spicuous, that they avow themselves instantly on the Lord's side. If, when the flame of divine love first kindles, they are asked, "Will ye also go away?" the answer seems inspired by the same love which first brought them.—I go away! Whither can I go? What! go away from Christ, my happiness, my life, my comfort. To creatures, to myself-wherever I go, I have nothing there. Whither can I go? "Thou hast the words of eternal life." They cleave to him, and look to him, and keep close to him now; but when this following Christ afar off takes place, there is a very great difference, as there was a distinct separation from the world. The individual very rightly judged, that holiness and sin never could agree; therefore he never attempted to unite them, and gloried in the thought that he was at a distance from them, and strove as far as he could to get at a greater distance from them. Now, mark the differences. No sooner does an individual follow Christ afar off, than he appears to be a different person. If a portrait were taken of an individual in his vigour, and health, and strength; and if another portrait be taken of the individual when illness and sickness have debilitated his frame; you may recognize the features, see something of the same individual; but you would say there was such a contrast in appearance as that the man was hardly to be discerned. So it is with the individual following Christ afar off. He will furnish gaieties for the gay, and will tell you he does it not for himself, but to please his friends; that is, he does it not to pleasure Christ, but those who are opposers of Christ. He tells you he likes to go into company, and to mingle with fashionable parties, because he hopes to do some Had you asked this same good. Alas! what a different being is this man. individual to mingle in such scenes aforetime, he would have fled away, conceivhe, seeing how many fall off, ing himself injured by the very proposal; but now, and attempt to amalgamate the church and the world, goes as far as he can, so that a complete amalgamation does not take place.

Now, have I drawn your portrait this evening? Are you thus following Christ at this great distance, and beginning to mingle with the world, to associate with individuals you once thought far from God, by mixing with their pleasures, seeking after their pursuits, and indulging in their practices? Then you are the man; you are this very Peter who is following Christ afar off.

But if you have gone with me thus far, go a step further, and see THE SAD CONSEQUENCES OF FOLLOWING CHRIST Afar off.

Such a course you will perceive, in the first place, grows worse and worse. Peter did not stop here: he followed Christ afar off; and it had been well if he had stopt there: but he did not, because such a state as this induces a man to go further and further from the Saviour. He left the Good Shepherd; and he must "He that followeth me shall not needs wander that leaves the Good Shepherd. But he left Christ, and

walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." walked in darkness. He chose another guide; and that guide whispered all the arguments of shame, and persecution, and injuries, and a thousand other things which he should meet with; and the argument prevailed, and led him deeper and deeper and deeper into sin and sorrow.

Observe this man: he goes and sits in the hall with the servants; and the servants say to him, "Why, thou belongest to Jesus of Nazareth; thou art one of his disciples." O dreadful guilt! O horrid impiety, to belong to Jesus of Nazareth! One would have thought that Peter would instantly have said, "Yes, I do belong to him: blessed be his name, he called me, a poor fisherman, and made me a partaker of his grace; he called me, a poor fisherman, and made me a

tr

minister of his glorious Gospel: and if you did but know my Saviour as I know him, you would love him as much too, and would follow him any where." Strange he did not say so: but he would have said so, if he had not been following Christ afar off in spirit. What does he say to this accusation? "I know not the man." Well, but," said the man whose ear Peter had cut off, "did I not see thee in the garden with him? What, Peter, canst thou look at my ear, and not recolWilt thou deny that?" And lect that thou belongest to Jesus of Nazareth? does he still deny it? Oh, yes; he followed Christ afar off, and he said, “I know not what thou sayest.” "Well, but," said another, " thou art a Galilean; thou hast the dialect of Galilee; thou hast the very accent of the country; and if there were nothing else to show us that thou didst belong to Jesus of Nazareth, thy very speech bewrayeth thee; there is enough in that to show us thou didst belong to him." Still-wonder, O heavens, and be astonished, O earth—this same man, who said, “I will go with thee to prison and to death," now curses and swears; and, with oaths and blasphemies, denies that he ever knew the man. O! my dear hearers, you stand on the brink of danger, near the edge of a precipice, if you are following Christ afar off. Awake to your condition! Do you think it no danger, that you should be risking the salvation of your soul-that your family should be distressed—that the church should be in anguish—that Christ should frown? Awake, I say, to your danger; and think what it is to follow Christ afar off.

