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dissenting and established, are to be broken up; and if we are within twenty-four years, as can be proved, of the seventh millenary of the world,-if we are come, as the best and most pious men of the present day believe, upon the very last times, it should be our grand desire to see that we have the right love and the right life, and our loins girt; and when we have a throne in heaven and a home beyond the stars, resting on a Saviour that has bled and died for us, and looking for a Saviour that shall come and take us to himself, we can afford to look down from our serene place with very slight sympathy on the petty quarrels of petty men on petty matters.

Another evidence of leaving our first love is when we make little or no progress at all. I doubt if there be such a thing as a stationary state in human experience. I think men must advance or recede. I do not believe anything is stationary upon earth. Everything moves, everything is under an impulse; and if the impulse is not always upward, it must be downward; though he that grows downward in humility may be growing more than he that grows upward. There is the weeping willow that grows downward, as well as the oak and the fir that shoot upward; and you must not suppose that you are ceasing to grow because you have come to discern more corruption within you—because you see more of shortcoming in all that you do-because you feel more of sin in every thought, and more of alloy in every action, and degeneracy in every motive. The very fact that you grow in the perception of your own lost state, is evidence that you are growing in fitness and capacity for that better state into which the Spirit of God shall introduce you.

Let us ask each himself, Do I love the Lord God, not only as the best Being, but as a just and a holy God? Do I love the justice that punishes sin as well as the mercy that forgives it? Do I feel it to be as precious a truth that God is holy, as that he is merciful? Do I feel that his law does not exact too much,-is not too strict, nor too narrow, nor too exclusive; on the contrary

that the law, in all its demands of infinite purity, on thought, word, and deed, is a holy, good, and righteous law? Do I desire to be emancipated from sin as my greatest calamity? Do I prefer holiness, not as the way to reward, but as the purest atmosphere that I can breathe? Do I regard sin as a bitter thing—as the essence of the curse-as the life of the worm that dies not-as the flame of the fire that is never quenchedand would I rather suffer than sin? Does Christ

appear to me just the Saviour that I want? nothing less will suit me, nothing more do I require. Can I implicitly trust in him? Can I put as much faith in one promise of my Lord, written in this book, as I can in a 51. Bank of England note, and believe that that promise will be as surely fulfilled in eternity, as I believe that that bank note will be turned into gold if I go to the banker, and ask him to do so? Am I less selfish, less narrow-minded, less exclusive? more liberal, more large-hearted, more gracious, more sympathising, more loving, more pitiful, more courteous ? Are these things in me and abounding? then I have evidence within me that my love is not extinguished, that its fire burneth as fire that has had its flame kindled from the Sun of Righteousness, and has the oil, or the unction of the Holy Spirit to sustain it, and keep it alive. If the Holy Spirit leave the heart, then it becomes cold-if the Holy Spirit dwell in the heart, then there is a flame in it that never can die-a light that never shall be extinguished-a glory that shall never become dim. Have you ever prayed this prayer, not the least precious that man can offer, "Lord, give me thy Holy Spirit!" I cannot be satisfied with asking for faith, grace, or repentance; I must have the Author of them all. It would be blasphemy, were it not truth, when I say that the believer's heart is the fane-the very temple, the chosen dwelling-place, the royal palace of the Holy Spirit of truth. Seek that Holy Spirit-look not to your baptism, nor to your Church, nor to any ceremony; look above them all, and beyond them all, and say, "O God, give me thy Holy

Spirit, and give it me for Christ's sake." Can he refuse? He cannot. "If ye, fathers, being evil," with all your imperfections, "know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give his Holy Spirit unto them that ask him ?" In order to raise your love to its greatest height, study God's love in Christ. Think of God as a giver, not as a judge-as giving, never as demanding; always think of him as loving, never as condemning; hear perpetually ringing, like a sweet sound, in the very depths of your soul," God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.' Think of that blessed Saviour who crossed a chasm that no angel's wing can fly over, and waded through a sea of sorrow that no human plumb-line can fathom, and descended to an ignominy and shame that even our imagination cannot realise, for no object and for no end but that man, with the weapons of rebellion in his hand, and the feelings of hatred in his heart, might be pardoned-reclaimed-regenerated-accepted-saved.

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To obain this love, do not think so much of the love that you feel within to Christ, but rather of the love that Christ feels to you. The way for you to increase your love to Christ, is to think very little about what you have attained, but very much of the love wherewith Christ has loved you. Did I wish, for instance, to kindle in my heart revenge, and hatred, and ill-will against some particular person, I would not go into my study and say, "Now I am determined to be revenged on that person, and I will therefore try by every means to blow up the coal of revenge within me;" for I never should succeed by any such inner introspection of my heart, in raising within it a feeling of revenge. What should I do then? I would think of the wrong that person had done me,—of the crime he had perpetrated,

of the evil he had inflicted on me,-of the ill words he had spoken about me,--and, without thinking of anything within me, but only of the outward evil that he had done to me, I should quickly feel, if capable of such

passions, revenge burning within my heart, till it blazed into a flame. And so if there were any person I wished to love me, and I were to say to that person, "You shall love me," he would not do it; if I should say, "I will give you 10,000l. to-morrow if you will love me," he would tell me, "Love is not a marketable article;" or if I were to say to him, "I will inflict upon you imprisonment, torture, and death, if you do not love me," that person would say, “I may be silent about you, but no torture that you can apply can make love grow in my heart, and no reward that you can offer can create affection." What then must I do? I would go and make some great sacrifice for that person. Were it a mother, and were her child to fall into the roaring cataract, and the shrieks of her agonized affection to call me to the place, I would, at the risk of my life, plunge into the stream, and seize the perishing babe, and bring it safe to shore, and place it in its mother's bosom, and then I would say, "I have commanded you to love me, and you would not; I have threatened, and you would not; I have promised, and you would not; do you love me now?" her answer would be, "I cannot but love one who has showed such love and devotedness to me." And so we love Christ; not because he commands us, not because he threatens us, and not because he promises, but "we love him because he first loved us." Thus, then, think more of Christ's love to you, and less of your love to him; and if your first love has lost its fervour, it will be restored

-if it has lost its vigour it will be strengthened, and if it have not all the passion that it had, it will have the fixed and riveted principle prepared for all sacrifices that may occur in the providence of God.

LECTURE VII.

THE DIVINE PRESCRIPTION.

"Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent. But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I also hate."--REV. ii. 5, 6.

IN

my first discourse I directed your attention to the eulogium pronounced upon the Church of Ephesus, as it is related in the second verse of this chapter. I showed you, first, Christ singling out the excellencies of a Church before he states and condemns her sins, in order that the eulogium pronounced upon what is good may thus be made the vehicle by which he will convey, not less pointedly, but with less obstruction, the verdict of condemnation upon the evil. Man's plan is to pounce upon the evil, as wasps pounce upon over-ripe fruit, and then barely to admit the good. God's plan is to pronounce upon the good, and give all the credit that can be given to it; but in faithful words, and yet with an affectionate spirit, to reprove and denounce the evil. So our Lord tells this Church, "I know thy works;" my omniscient eye has seen them all. How delightful is this thought, that the cup of cold water given by the trembling hand of a believer, and the rich dowry that is cast into the Christian treasury by a king, are equally seen and accurately appreciated by Him who searches the hearts and tries the reins of the children

of men. And "I know thy labour and thy patience," and thy faithfulness, "how thou canst not bear them which are evil," and also thy protestantism, "how thou hast tried them," by the law and by the testimony, "which.

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