effect. We may brandish the sword of the spirit, naked and polished. He will wink away the force of its brightness, and say-surely it is the hand of a man. We may sound in his ear that terrible idea in that terrible word lost, lost, lost, until he trembles. But he will soon recover his equanimity again, and say-surely it is the voice of a man. Never will he do any thing in earnest until he is convinced by the demonstration of the Spirit and of power that he is lost. This, therefore, is a necessary part of the experience of a true Christian, and it is the first step in his experience.

2. He feels that he has fled to Christ for salvation. Suppose yourself, if you can, in the place of the lost traveller in a trackless desert, where your calls for help should be answered only by the tiger's yell. Suppose, when you were expecting to feel that tiger's leap, an accent of mercy should revive your hope of salvation, and the warm hand of a fellow-man should embrace you and invite you to flee the impending dangers. You would return that embrace; you would commit yourself to that man with confidence that under such circumstances he was sincere and true. Your heart would flow with gratitude, and you would hail and love him as your benefactor. Such is Christ to the lost sinner. He is a Savior, and is embraced, and loved, and honored as such.

When the sinner comes to a knowledge of his hopeless ruin under the law, then the salvation of the gospel is approved as precisely adapted to his case. He can then believe, he trusts, and in the exercise of that trust, ripened by a divine influence to a sanctifying faith, Christ becomes to him the end of the law for righteousness. He is saved by Christ. Here his experience has been so impressive, so deep-wrought, so thorough, that it is abiding, and works by love, purifies the heart, overcomes the world, and brings forth good fruits. He cannot forget it. Can the man who has been lost and saved, forget his benefactor while he lives? No. Every thing reminds him of that benefactor. His hopes, his fears, his enjoyments, his dangers and sufferings, all awaken grateful recollections. Here is a force of experience adequate to the formation of principles, that shall influence and regulate the conduct through life. And it does so.

3. The true Christian finds a third reason to encourage a hope that he is personally interested in the gospel plan of salvation in the effects of this faith on his life. By a divine constitution, true faith in Christ is made to work by love, to purify the heart, and to bring forth good fruits. This is not a mere contingent circumstance of faith; it is a part of gospel faith, of the faith of the true Christian, and is the characteristic which distinguishes him from the devils and from wicked men. It is operative to produce infallibly in the soul certain affections, which are the abiding principles of its action.

Here, then, the duty of self-examination will find its principal materials for thought. Without a reformed life, proceeding from the love of holiness, every other evidence of Christian character is invalidated. Here must be hatred of sin, as sin, which will lead to its abhorrence in every form, and a love of holiness as such, which will ensure the uniform and unwavering pursuit of it. Hence there will result an untiring effort to avoid temptation, and to live in communion with God. Here must be

also an abiding love to Christians as such, and to all the precious interests of the church on earth. Here must be a supreme love to God, and a devotion of all we have and are to him. Here are principles which are operative, and adequate to reform the life and fit the soul for heaven.

The man who will perform religious duty only through respect to public sentiment, only to preserve his character, is entirely a worldly man. He who finds a relish in the pleasures and company of worldly men, which leads him to conform to their fashions and practices so far as he can without losing his standing in the church, is at heart a worldly man. He who, to save appearances, will abstain from indulgences in public, which he will cherish with warm and hearty gust in private, is strictly a sensual man. He who will not habitually bear himself in his own presence, and in the presence of God, with the same uprightness as before men, who does not fear the upbraiding of his own conscience more than the public brand, who is not an honest man in his own heart, is a heartless man; and if he be in the church he is a heartless hypocrite.

The true Christian is such by a living principle of action incorporated by a divine energy with the immortal spirit of every renewed sinner. It lives in the life of the soul, and burns as well amid polar ices as under a tropical sun, unchanged by the influence of other changes, inextinguishable even with life. In the bosom of the slave, the beggar, and the prince, it is identical. It bears the changes of prosperity and adversity, and is still the same. Place a true Christian on a desolate island, and he will be still a worshipper of God. That will be a place of prayer. Give him a solitary residence through eternity in any part of the universe, and there will be a soul happy and bright in its own glow of devotion, its fires of love.

The reason, then, of the Christian's hope stands first, on the clear proof which this faith furnishes of the true religion, established by prophecy and miracle, and adapted to the sinner's wants, actually effecting the moral renovation which all others have failed to do, and gaining brightness and strength amid the conflicts which have disproved and destroyed all other systems.

The reason for the personal hope which the Christian entertains, although it embraces many particulars, is here comprised in three specifications. He has known himself to be lost, has fled to Christ for salvation, and has actually found that a change of heart has resulted in a reformation of life. Brethren, have you this hope? and is this the reason of it? If not, you are still lost, lost, LOST.

