you; either that you did not sufficiently prepare for his coming, or that you do not respond with sufficient cheerfulness and confidence to his call. He has bent his heavens and come down; and his presence is in the midst of us; and if you do not receive comfort and edification, it must be because you do not open your heart-because you will not come unto him. Oh, then, my friends, come ye unto him; and as you come, be not doubtful but believing. His promise is pledged, and he is faithful who hath promised. The well-springs of comfort are in him. The riches of grace are treasured up in him. Come, then, and draw water out of the well-springs of salvation. Come and receive out of his inexhaustible fulness. He is a Saviour suited to every varied condition of his people; and in those that come unto him, there is not an affliction under which he cannot consolethere is not a sin that he cannot pardon-there is not a wound that he cannot heal-there is not a weakness that he cannot strengthen-there is not a corruption that he cannot mortify. You cannot come to him with any ill for which he has not a remedy; and all things are possible, if ye believe. The defect is never in his willingness or power to bestow, but in our faith to receive. And though we have heard of many who have lent a deaf ear to his call, or who have complied with it, but with many apprehensions, I never heard of one sincere believer who complained that Christ fell short of his promise, or who came unto him in a true faith and returned disappointed.

Not, however, that you are to expect any thing

miraculous in this ordinance ;-your desires must be limited to what Christ has promised. Your faith must be confined to what lies in the course of Providence, and is within the bounds of possibility. Neither must ye seek to confine Christ, as to the nature, or as to the manner, of the comfort or of the strength he may afford you. You may, indeed, ask-partly in unbelief and partly in inquiry-how can these things be? or how can your hearts be comforted? Can he restore to me the dead? Will he change the current of events? Will he give me back my fair name? Will he build me up in my former prosperity? Will he root out from my mind the remembrance of the sins which, while I remember, must make me miserable? Will he effect an alteration in the constitution of my mind, and free me from those passions which rise and rage and hurry me on to wickedness? Are the essential qualities of objects to be changed?-or the current of events?or is the course of Providence to be altered? Is the series of causes and effects to be reversed? and is there to be a revolution in the progress of affairs by a special interference? In answer to all this, we observe :

The dead are in their graves, which will not give them back to you. But in this ordinance you are brought to Christ, who is the resurrection and the life, who teaches you not to mourn like those who have no hope ;-for those who fall asleep in him shall meet in Zion, and you, therefore, ought to dry up your tears, and amidst the melancholy thought of your dead friends, comfort yourselves with the pre

sence of a living Saviour. Will he take Will he take away the stain that calumny has stamped upon your house, or build you up in your former prosperity? My friends, our message does not concern this :-" the Master calleth for thee." Go to him, and he will tell you that he was a man of sorrows-that he was subject to the reproach of men-that he had not where to lay his head-that you must learn like him to endure, and that he can teach you to count it joy when you fall into tribulation; for the trial of your faith worketh patience. The remembrance of your sins cannot, indeed, be effaced; but he will take away the sting of the remembrance, by showing how he satisfied the law in your stead, and purchased your pardon. While you continue in this world the power of indwelling sin will not be utterly destroyed, and you will be often harassed by the body of this death. But even while you are exclaiming, Who shall deliver me ?" the Master calleth for thee," and if you go unto him he will teach you to cry out, "I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord." For "there is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit."

Finally, brethren, be not doubtful but believing. The nature, and the measure, and the method of conveying to you grace-are all in the hands of the Master. Put your trust in him that he will deal with you for the best. Let your faith be in lively exercise. Let forth towards him, and prepare to

your love go

meet with him, for "he is come, and calleth for thee."

SERMON V.

GOING ON UNTO PERFECTION.

"Therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection."-HEB. vi. 1.

IN the preceding chapter of this Epistle, we find the Apostle, when following out the exposition of some of the higher mysteries of Christian doctrine, disturbed and straitened by the consideration, that, edifying and important though they were in their own nature, they were ill adapted to the state of spiritual progress of many to whom he was addressing himself; and dismissing, therefore, for a time, the sublime speculations with which his spirit was fraught, he turns to the Hebrew converts, expostulating with them in regard to their low condition of spiritual apprehension, and urging them by the strongest motives to show all diligence to the full assurance of hope to the end. The subject of which he had been treating was the priestly office of Christ, illustrated by what is recorded in the book of Genesis, as to Melchisedek, "of whom," says he, verse 11, “we have many things to say, and hard to be understood, seeing ye all are dull of hearing." In this slowness of discernment of divine things, the

Apostle felt that there was reason of complaint. The Hebrews had enjoyed extraordinary privileges for such a length of time, as to warrant the expectation of extraordinary progress. But instead of this, they had never got beyond-or rather they needed to be instructed anew in the first principles of the oracles of God, so that it might be unprofitable or even dangerous to bring before their minds those higher truths which they were not prepared to appreciate, and might perhaps pervert. They were become such as had need of milk, and not of strong meat. The Apostle, therefore, urges them to rest no longer satisfied in a condition so unworthy of their calling, but to press forward to higher degrees of Christian attainment;— and to this they should be the more strongly moved by the consideration of the peril to which they exposed themselves, of falling away in final apostacy. To continue in their present state was impossible. If they did not advance, they could not but decline; since while "to him that hath shall be given, from him that hath not shall be taken away, even that which he hath." For here is the grand difference between those who improve, and those who neglect, their advantages -the former are like the fruitful field, blessed of God, and ever producing more abundantly; the latter are like that earth "bearing thorns and briers, which is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing: whose end is to be burned."

Such seems to be the train of thought in the expostulatory appeal with which the Apostle interrupts the progress of his discussion respecting the offices of Christ, in the anxiety of his soul to stimulate the