilded bait takes us. And even those that have their natures changed by the power of the Holy Ghost, yet how little do they know of what this world really is! Oh! worldly conformity! one of the greatest baits of Satan, in this present day, to the church of God.

How little do we know of Christ! He is our hope, our only hope; and all the rest we have, is in Him; and yet how little do we know of Him!-of His person, of His work, of His intercession, of His infinite fulness, of the tenderness of His heart, the boundless sufficiency there is in Him to make us happy, at this moment. How little do we know of God! Truly our state here is a sort of twilight. Sin darkens us altogether in our unregenerate state, and sin dims us now in our regenerate state. We are but like children; they think they know much-then some hard lesson is put before them, and they find how little they know.

But there, is perfect light. No haze of error; no darkness; no mist; no fog; nothing to darken the landscape, nothing to darken the faculties of the human mind. Then "we shall know, even as we are known." It is perfect light; God's light-" in His light." He shall be our light. "Thy sun shall never go down ;" "they need no candle" there; there is no darkness there. It is a world of perfect light.

It is a state of perfect holiness too. Here all we can say, all that the holiest of God's children can say is that they aim. Theirs is an aim to be holy; it is more aim than attainment. They are saints, sanctified by the blessed Spirit, regenerated, made partakers of a new and Divine nature:-deceive not your soul; if you are not, you are "in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity;" however clear natural light may be, however clear notions there may be of doctrines, unless there be that inward change, there is no light. And yet all that we can say of God's dear children here is, that they rather aim than attain. The apostle had not attained, and he knew it, and felt it; "not as though I had already attained." But there, shall be perfect conformity, the perfect giving up of the whole soul to God, the perfect restoration of the Spirit to God, the perfect consecration of every faculty to God, the full enjoyment of our faculties in God.

Oh! how little you and I know of this here! It seems to be a sort of distant land, with some impassable gulf between us. We cannot touch it. It seems to be a sort of desired haven, but there is a stormy ocean between it and us. It seems to be a point that we are aiming at ; we never seem quite to hit it. But there, is full conformity, entire devotedness, perfect giving up of the soul to God. The land is reached; the haven is attained; the desired point is touched. There is the absence of all unholiness, and the possession of all that is holy.

It is a land too of perfect happiness. I do not deny that there is much happiness in this world, for a saint of God; I do not deny, that many of God's saints enjoy much real happiness in Christ. I do not deny, that a life of faith, a life of penitence, any measure of obedience sincerely and heartily given, has all the material of real happiness in it; that the knowledge of truth has a real happiness in it, the truth itself containing great blessedness, and the enlightening of the mind to comprehend it being a great blessing; and that so far as we are subdued to the will of God, there is a happiness here. But ours is a sort of bitter sweet here; in every sweet there is a bitter. And if there be imperfection of knowledge, and poor attainment of knowledge, it cannot be otherwise; for our views of Christ are indistinct, and our walk with God not close as it should be, and those are the highest elements of happiness. Never is there perfect happiness, indeed, till there be perfect holiness; and that is reserved for the better land, the happy land, the land afar off. Whither I trust we feel that we are journeying day by day.

It is a land of perfect consummated glory. The apostle speaks of "an eternal weight of glory." Here there is much to humble us. Our daily life is conflict and discomfiture, and overthrows; and never a perfect victory. We never come off without some wound ; in all our contests with sin, Satan, and the world, we never come off quite unscathed. There is always something to mark the weakness of my faith, the poverty of my repentance, the little ardour of my love, the want of liveliness in my hope; there is always something to lay me in the dust; never a perfect victory. Oh! the blessedness of that period, when the soul shall be glorified, and live with glorified spirits; the body glorified, the soul glorified; the glory of Jesus seen, and the glory of God discerned. That very body, and that very soul, that were so much the means of our humiliation, filled there with the Divine glory, satisfied for ever in God! Yet such is that "world,” about which hundreds here have never given five minutes true, prayerful consideration about, to this present moment. ، What they shall eat, and what they shall drink, and wherewithal they shall be clothed," how to provide for their families, how to be men of honesty, how to have a fair name with the world-this occasions them much thought, deep thought, anxious thought; but how to be prepared for that world, which is so soon to come, and from which there is no return-this has never occasioned them deep anxiety to the present moment. Oh! wretched, mise

rable state!

My dear hearers, great are the blessings attending Gospel truth, and fearful are the consequences of neglecting it. Owen says, and it is a solemn truth, that a man may make more advance to hell as