SUCH is the command of the God of heaven and earth, to all those who profess to love his Son, and enjoy the influences of his Spirit; who have espoused his holy and divine religion, and profess to be travelling through a world of trials and difficulties, to that rest which remains for the people of God. Our text is the voice of God himself, through the instrumentality of his servant and apostle Paul, and therefore not only demands attention, but requires obedience, on pain of the displeasure of the Ruler of the skies.

Indeed we may suppose, we may say, that all the writers of the Scriptures, all the providences of God, all the heirs of glory, all the angels in heaven, all the damned in hell, are now saying to us, in the language of the text, "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness." The text, my brethren, is the voice of every line of the Bible, of every poor backsliding soul, of every

trembling conscience, and of every drop of the blood of Jesus. And shall these join their pleas in vain? Gracious God! enable us now to 66 cast off the works of darkness, and to put on the whole armour of God:" let it not be our condemnation that light is come into the world, and we love darkness rather than light because our deeds are evil; but may we do the truth and come to the light, that our deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God; and henceforth, may we have this testimony that we please Thee.

The preceptive part of the Bible is neither to be reckoned the ground of our acceptance with God, nor thrown aside as legal; for upon our obedience to that depends our recommending the gospel to others, our imitation of the Lord Jesus Christ, the evidence of our possessing the Holy Spirit, and the justification, not of our persons, but of our faith before God and men.

Our text is introduced just after the apostle Paul had been warning the Ephesians against being partakers with the children of disobedience, by avoiding their former condition and their present state. "Ye were," says he, "sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord; walk as children of the light, proving what is acceptable unto the Lord." Therefore might he say with propriety on this account, because ye were once darkness, but are now light, "have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness."

May He who said, "I am the light of the

world," illuminate our dark minds, and give us in his light to see light, that, in our meditations on this passage, we may not darken counsel by words without knowledge; but may be encouraged to proceed in our journey towards that place where the sun shall be no more our light by day, nor the moon by night, but where the Lord shall be our everlasting light, and our God our glory.

We observe that our text, I. Describes the sins of men; and, II. Cautions us against them.

I. This language of the apostle describes the sins of men-They are "the unfruitful works of darkness."

Man was at first created holy, placed in a happy situation by his Maker, and endowed with the greatest blessings; but, by his disobedience to the command of God, he rendered himself exposed to the death of the body and the soul, and, ever since, all his numerous posterity have been born in sin, and have continued to live and die under the influence of enmity to God, where divine grace has not changed the heart. The condition of every one in a state of nature is truly lamentable and awful: he is a sinner against God, an enemy to God, and at an awful distance from God; he is Isaid to be alienated from the life of God. Sin is his element, his business, his study, his delight; and, if it be not pardoned, will prove his ruin.

Surely, it need not be proved to persons who have the least knowledge of their Bibles, that their

sins are the unfruitful works of darkness, which are elsewhere called "the works of the flesh." "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these,-adultery, fornication," and such like; "the deeds of the body." "If we, through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, we shall live." They are also called dead works. "How much more shall the blood of Christ purge your conscience from dead works?" And they are styled, the lusts of the devil.

"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do." But, in our text, sins are called "the works of darkness, the unfruitful works of darkness;" to this description it behoves us now more particularly to attend. You see that they are described by their nature and tendency.

1. By their nature.

Good men are

"The works of darkness." elsewhere said to be called out of darkness, and to be delivered from the power of darkness, and here the sins committed by the ungodly are expressly styled the works of darkness. Does not this denote the uncomeliness of sin? What is there, my brethren, in the vast creation of God, that is more filthy, more abominable, either in the sight of a sanctified soul, of a holy angel, or of the eternal God? As sin is the work of Satan, as it is the delight of those who never tasted the refined joys of Jesus's salvation, and as it proceeds from a heart deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, it must be loathsome.

Darkness itself is not half so uncomely; nay, that darkness which might be felt was but a faint shadow of the disagreeable appearance and odious naturė of sin. Those whose minds have been illuminated by the divine Spirit to see the exceeding sinfulness of sin, need no other arguments to convince them, that it is uncomely; for, beholding it with eyes anointed with his eye-salve, they cry out, Unclean, unclean.

Again, does not the phrase, "works of darkness," denote the bewildering nature of sin?

And sin, my brethren, is the means of rendering men insensible to the voice of God and conscience; stupid, notwithstanding the loud calls of the ministers of the gospel, nay, hardened under its sound: having once set your foot in the broad way that leadeth to destruction, you find it no easy thing to turn back, to come to the way of peace; for," Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil." It is really astonishing how men are led on from one sin to another, till, at last, they fall into the lake of fire and brimstone, to remain for ever with all the nations that forget God. Before they are carried down so low as others by the torrent of iniquity, could you foresee some of their future actions, and tell them of them, they would not believe themselves capable of performing such atrocities; nay, they would detest the thought. How strikingly do we see this exemplified in the conduct of Hazael, who, when conversing with the