mersed in delightful anticipation? Far from it; he is as quiet and unmoved as before. Give not over yet-lift him to a mountain's brow which commands the most glorious landscape earth possesses on her variegated surface. Entreat him to lift up those heavy eyelids, and to look athwart the fresh and winding streams, the waving fields and the flowery earth, and the untamed herds, and the watchful shepherds, and the vast ocean in the distance, with its sleepless eye upturned for ever to the sun,-and does he seem to enjoy the sight? does he begin to inhale the pure atmosphere, and to express his admiration of the view? Alas! there is no impression still.

Let the house in which he is laid take fire, and let there begin to fall about him its blazing fragments,—will the danger of a wife, or a mother, rouse him to their rescue? will the fearful devastation of the element, or the imploring prayers of his friends awaken him to rise and escape the ruin? He will remain unterrified and uninterested till the body is burned to ashes, and with it all that lies within the house.

But this, my friends, is the conduct of the soul that is spiritually dead in matters that apply to its constitution. Present to the soul that is dead in trespasses and sins all the glories of heaven on the one hand, and all the horrors of hell on the other; the perpetuity of a heavenly inheritance, and the transient nature of an earthly one; the pleasantness of holiness and Christian walk, and the unseemliness and disquiet of a sensual life;-tell it, it is dead and must be born again; it is condemned, and must be justified by faith in Christ Jesus; it is sinful and unclean, and must be purified by the Spirit of God;-tell it, it must seek the kingdom of heaven first, and then its own recreation; tell it, it must be transformed by the renewing of its mind, and conformed to God;-and it will treat all as a romantic story, it will maintain its wonted attitude, and even when it is summoned from this world to the next, it will plunge in unalarmed recklessness into the fire that is not quenched for ever and ever.

There may be no doctrinal errors in the creed, no extravagance in the sermon, no marked crookedness and inconsistency in the lives of our people, and yet no life. There may be in the worship

great rubrical decorum, and much activity in missionary enterprise; yet all may be the movements of an automaton.

You may retain some name significant of past and noble victories, and indicative of present duty, and yet be dead. You may be protestant in name and not in fact. Like a degenerate noble, you may wear the illustrious title that renders only more conspicuous your unworthiness and shame. Such a Church is a painted flower, with neither freshness, beauty nor vitality.

Like the ancient Egyptian temple, it is all beautiful without; but within, and in the niches of its deities, are the unclean products of the Nile. Its sacrifice is that of Cain, its humility that of Ahab, its tears those of Esau, and its repentance that of Judas. It seems, not is. Behold an apology for a Church, a titular Christianity, a pretence, a delusion, a sham!

The individual professor of a name to live by, while dead, may repeat the Creed, sign the Articles, subscribe the confession of faith, and yet be dead. There may be a dead orthodoxy and a living heresy. He may have much outward and virtuous excellence. Paul, touching the righteousness of the law, was blameless before he was a Christian. The foolish virgins were scarcely to be distinguished from the wise; but herein lies the difference:

true Christianity, visible in the life, comes forth from a vital principle within; nominal Christianity, as apparent, is superin

duced from without.

There may be loud professions. Judas called Jesus "Master." The Pope calls himself "servant of servants." One may wear Christ's livery, and yet not be Christ's. The sounding ceremony

-the gorgeous procession-the splendid robe, are not Christianity. There may be great privileges. These commend God to us, not us to God. These are evidences of his goodness, not of our excellence. The Jews in peril from their sins, cried out, Bring us the ark of the Lord." We may follow our privileges to destruction, as the Jews followed the pillar of fire into the depths of the Red Sea.

One may have great gifts, and yet have but a name to live by. Like the spics that visited the Promised Land, we may bring back an eloquent report of its glory, and yet not enter it.

Balaam was a prophet - Judas was an apostle. Gifts are not grace-light is not life. Read the thirteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, and learn there how far we may rise, and yet miss Christianity. Many will say on that day, "Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name have cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works?"

Anybody can make an apparent Christian. The Spirit of God alone can make a real Christian. Let us ask our Father to give us this same Holy Spirit, for Christ's sake.

LECTURE XXI.

INSTANT DUTIES.

"Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I bave not found thy works perfect before God."-REV. iii. 2.

You may recollect that I addressed you on the verse, A name to live by, whilst he that wears it is dead-the characteristic of a declining and almost extinguished Church. I likewise addressed you on the fourth verse last Sunday evening: "Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy." Only then I discovered that I had not endeavoured to explain the second verse, which contains many beautiful, apposite, and seasonable prescriptions; and as every crumb that falls from the table of our Lord is precious, and every truth contained in these addresses is seasonable, beautiful, and instructive, I desire to open up all, and gather what I can of comfort, instruction, and direction, as I pass along.

Those then in the Church of Sardis who listened to the voice of that Church's Lord are, in the first place, called upon, as we are called upon, to be watchful. "Be watchful"-this is a duty that is always imminent, a caution that is universally needful. The fact that we are called upon to be watchful, implies that there are some things we are to watch over, and other things we are to watch against. I will therefore give you, as I may be enabled, (and I pray that the Spirit of God may teach you to feel them,) some salutary and seasonable prescriptions based chiefly upon the words, "Be watchful."

When watchful, we are so not only to keep off what is hostile, but to keep in what is good, cherished, and beloved. When we

shut the door at night, we not only do so to keep out the thief, but to keep in what we value. When we lock our cash-box, it is not only to keep from it the hands that would empty it, but to keep in it the money that we value, and have hardly earned. "Be watchful," therefore, implies not only there is something without that we have reason to dread, but that there is also something within, that we have grounds for valuing.

Be watchful, then, in the first place, I would say, over your affections. Thousands of attractions draw them from God, and keep them, if possible, at a distance from him. We are called upon, as the people of God, to keep, by his grace, those affections that he has given us; clustering around his throne like flowers that his smiles have made beautiful, and his breath has made fragrant, ever lifting their heads, and towering towards that Sun whose beams are their nutriment and their beauty; and yielding in return, fragrance, as the expression of the gratitude we feel, and as the only response we can make to him to whom we are indebted for them all. Be watchful, then, over your affections, that they do not creep and spread upon the earth that they do not cling to an idol, nor cleave to what is sinful, nor go out after what is forbidden. See that they tower and rise until they culminate where the secret of their happiness is, the throne of God.

Be watchful, in the next place, over your hearts. "Keep thy heart," says one who spoke from experience, "with all diligence." Keep thy heart with all diligence: it is a casket that a thousand thieves are ready to break open; it is a precious deposit that a thousand antagonistic forces are ready to destroy. Watch over it; keep it diligently; let not the cares of the world, so seductive, absorb it; nor the anxieties of the world irritate it; nor the fears of the world depress it; nor the forebodings of the world agitate it. "Let not your hearts be troubled;" ye believe in God, believe also in Jesus.

Be watchful, I would say, in the next place, over your convictions of truth. If you have come to the conclusion that God's word is true, that Christ is the only Saviour, that the Bible is the only infallible directory, do not surrender these convictions. Do not suppose because a skeptic starts an objection which you cannot solve, that therefore it is insoluble; do not think because a