There is another sad consequence; such a state brings its own punishment. Is it not so? Are you as happy as you were formerly? Is it as well with you now as it was formerly? Is there as much peace within as there was formerly? No; your conscience necessarily says no. Compare now for a moment-and a moment will be quite sufficient-compare your present with your former feelings; and then we shall see, I think, that your own state brings its own punishment. The great difficulty in all cases, when a man has wandered from God, is to get him to think. At night he just says his prayers, but forgets to pray as he once did, wrestling with Christ; and he gets into his bed, draws the curtains around him, makes a sort of artificial night to himself, and lulls himself to repose as quickly as possible; lest conscience should accuse him, and summon him to the bar of his Maker. Now, are you not, sometimes, when you suffer your mind to think-are you not alarmed at your distance from God? Are you not distressed to see the garden which once flourished so beautifully, and was as a field which the Lord hath blessed-are you not distressed to see that garden now, the hedges pulled down, the wild beasts invading it, and its beauty defiled? The waters of the sanctuary do not flow upon it as they formerly did; the dews of heaven do not rest upon it; the blossoms are blasted; and as for the fruitwhere can the fruit be found, when the Sun of Righteousness, which was once the glory of the garden, seems quite eclipsed? Is this no cause of anxiety to ? Does not your coldness in duty, and your neglect of duty, sometimes render you very irrascible, spoil even your temper, so that your wife, or your husband, or your children, or your servants, are the worse for your following Christ afar off? you cannot even treat them as you did formerly. Does it not clog your tongue, which does not go so swiftly as it formerly did, when you were talking of Jesus? You could once sit down by your fire-side, and tell of his love to those around: but now when the conversation is introduced, how seldom do you engage in it as you did formerly. Does it not cramp your usefulness? You cannot do what you did because your energies are confined. You have not the holy vigour you once had in those different religious societies which

you

others are now engaged in. How happy were your walks amongst the pooramongst those who did not know God, and those who loved him. And now by your distance, how few and how cold are your visits-how different from what they were before you began to follow Christ afar off. Suppose you get to heaven-and to heaven you will get if you are the Lord's child, unquestionably, though it be with many stripes-suppose you get to heaven in this state of mind, is not such a carping, dejected, miserable, half-famished state as that in which your soul now is, punishment enough if you had no more than this, to shew you the awful consequences of following Christ afar off?

Another consequence is, that such a course is unspeakably offensive to Jesus Christ. Is it any pleasure to see a frown on thy Lord's countenance? to see a rod in that hand which has held out to thee the hope of salvation? And knowest thou not that thy Lord is grieved, excessively grieved, with thy distance from him? Let me read you his own words, that you mistake not. "I know thy works that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth." These are his own words, his own declarations. If the cause of Christ is true, it requires all our earnestness, and we are to pursue it with all our might. There is no neutrality here; an open enemy shall have more quarter than a perfidious neutral. And I tell you, you are a neutral, if you are doing nothing for him; and that the cause of this is your own backwardness, your lukewarmness, and distance from the Son of God. Do you believe this, and does it show you your own state? Consider whom you have grieved, and the sad consequences already resulting from your following Christ afar off.

True, it is ex-
Let me beseech

Now favour me with your attention while I show you SOME OF THE REMEDIES FOR THIS STATE OF MIND. I have endeavoured to tell you your awful state, and to point out the sad consequences of this state of mind. Happy that the Saviour does not leave us here-happy that his word does not leave us here. Come, and let us examine what will reduce our hearts to obedience, what will bring us to a holy enjoyment of his favour and his presence. To sum all up in one word, you must go back again; you must go to the stepping-stone of your Christian path. "Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee. For he hath delivered thy soul from death, thine eyes from tears, and thy feet from falling." Has he done this for you? Then you must go back again-you must return. But, say you, it is so difficult to get back again into those holy enjoyments which I have lost. ceedingly difficult; we do not attempt to hide the difficulty. you to try. Think of that word-let me try; let me put forth all my strength of soul to get back to my Master. Suppose your dear child was lost-the child that you loved, and that is attached to you; and that that child, finding it was without its parent, cried to get back to its father and its mother: so must you cry to your heavenly Father, and you must say, "Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son;" and he will receive you. You may recollect the story which is given of the Prodigal. He had been a sad young man. He had gone from his father's house, having, although he was the younger son, demanded the portion of goods that fell to his lot; and then went and spent his living in riot and disorder. And though he had been in a sad condition ever since he went away, yet he never sent a letter to tell his father where he was. Once a beam of heavenly light beamed on his mind, and he began to think of his condition. "I am feeding swine: why,

VOL. I.

G

there is not a servant in my father's house that is not better off than I am. Oh I will arise and go to my father, and say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son." And the moment he formed his determination he put it into execution. Away he went to his father's house; and the father, who had been often looking out for his dear child (for you know, if any of us have dear children who have departed from our counsels and the way of God, yet we love them; we pray for them though they be prodigals, and we seek their welfare)—still the father was looking out for him. And one day when he looked over the gate by the path where his poor lad had gone, he saw a ragged, dirty, sickly-looking young man coming along the path: and he looked again and again, and he saw-yes, he recognized in this individual, his own son; though he was altered he saw his features: and away he threw the gate open, and ran along the path. And when they met, the son said, “O father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son; make me"-yes, he was going to say, "make me as one of thy hired servants." But his father stopped him, and said, Hold, my child; it is enough: thou art come home, which was all I wanted-to see thee brought to my house and my society. Go, said he, to one servant, and fetch the best robe. Go, said he, to another, and fetch the ring. Bring hither the fatted calf, said he to another. Call the musicians; and let us eat, and drink, and be merry; for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.

