Christ told these very persons, that they were "the children of the devil;" that "the love of God was not in them;"" that they would not believe in him whom God had sent;" that "as they said they saw," their blindness was peculiarly criminal; that " they drew near indeed unto God with their lips, but that their hearts were far from him;" and that, under the weight of this mass of pride and self-sufficiency,

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they would not come unto him, that they might have life."

It is but too evident, that numbers in every community of professing Christians resemble these Jews of old. Like them, they "draw nigh unto God with their lips;" they profess to be Christians; they profess to believe the Bible; they go to church; they give alms; they repeat prayers; they may even attend the sacrament; but, in the midst of all these devotional acts, they hate the real doctrines of Jesus Christ. They never approach him with their hearts: their hearts, like those of the Pharisees of old, "are far from him." Their religion leaves them very much as it found them. It may have stimulated them to an external reformation, but it has not affected the nature of their moral feelings. Hence their devotion is formal, and their benevolence is selfish. They never dream that they really stand in need of Christ. The promulgation of

the gospel to such persons immediately proves a test of character. As long as they were left in the undisturbed possession of their forms and ceremonies, they pursued their wonted course from day to day, wise and contented with their own conceits. But the statements of the gospel are now made before them; the calm of ignorance is disturbed; the import of the Bible is plainly unfolded; the heart-affecting truths are pointed out, that "the soul that sinneth, it shall die;" that each transgressor is absolutely under the curse of the law, and that all his vain pretensions are thus annihilated before God. Under such a condition of impending ruin, the Son of God is set forth as "the propitiation through faith in his blood," for all "who believe in his name." His free and mighty love, a love stronger than death, and inviting even the chief of sinners to find an asylum beneath its provisions; this love is proclaimed: and those to whom it is addressed are urged to believe this testimony of God, and "to come unto Christ, that they may have life.". What is the strange result of this proclamation of mercy? The hidden but strong enmity of the sinner's heart is now detected, and he flings back, it may be with indignation, a grace for which he feels no value. We cannot disguise the fact, that beneath this sunshine of grace and mercy, the dark complexion of the human heart be

comes painfully visible. The carnal mind now manifests itself to be hostility against the law of God. The statements of the Bible are often at once rejected and contemned: but as it would be felt to be a too palpable conflict with truth to reject them as the statements of the Bible, those who manifest this contempt hide its real character beneath the covering of a term of reproach. There is always some term of religious reproach afloat in the world; and they seize upon this in order, through the medium of such a disguise, to vindicate before their own consciences, and before the judgment of others, the rectitude of the opposition which they evince to a spiritual religion. In modern days, the terms Methodist and Calvinist, are the convenient words by which enmity to truth is cloaked and sheltered. The tenets which the world would condemn they do not bring to the test of Scripture, but to the test of these names; names which are well known as terms of disrepute, and which save those who use them all trouble of thought and of examination, and at once justify their scorn before the eyes of those around them. I ask whether these words are not in frequent use, for this melancholy purpose, at the present time? It is more than probable that many of those here assembled have actually vilified the gospel of the Lord and Saviour, beneath these very terms of reproach.

Perhaps many, even at this moment, are ready to decry the solemn truths to which I have referred, as Calvinistic or fanatical: and were I to entreat them to forget these names, and to come with me to the wide field of Scripture, and there to examine these condemned opinions by the decisions of God, they would recede from such a test, and would rather at once reject them, under the convenient term of contempt which they had chosen. I have known many who, not contented with the rejection of the gospel, for themselves, have ventured to trifle with the eternal interests of others, and to use the influence of parental or of social authority to warn the inexperienced and the young against the seductive influence of this dreaded religion. I have known many who, in the bitterness of their contempt for God's truth, have expressed their readiness rather to follow their children to the grave, than to see them come under the solemn and deep impressions connected with genuine Christianity!

But is this candid? Are not those who thus act, often fearfully ignorant of the Scriptures; and do they not awfully trifle with God and with eternity? If they be not ignorant, they are then more deliberately hostile. Then the proclamation of the gospel elicits all the bitterness of pride, and induces them to come forth, under the very "woe" of destruction, to

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" contend with their Maker." They practically reject his mercy; they trample the grace of the gospel under their feet; they will not come," and they warn others not to go "to Christ, that they might have life." In this case the blessed gospel becomes "the savour of death unto death." This is the very case of the text. This is the repitition of the contempt and scorn which drew forth those sacred tears from the Son of God: this is a kindred manifestation of that pride, which threw back with violence and disgust that voice of beseeching tenderness, which long and often plied its hallowed invitations, "Come unto me, and I will give you rest."

Should there be any persons here present, who have hitherto acted in this manner, in reference to the declarations of the gospel, I would beg to offer to them a very few suggestions.

I. In the first place I would assure them, that I cordially unite with them in any indignation which they may feel against a mere spirit of proselytism.

To disturb the repose in which one man holds his opinion, by forcing upon him the opinion of another man, I deem to be the effort at once of conceit and of intolerance. In this respect, the view which Calvin or Arminius, or any other person may take of religion, is with me wholly