Is there one soul that sympathises with me while I thus speak? One who has entered this house to-day, it may even be indifferent, thoughtless, sinful, hoping to be amused and interested, but caring little to be profited, and yet who is now, by God's grace, and the powerful influence of his Spirit, beginning to mourn for sin, to grieve for having offended God, to desire at all cost, and at every sacrifice, to be saved by Christ, and by Christ alone. If there be, then blessed be God, for this fresh instance of his sovereign love. "No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him." Praised be God for that one sinner that repenteth. We say to you, "Go in peace." Determine, by God's help, to live only according to the convictions and feelings which are now commencing, and in the service of Him who has thus sought and found you, and eternity itself shall not reverse the decision of this day. Time shall have run its weary round, and be no longer; ages as incalculable as the drops of spring, shall have rolled by, for ever, and there amidst joys unnumbered and untold, at

God's right hand, shall you remember the event of this day and hour within these walls; that here, by God's unbounded grace, was first sown within your heart the imperishable seed, the germ of a happy immortality; that here, you were made "one with Christ and Christ with you;" even with Him, who is "the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever," and who has said, of the least and lowest of his people, "They shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand."

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LECTURE V.

2 KINGS V. 26. (part.)

"And he said unto him, Went not mine heart with thee, when the man turned again from his chariot to meet thee?"

Ar the commencement of the present lecture, we find Naaman, the Syrian, once more retracing his steps from the banks of Jordan, to the hill of Carmel-no inconsiderable journey, to testify his gratitude to Elisha for the miracle of mercy, which formed the subject of our last discourse. "To him that hath," says the word of inspiration, “shall more be given." One blessing rightly improved, one mercy thankfully and gratefully acknowledged, often leads the way to far greater and far higher evidences of the loving-kindness and compassion of our God. Of this, Naaman was about to furnish a striking and

profitable example. He had come into the land of Israel, only to be healed of his leprosy, and God sent him back to Syria, healed of his corruption; cleansed of an evil heart of unbelief, united in an everlasting covenant with the great Jehovah.

Continuing the history before us at the 15th verse, we read, "And Naaman returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and came and stood before him." The lesson of humility, therefore, to which we alluded in the last lecture, had now been learnt. The great man did not again expect the prophet to come down, and stand beside his chariot, while he sat to receive his miraculous benediction. He is willing, with the meek and lowly spirit of a little child, to humble himself, and while he acknowledges his temporal mercies, to confess also his spiritual change, his conversion to the God of Israel. "Behold, now," is the language of the lately idolatrous Syrian, "I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel: now therefore I pray thee, take a blessing," receive a present,

"from thy servant." But Elisha said, "As the Lord liveth, before whom I stand, I will receive none. And he urged him to take it; but he refused. And Naaman said, Shall there not then, I pray thee, be given to thy servant two mules' burthen of earth? for thy servant will henceforth offer neither burnt-offering nor sacrifice unto other gods, but unto the Lord." In this, we trace, probably, some remains of his ancient superstition, although there was clearly none of his idolatry, for he distinctly promises to worship no other god but the God of Israel. Probably he thought, that as God had commanded that altars should be built of earth,* none was so proper for the purpose as that of the Holy Land itself, However this may be, if it were a superstition, it was clearly an innocent one; for the prophet leaves him in the possession of it, unreproved: and Naaman thus continues: "In this thing the Lord pardon thy servant, that when my master goeth into the house of Rimmon to worship there, and he leaneth on my hand, and I bow myself in

* Exodus xx. 24.