This is your encouragement.

But that I may press this truth upon you with

a few arguments, suffer me to lay before you some considerations to induce you to come home again to your Lord and Master, and no longer to follow him afar off.

you.

The first consideration is, whom you follow. Who is the individual? Is it a man like yourselves? Is it an individual in whom you have an interest? Is it one concerning whom it is of no importance whether you follow him or not? O no; it is He who left his dazzling throne of glory, and came down to earth for you. It is He who shrouded himself in your flesh, and wept among men for It is He who saw you condemned by God's law, and became your surety, put the load of your curse on his own shoulders, and bore it away to the land of everlasting forgetfulness. He it is whom you are called to follow. Dwell a little on this love, and consider what it is. It is high as heaven to which he is about to raise you. It is as deep as the misery into which he was plunged for you. It is as broad as our lives, it is as long as eternity. Many waters could not quench it; neither could all the waters drown it. It is love which sent a minister, a man of God, to call you and gather you to Christ. It is love which is sounded in your ears to-night, to bring you back to your precious Saviour, and to quicken your heart in the ways of God. What think you, then, of this master whom you serve? If you had ten thousand hearts, and each heart appeared ten thousand times more lovely than the one you now have, he is worthy of them all. Consider Him, then, who endured such contradiction of sinners. against himself, lest ye be weary and faint in your minds.

say,

Consider the obligations your are under to follow the Lord closely. Did you not, when you first entered the path of the divine life, "I take thee as my Saviour, witness, O ye angels, I take thee as my Saviour, for life and for death, for richer and for poorer, for better and for worse, for time and for eternity. I take Christ and his reproach, Christ and his cross, Christ and his shame—what is attached to my Saviour that I take." You have taken his very name.

"The

disciples were called Christians first at Antioch." When you became awakened to a sense of your danger, you enlisted under his banner; you became a soldier of Jesus Christ to endeavour to establish his kingdom. And now are you a deserter? What! ashamed of him? What dost thou say, "I know not the man?" Not in words, but in conduct. Isaiah says, “One shall say, I am the Lord's; and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob; and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel." You did, as it were, on the sacramental occasions which you attended, put your hand to a certain deed; and in the face of God, and angels, and the church, and sinners, and Satan, you did say, I am the Lord's-1 am his— I am his only-I am his minister. Is this the case? Then consider under what obligations you are to follow the Lord, and to cleave to him with full purpose of heart.

Consider what advantages you derive from following him closely. When are afflictions light-when are temptations resisted-when is the world despisedwhen is Christ precious-when is the company of the people of God desirable— when are Christ and eternal things most prized by you? When? Why, when you follow Christ fully-when you keep near to him in holy ordinances, both public and private-and when your soul is as a well-watered garden. How sweet were the moments which a close walk with God has brought you! Do you not set your seal to this truth

"Tis religion that can give

Sweetest pleasures while we live;
'Tis religion must supply

Solid comfort when we die."

How many of you, my dear young friends, have been sent to this highly favoured city, by your anxious and revered parents, with the humble hope that you may be caught in the gospel net! And you were caught, and were brought to Christ; but perhaps some solicitation of the enemy-some evils unforeseen by thein, have drawn you aside; and now you are, like Peter, following him afar off; not denying him with oaths and curses, but verging towards it, approaching nearer and nearer every day, and every sabbath-day. Now, look back to the time when your dear mother looked at the door, just to catch the last glance, as she says, God bless thee, my child! the Lord have mercy on thee, and give thee grace in early life! And think what a grief it would be to their hearts who have poured out so many prayers for you, to see you going away from heaven, and happiness, and joy, and peace. Awake to-night to your danger; and think of the blessed advantages which result from following the Lord fully and closely. Come back again-all of you come back again-do not one stay away; and enjoy this heavenly friendship, this holy communion, which will yield you present peace, and give you a happy prospect of glory.

Consider above all things, who has promised to help you to follow him. Did Peter follow Christ afar off? Did he deny his Master? One look-one single look brought him back again. I have been told by a friend, that West once He asked him what it said to him, I have a desire to paint one picture more.

was.

He said, It is Christ's look to Peter; but I can never paint that look. It was such a look as penetrated Peter's heart-it was such a look as melted Peter's soul-it was such a look as brought Peter back to his Master. Water does not flow more freely from a fountain-light descends not more plentifully