Ir is, I suppose, universally admitted, that the love of life is natural to man; and there are certainly many things connected with the present state of existence to render life desirable. The world in which we dwell has been admirably fitted up for our convenience and comfort; and there are good gifts constantly coming down from the Father of mercies, to sustain and cheer us during our residence here. There are opportunities here for doing good; for administering relief to the needy and wretched; for aiding the cause of truth and piety; and thus glorifying God in our body and spirit. There are the means of working out our own salvation; of laying up treasure in heaven that will satisfy and endure; and even the afflic tions of the present become a furnace in which the soul is prepared to shine with increasing beauty and brightness in the future. And there are some of the Christian graces, for the development of which this is the only theatre; for when injury ceases, there will be no occasion for forgiveness; and when suffering ceases, there will be no demand for patience. Indeed, there is good reason why every individual should be thankful for his present existence: even though he perverts it to his eternal ruin, yet the hours of life are golden hours; they are given to be a blessing, and praise is due to Him who bestows them.

There are reasons enough, then, why every good man should set a high value upon life. But there are reasons also why no good man could consistently desire to live alway. It is possible, indeed, that there may be, even in the true Christian, a criminal dissatisfaction with the world; a desire to die only because it is painful to live; and this spirit is certainly always to be condemned. It is not certain but that Job had a measure of this feeling when he made the declaration in our text. But there are other grounds on which the declaration MAY be made the Christian with perfect consistency. To exhibit these grounds is the design of the present discourse. I say, then, the Christian does not desire to live alway, because he prefers,

Perfect light to comparative darkness:

Immaculate purity to partial sanctification :

Immortal strength to earthly weakness:

Cloudless serenity to agitating storms:

The fellowship of the glorified to the society of the imperfect: The honors of victory to the perils of warfare.

I. The first reason why the Christian would not live alway, is HIS

PREFERENCE OF PERFECT LIGHT TO COMPARATIVE DARKNESS.

I know, indeed, that when the old man is put off and the new man is put on, there is a sense in which the soul is brought out of darkness into marvellous light. The mind takes far more distinct and comprehensive views of divine truth than it ever did before; it has a spiritual discernment imparted to it, by means of which what had before seemed faint and shadowy, becomes substance and life. But even that marvellous light into which the new-born soul enters when he is delivered from the blindness of spiritual death is itself darkness, when compared with the radiant manifestations of Jehovah's glory in the upper world. Here the Christian, in his best state, sees through a glass darkly. How very little does he know of the plan of God's operations! How he is confounded at almost every step by the occurrence of events whose meaning he is utterly unable to explain! How many things, after his best efforts to comprehend them, he is obliged to resolve into God's mysterious and unfathomable sovereignty! And in his contemplations of God's truth, as it is revealed in his word, how frequently is he perplexed with doubt in respect to the actual meaning of the Spirit; and when he attempts to launch out at all beyond the Revelation, how quickly does he find himself sinking in a gulf of conjecture and uncertainty! How humbling to the pride of the intellect, how indicative of the narrowness of its conceptions, to find himself

obliged to receive different truths, which he knows must be consistent with each other, which yet he is perfectly inadequate to reconcile; to catch just an indistinct glance of some great field of truth, and then perhaps find his vision immediately obstructed by intervening clouds! But then how delightful the contrast when he reaches heaven; There, many a dark page in the history of God's dispensations on earth will be illumined by a clear and satisfying light. There he will know why he had anguish when he longed for rest; why his plans were defeated by which he would fain have glorified God; why Zion was left so long to mourn, and the chariot-wheels of her King were so slow in their approach, when God's people were upon their knees praying and watching for the dawn of a brighter day. And the mysteries of Redemption-oh, how they will unfold to his delighted eye; how the great and holy truths which he knew so imperfectly here will burst upon him in their full brightness, and in the harmony of perfect proportions! There, there will be no uncertainty, no confusion, no darkness at all. This seeing through a glass darkly is the business of earth; seeing face to face will be the business of heaven. There the vision will be perfect; and the Sun of the moral universe will shine with immortal splendor.

I bless God for all the light which he gives me now; but I would not live alway, because I have the assurance that a brighter light will shine hereafter. I love to bend over the mysteries of Providence and the mysteries of Redemption; and sometimes a field of glory opens suddenly upon me where thick darkness had always brooded before; but I own that I have my eye and my heart upon a world where I hope to live for ever amidst the brighter beams of immortal truth. I would not live alway, because I desire to get rid of this painful ignorance and doubt which now oppresses me; because I would fain behold my God as he is, and see light in his light.

II. The Christian does not desire to live alway, because HE PRE

FERS IMMACULATE PURITY TO PARTIAL SANCTIFICATION.

Time has been when he was dead in trespasses and sins; when he had no discernment of spiritual beauty, no relish for spiritual objects. But in the renovating change that has passed upon him, both his views and his tastes have been corrected. He regards sin now as the most abominable of all evils; as tending to the subversion of Jehovah's throne; as the deadly seed from which spring all the calamities of the world and all the horrors of hell. And yet this evil and bitter thing in a measure still adheres to him. It often withers his best joys. It throws a barrier between him and the throne of

grace,