your own conscience. God is greater than conscience. He also condemns you. You are condemned already. You are dead in trespasses and in sins. Within you, there is no spiritual life. You are graceless. God above will in no wise clear the guilty. Already are you in chains, under the bondage of the evil spirit. Death approaches. The grave opens her mouth. Hell is moving towards her prey. Hear, ye that are afar off; the sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath seized the hypocrites: who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?

you.

Mistake me not, my brethren, we are not to pronounce your doom. Ours is the ministry of reconciliation. It is God that justifieth. You are by nature condemned in your sins. All Christians have been in your condition. We are all by nature children of wrath. Thus the gospel finds While we say to the sinner, Ye must be born again, we point out the Saviour. Behold the Lamb of God. He came to save his people from their sins. He is able to save to the uttermost. Come unto him and be saved: He that cometh shall in no wise be cast out. To as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man,

but of God. May you, who know the nature and the origin of the Christian life in your own souls, go on unto perfection.

AMEN.

THE SEVERAL DEGREES OF PERSONAL RELIGION.

SERMON III.

ROM. vi. 4.-As Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

PROGRESS in the new life, commenced at the time of the second birth, is more important, and more desirable, than success in business, or growth from infancy to manhood. It is, in this text, urged as a duty, and proposed as a favour, in consideration of the resurrection of our Redeemer from the dead. The due consideration of that fact, which we always commemorate in meeting together on the weekly Sabbath, cannot fail to exercise a happy influence on the Christian's life. We are both enlightened and invigorated for our journey, by a knowledge of "the power of his resurrection." This, brethren, is the doctrine of my text: And I shall,

I. Make that appear by an exposition, and

II. Lay before you the several degrees of progress in the religious life.

I. I explain the words of my text.

The apostle Paul, who experienced, in his own progressive attainments, the influence of Christ's resurrection, holds it up, to the view of the believing Romans, as the reason and the means of their walking forward "in newness of life." Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father. The power of God, glorious in its exercises and results, was remarkably displayed when the Son of man arose from the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, to live for evermore. Three nights, our Redeemer lay in the house of silence: the door was sealed by Jewish and Roman authorities combined: and sentinels, practised in the duties of a military life, were posted, under arms, to guard the tomb. His enemies were

in fancied security, and his friends were in tears, on the evening which preceded the first day of the week. Before the dawn of that ever-memorable day, the Lord of life awoke from the death, to which he had submitted for our redemption. Then, the glory of the Father was clearly displayed. The Son exerted his own power over the king of terrors; and the solid earth trembled, when his body was revived. Angels, from on high, ministered to their acknowledged Sovereign. The door of stone, which closed up the only avenue to the chamber of death, was removed, by an invisible and immortal hand, in an instant from its place; and, with a countenance like lightning, the ethereal messenger sat upon the displaced rock. The keepers felt the shaking of the ground, upon which they stood in arms; they beheld the unexpected and astonishing sight; and overawed, by the presence of an unembodied visitant, every fibre of their mortal frame shook violently, until their strength was exhausted, and they became as dead men. Roman courage, proved sufficiently before many an equal foe, in previous combat, now yielded implicitly: resistance was vain against him whom even death can no longer bind. He rose again for our justification.

The same divine and glorious power, which produced the resurrection of our Lord, is pledged by that very fact to raise up us also, both from spiritual and from temporal death: "For as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will: And you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and in sins.-Created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."

"Walking" indicates not only vital action; but also progress from one place to another. That walking in new ness of life, which is urged in the text, in consideration of the resurrection of our Lord, must of course signify both, the exercise of the Christian life, in all its parts and relations, and our progressive improvement in piety.*

* Some divines, I am aware, are of opinion, that the allusion to Christ's resurrection requires us to understand this "walking in newness of life" of the state of blessedness, after the resurrection of the body to life everlasting in heaven: but the scope of the passage, in which the text is found, excludes this application; and there is nothing in the words themselves to render it necessary. The inquiry, in the first verse, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? is not applicable to the state of glory. Neither is the reply, God forbid, How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?

