hopelessly lost which now dims the eye with tears, and convulses the bosom with sighs, and darkens life with disappointment, and converts man's crime into his curse-and will hereafter, if unpardoned and uneradicated, issue in "the worm that dieth not, and the fire that cannot be quenched"—would you cleave to good, that which was the chief joy and glory of Adam in his Paradise-which was never fully exemplified since the fall in any, save Him "who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth," but ever shone brightest in those who approached nearest to the throne of God-that which now goes farther than any thing and every thing beside to obviate the fatal effects of sin-to restore the lost image of the Creator-to qualify for the heaven which shall be the home of the redeemed, opening the door to life and immortality and unfading joy ;would you seek this, love it, cleave to it, never be separated from it till it is united for ever to you in the regions of eternal bliss?—Then ask, implore, importune for the influence of the Holy Ghost. Ask for this first in every day : let it ever constitute the subject of your first prayer to God: and not only ask till you have, but when you have. Do not be satisfied, as it were, with a draught of the water of life; seek and implore that God would give you drink of it, as from a river. To speak without a figure, pray that this influence may not only be communicated and felt in prayer, but that it may pervade and influence the whole tenor of your conduct-that it may never be absent from you, perceived by yourself when not developed, felt when neither uttered nor displayed to others. So shall you "abhor that which is evil, and cleave to that which is good"— and death, the wages of the one, shall be far from you-and life, the produce of the other, shall be yours for ever! SERMON XI. THE SINNER AND THE DOUBLE-MINDED IN VITED TO DRAW NIGH TO GOD. JAMES IV, 8. "Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye doubleminded." NEXT to the uniformity of the sacred volume, its chief beauty and excellence is its variety― variety of style and manner, with uniformity of tendency and design. Each writer pursues the same object, teaches substantially the same doctrine, enjoins the same precepts, yet each has his own peculiar style; and as there are seldom to be found two even among a large number of men, whose mental organization exactly corresponds; so, among the few writers of the New Testament (though they were equally directed by the influence of the same Spirit), the variation, in every instance, is not only observable, but striking. Depth of argument and vehemence of exhortation characterize the learned and eloquent Paul-meekness and per suasiveness are the distinctive features of the disciple whom Jesus loved-Peter is concise, explicit, impetuous, and decisive-while the calm, deliberate, collected, yet authoritative manner in which St. James addresses the church—the remarkable sententiousness and perspicuity of his style-the transparency, so to speak, of his writings, in which, however profound and complicated the subject may be, the eye of the commonest observer can trace it clearly throughout-seem to constitute him, beyond all the rest, the preacher and the apostle of the poor. Throughout the whole of his Epistle, we fearlessly assert, there is scarcely a single sentence, out of which even an unlettered reader may not extract some weighty and important meaning; though very frequently the substance of an entire volume is compressed into a verse-we might almost say, even into a clause. It is not here we meet with the "things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction." The danger is altogether of a contrary description: it is, that men should overlook things easy to be understood, things barely possible to be misapprehended — that they should cast away with indifference things scarcely capable of being wrested or perverted— that while they are occupied or absorbed in inves tigating those mysterious doctrines on which one Apostle treats, they should be comparatively or wholly forgetful of the plain practical observations of the other. Against this danger, brethren, let us be carefully and constantly on our guard; let us beware that we are not betrayed into it by the love of novelty-by the passion for strange doctrines, so characteristic of our age — by the restless curiosity, which is ever trying to "intrude into things that it hath not seen." Let us prove this Epistle to be, what in truth it is, a compendium of practical Christianity a field, rich in the genuine, unadulterated seed of the wisdom from above seed which generates all that is pure, peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated that endears man to his brother, assimilates him to his Saviour, and makes him, ever and only through that Saviour, acceptable to his God. - all The text contains three exhortations; of which the two that are last in the order of arrangement, are virtually and essentially prior to that which introduces them. The first is addressed to sinners "CLEANSE YOUR HANDS:" the second to the double-minded-" PURIFY YOUR HEARTS :" and both, with their hands thus cleansed, and with their hearts thus purified, are exhorted to "DRAW NIGH UNTO GOD:" connected with which last exhorta |