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wants, temporal or spiritual of others. You can teach the young-lend your zealous and willing aid to the cause of missions-can visit till you are weary, and talk till you are faint, and all as you think with a spiritual mind-but, when you close your chamber-door upon you, and have no more active stimulus than the eye "which seeth in secret" to excite you, how rapidly do the energies relax! The mind which was all animation and elasticity before, is languid, listless, now! find that you have been on your knees for minutes before you were aware! The conversation, the society, the occupations of the day, have been passing in swift review through your mind; and your thoughts have been at the ends of the earth. At length, when you make the effort to lift up your soul unto God, you find that it cleaves to the dust; and though you could talk and labour to the admiration of others, yet when it comes to close, and immediate communion with the Father of your spirits, if the truth were fully and plainly told, you have no relish for it. O brethren, this is an unhealthy state of soul-an unhappy-a dangerous state. Be not content to go on in it. Take one simple but important maxim as the test and criterion of your spiritual condition. Take it as sure and infallible.

you are in secret.

You are, in reality, just what Your actual state is just what you feel it to be, when you attempt to hold private communion with God. I do not speak now of

particular frames, but of the general tone of your

closet exercises. These, I solemnly repeat it, these are the pulse of the soul—the index of the heart. If there is no life there, there is none in your religion. If these are "neither cold nor hot," your heart is "lukewarm" towards Christ.

Be jealous then, over yourselves with a godly jealousy. Consider how exceedingly distasteful is such a character to Christ! "I would thou wert cold or hot." Were you "hot," your affections ardent, that is, and lively, you would be as you ought. Were you "cold," without any profession or form of godliness, the case would be more hopeful-you would be more open to conviction. But now you have just religion enough to lull you to sleep; and none perish so hopelessly as those who perish out of the bosom of an evangelical profession, and that for two reasons: they had greater privileges, and shall therefore have the greater punishment; and also their disappointment will be greater. They have numbered themselves with the people of God-have made sure of heaven hereafter-and they find their mistake when it is too late!

To conclude-let me speak yet a pointed, anxious, affectionate word of expostulation to the lukewarm souls in this congregation. Is this a fit return to God for his love in the unspeakable gift of his Son? Was he lukewarm in the cause of your salvation? Was the Spirit of his grace cold and indifferent towards you, when it stood

knocking at the door of your heart? And can you remain thus contentedly unconcerned?

Brethren, let me carry you with me on the wings of imagination, into scenes which themselves are not imaginary. Open that door, and enter that darkened chamber! Observe the almost spectral form stretched on that fever-tossed bed. Mark the haggard, horror-widened eye! Watch the strong throes of dying eagerness! See the whole body maddened by the spirit's pain! Ah! it is the sinner's death-bed! It is the soul realizing eternity, and shivering at the hopeless prospect! Is he lukewarm? and can you be, as you make his case your own?

But summon now your utmost courage and follow that disembodied soul into another scene. "After death the judgment "-after judgment, hell! Can you, even in imagination, look down into that bottomless pit? Did that withering quenchless fire flash across your eyes? Did Did you see that undying worm? Did you hear those eternal groans, and catch the echo of that endless, fruitless weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth?" These are the "terrors of the Lord!" Can you be "lukewarm" in your flight from the wrath to come?

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But gladly, most gladly, will we turn away from the sickening view, and mount up, as on eagles' wings, to the Paradise of God. How dazzling bright, how exquisitely lovely, how gloriously enchanting the prospect there! The victor's

crown-the royal throne-the priestly robe-a seraph's harp-rivers of pleasure! But again the sight is dazzled and the mind overwhelmed by the view." Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." This glory, this joy, is yours in reversion; and will you, can you, be "lukewarm" in its pursuit?

SERMON XVIII.

НАВАККСК ш. 17, 18.

ALTHOUGH THE FIG-TREE SHALL NOT BLOSSOM, NEITHER SHALL FRUIT BE IN THE VINES; THE LABOUR OF THE OLIVE SHALL FAIL, AND THE FIELDS SHALL YIELD NO MEAT; THE FLOCK SHALL BE CUT OFF FROM THE FOLD, AND THERE SHALL BE NO HERD IN THE STALLS: YET I WILL REJOICE IN THE Lord, I WILL JOY IN THE GOD OF MY SALVATION."

THE gift of prophecy, (properly so called,) was undoubtedly a distinguished honour, and for the most part, a token that he, on whom it was conferred, was a "man greatly beloved" of God. But it is never the character of preeminent endowments to yield to their possessor an unmixed gratification. There is generally some accompanying thorn in the flesh given, (not inflicted, but wisely and graciously given) to prevent him whom the Lord "delighteth to honour," from being exalted above measure." In the case of prophecy, the “thorn" was inherent in the gift

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