every man, and which, therefore, some might say is not his own fault? O, my Brethren! whosoever says so-or, without saying so, acts as if he believed it—is in evil case. No, Brethren, that alienation, that enmity of the natural heart of man against God, must not be acquiesced in, must not be yielded to for one moment, if you would be secure from the displeasure of Him who can and will cast into hell the soul and body of that man who dies with a heart estranged from Him. "In every person born into this world," saith our 9th Article, "it deserveth God's wrath and damnation." The enmity must be subdued; it must be superseded by the love of God-love which shall render delightful to you the service which you are bound to render. God claims your heart, your best affections; and God never requires impossibilities. As the God of Truth, He cannot make a claim upon you only to mock at your inability to comply with it. And yet you are, of yourself, unable to comply with it. - What, then, follows? Why, that there is, in the very claim made upon you, an implied promise to you of ability to comply with it. Surely God will not leave you under the inability in which He

finds you, without offering to you deliverance from it:—it is impossible. But not only is this the conclusion of our reason: it is confirmed by that which is, incomparably, more trust-worthy—that which cannot deceive us-the word and promise of the Lord Jehovah. "This is the covenant that I will make with them, after those days," saith the Lord : "I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more*." The Divine Agent, who works this great change in the souls of men-the change by which they are turned from the love of sin, and enmity against God, to the love of God and holiness, and a consequent hatred of sin—the Agent who works this change, is the Holy Spirit of God. But if there be any thing more unequivocally and repeatedly promised in Scripture than all other things, it is, that God will give His Holy Spirit to them that ask Him in His Son's name. "If ye, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him +." This blessed Spirit had wrought effectually in those to whom the apostle Paul wrote in his Epistle to

the Romans-though they had been Gentiles, estranged from God, and, in common with others, full of enmity against God, such as He is revealed in the Scriptures of Truth :-" Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry,

And again, to the

Abba, Father" (Rom. viii. 15.) Galatians he writes: "Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father*" Where this Spirit of the Lord is, my Brethren, there is love to God; there is liberty-a liberal, generous, filial spirit, which takes delight in obedience to the commands of God, because they are His; which, under a deep sense of infinite obligation to God, especially for the inestimably precious mercies of Redemption, desires and aspires after complete conformity to His will; and, for the sake of attaining thereto, is willing to do, and suffer, whatever God may see to be necessary. This was the spirit of the Apostles of Jesus, who, loving God because He had first loved them, thought nothing of what they had already done or suffered, so long as any thing remained to be done or suffered for

* Gal. iv. 6.

the name of Jesus. The love of Christ constrained them to live no longer to themselves, but to Him who died for them and rose again. This it was that then enabled private Christians, and enables many of our own day, to renounce, from the heart, every thing that is opposed to the will of God; and to welcome reproach and loss, and every species of suffering, even unto death, rather than willingly disobey the will of their Father, who hath reconciled them to Himself by Jesus Christ.

To that Holy Spirit, who hath wrought effectually in others, you, my Brethren, must look for grace to incline and enable you, from the heart, to love God. Surely there is nothing but God deserving of your best affections. He created you out of nothing, and gave you all the powers and faculties of body and mind which you possess. He sustained you during the helpless years of infancy and childhood. He filled your mother's breasts with nourishment for you; and inclined her, and others, to bear with your fretfulness and waywardness; and to load you with benefits, for which they could not reasonably look for any return. They

gave

were the agents; but He prompted them, and them the ability to help you. He gave to many of you kind friends, who, at much cost and selfdenial to themselves, instructed you in the way in which you should go, to attain to everlasting happiness. He brought you under the sound of the Gospel; and invited you, by His Ministers, and by His Spirit and Providence conspiring with their calls, to shun the evil, and choose the good, He has long continued to draw you, as it were, with cords of love; while you have been perversely following your own courses, which tended to destruction. He has gently chastened and corrected you, but not given you over unto death. He has heard the prayers which you have addressed to Him in seasons of distress and sickness; and has repeatedly put to the proof, whether you would indeed fulfil the vows and resolutions which you then made before Him. He has knocked, as it were, for admission at the door of your heart: again and again he has knocked, while you have been too busy to attend to Him. He has alarmed you by the terrors of His Law. He has convinced you of sin, and of the awful vengeance which awaits those