The progressive improvement of believers, in gracious attainments, is not only inculcated, as a doctrine, in the sacred oracles, but is also secured, as a blessing, to Christians, by the death of Christ, and actually administered to them by their arisen Lord. It is signified as well as the pardon of sin, to the church of God, in the sacrament of baptism; and it is implied in our religious profession, that we esteem it our duty go forward, growing in grace and in knowledge. In all our exertions to advance in godliness, we are animated by the assurance, that "the glory of the Father" is intimately connected with all our gracious attainments; and, that the power by which our Redeemer triumphed over death, shall secure our progress, until sanctification be complete "Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you, will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ."

Admitting then, my dear hearers, the truth, that there are different degrees in holiness of life; and confessing it to be the duty of every Christian to go on "from strength to strength," unto the perfection of "the man of God," you will patiently allow me your attention, while,

II. I describe, from the scriptures, THE SEVERAL DISTINCT DEGREES OF PERSONAL ATTAINMENT IN TRUE RELIGION, from its commencement in regeneration or conversion, until its perfection, in passing through the valley of the shadow of death, from earth to heaven.

The several attainments I distinguish by names, indicative of their characteristic features.

The first is distinguished by anxiety to escape frow evilthe second, by admiration of Christ and his salvation-the third, by thirst for improvement in the knowledge of his waysthe fourth, by public spirit in promoting good-the fifth, by heavenly-mindedness-and the sixth, by willingness to suffer for the cause of God.

"Baptism into the death of Christ," signifying the death and destruction of the power of corruption in regeneration, asserted in the 3d and 4th verses, refers not to the future state of believers; and the corresponding resurrection must of course apply not to that state, but to the life of holiness communicated in regeneration. The "planting of baptism" belongs also to the same event, by which we are at once both dead to sin and alive unto God. All the subsequent injunctions, down to the 14th verse, respect the present life; and it would be very absurd, under these circumstances, to apply the expression "walking in newness of life" to any other period than that of the Christian life upon earth. The soul, quickened by the Holy Ghost into new life, has its resurrection from sin and death.

The scale, by which we measure spiritual progress, is not graduated by considerations of age, of literature, or of rank. There are many aged sinners under the dispensation of the gospel: many have experienced the decline of life before their conversion to vital religion; and there may be some believers with hoary hairs, who are of small attainments in holiness-mere babes in grace, far inferior, in point of Christian improvement, to their own children, perhaps to their children's children. There are, also, men of learning and of rank, in the outward profession of Christianity, who have little or no real religion, while the labourer and the illiterate are ripening rapidly for glory. "Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom?" We cannot measure the progress of Christians even by the time which they have actually been in Christ. Some see more clearly than others; they walk more consistently and firmly; enjoy a more decided, and diversified, and extensive experience; and, they war, more successfully, against their spiritual adversaries. Many a comparatively young man is an old Christian, while there are many, trembling over the grave with age and infirmities, who are yet either children in understanding, or have their holiness and their comfort so much impaired and obscured as to be scarcely felt or visible.

Professing Christians, themselves, are prone to estimate a man's religious worth, by his rank or influence in society, particularly in the church-a very inadequate criterion: but it is still more pernicious to decide upon the degree of personal piety from the character of a congregation, or that of a distinct denomination among the several sections of the church of God. We are indeed bound, by the divine law, to urge it as the duty of all men, to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered unto the saints; and here, happily, free from compulsion, you may select for yourselves, the church fellowship which you deem the most pure and profitable to your souls: but you must not, on that account, imagine personal attainments in piety are to be measured by the general character of any visible society whatsoever. We are not to forget that Nicodemus and Joseph remained among the Jews, while Judas Iscariot was associated with the apostles. When any community, makes either a dereliction of truth, or an avowal of error, a condition of their fellowship, the path of duty is open before you: nevertheless, different degrees of Christian progress will be found among them, who worship