however sinful, however vile you may have been, is all forgiven, if you come at once. In His name I am commissioned to tell you that for the future, however fairly you may speak, however largely you may promise, I have nothing to offer, unless you come at once. Come then, at once, obey the call, and the richest offers ever made, are your's, the fullest pardon your's, the most gracious encouragement your's; in a word, salvation and glory are your's; for surely now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation. Again, with reference to to the wedding garment, I would urge upon you, that the fact of your having known this parable also, must leave you without excuse, if you do not take heed to the lesson which it teaches. The lesson is a very plain, but a most important one. It is this, that christian privileges will profit you nothing without the christian character. That a high profession and personal religion do not always go together. The house of the foolish builder without a foundation, swept away by the winds and waters of the raging storm-the extinguished lamp of the unwise virgin, who found with dismay the door shut, and herself shut out-the wedding guest bound hand and foot, and taken away from the glorious feast, and cast into outer darkness, because he had been found without the wedding garment,-these are not images from

which the unsound professor can draw any thing like encouragement to his hope, or justification for his faith. They speak plainly enough of a hidden strength and an inward life of faith and holiness, which too many are utterly destitute of, notwithstanding all the show and the seeming of godliness. "The difference between believers and unbelievers as to knowledge," says Dr. Owen," is not so much in the matter of their knowledge, as in their manner of knowing. The excellency of a believer is not that he hath a large apprehension of things, but that what he doth apprehend, (which may be very little,) he sees it in the light of the Spirit of God, in a saving, soul-transforming light: and this is that which gives us communion with God, and not prying thoughts and curious raised notions." "I prefer the most ignorant christian," said the godly Leighton, "to the most orthodox knave in the world." Oh, then, my dear brethren, see that you are arrayed in the wedding garment of of the chosen wedding guest! It is thus described by one whose faithful voice is well known and loved among us. "Holiness must be combined with faith to weave the perfect robe." May it be said of you, as it was of some in Sardis, by our glorified Redeemer, "they have not defiled their garments, and they shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy."

"Put ye on therefore the Lord Jesus Christ," and being thus clothed, "thou shalt shine in justification, and likewise in sanctity." The dress of the christian, in fact, is not only the outward adorning of all that is lovely and gracious to the eye of man, not only, to use inspired words, "the clothing of wrought gold; " but every inward thought and secret feeling, every principle and every motive is adorned and beautified for the eye of God; he is "all glorious within."

Election is your high privilege; but election, to use the words of the martyr Bradford, "is not to be looked on but in Christ!" Reprobation-dare I speak so awful a word ?—yes, most fearlessly-reprobation, as Bradford has added, "is not to be looked on but in sin." Wherefore, beloved, "examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves: know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you except ye be reprobates."* Spiritual pride is perhaps the most fearful form of double-mindedness; and after all, it is but a waste of words to say much, as preachers of the gospel, to the double-minded, unless it be to tell them most seriously, most solemnly, but most affectionately, that no promise, no privilege, no blessing of the Word of God is held out to them; that the Book of Life contains nothing but characters of death

to them. And yet even from the proud, self. confident, double-minded man, we cannot turn away. Entrenched, however, as thou art in the very centre of the wide-spread fastnesses of spiritual pride, lodged in the highest battlements of the citadel of presumption, how can we even approach thee? And yet we cannot, must not turn away. We stand before thee, O proud and double-minded man, with the Word of God opened before our eyes, and there we read thy character and thy doom!-"exalted to heaven, to be cast down to hell!" We might tell thee how that the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, God hath reserved in everlasting chains, under darkness, unto the

judgment of the great day. But we scarcely hope to prevail with thee by any word of human preaching. We meet thee with the power of humble prayer. "O Lord! to Thee, and Thee alone, do we address our earnest voice. Speak Thou the word, and the fastnesses shall be destroyed, and the towering citadel be laid low! Speak Thou the word of love, and grace, and tender mercy, and the most finished work shall be destroyed and the brand plucked from the burning, and the sinner set free from the bondage of his own iniquity. Speak Thou the word, by the voice of Thy Spirit, through Jesus Christ our Lord."

SERMON XIII.

THE CHRISTIAN'S ONLY SERVICE.

MATHEW VI. 24.

"No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will

hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”

THERE cannot be a more fatal mistake than for a man to suppose, that because the worst sinner is forgiven freely, without one work of merit, through faith in Jesus Christ, he has obtained a sort of liberty to suppose, that what would be sin in a worldly man is not sin in him. I do not mean that any man would declare this to others, or exactly own it even to himself; but many persons live as if the glorious gospel of the grace of God, the free unsought grace of God, had not only discharged the debt of all past sins, but had given them a sort of popish indulgence to sin in future. Now it is perfectly true that the justification, nay, the salvation of the sinner, that is, of each, and all of us, is from first to last, of free and sovereign grace, of grace and not of debt. But shall we? may