tion, or their station of life. These occasions afford excellent and invaluable opportunities for correcting and breaking off any vicious habits which we may have contracted. It is when many associations, which give strength to a sinful habit, are interrupted and dissolved by the change which has taken place, that we can best resolve to conquer the sin, and set out upon a new course and a new life. The man who does not take advantage of such opportunities when they arise has not the salvation of his soul at heart: nevertheless, they are not to be waited for.

But to those sudden changes which we recommend, will it be objected that they are seldom lasting? Is this the fact? Are they more liable to fail, than attempts to change gradually? I think not. And there is always this difference between them. A sudden change is sincere at the time; a gradual change never is such truly and properly and this is a momentous distinction. In every view, and in every allowance, and in every plea of human frailty, we must distinguish between what is consistent with sincerity, and what is not. And in these two methods of setting about a reformation, by reason of their different character in this respect, the first may, though with fear and humility, expect the help of God's aiding Spirit; the other hardly can. For whilst not by surprise and unpremeditatedly we fall into casual sins, but by plan and upon system we allow ourselves in licences, which, though not so many or so great as before, are still, whenever they are indulged, so many known sins; whilst, in a word, though we imagine ourselves to be in a progress of amendment, we yet deliberately continue to sin,— our endeavours are so corrupted, I will not say by imperfection, but by insincerity, that we can hardly hope to call down upon them the blessing of Almighty God.

Reformation is never impossible; nor, in a strict sense, can it be said to be doubtful. Nothing is, properly speaking, doubtful, which it is in a man's power to accomplish ;-nothing is doubtful to us, but what is placed out of the reach of our will, or depends upon causes which we cannot influence: and this is not the case with reformation from sin. On the other hand, if we look to experience we are compelled, though with grief of heart, to confess, that the danger is very great of a man who is engaged in a course of sin never reforming from his sin at all. Oh, let this danger be known! Let it stand, like a flaming

sword, to turn us aside from the road to vice! Let it offer itself in its full magnitude! Let it strike, as it ought, the souls of those who are upon the brink, perhaps, of their whole future fate; who are tempted ;-and who are deliberating about entering upon some course of sin.

Let also the perception and conviction of this danger sink deep into the hearts of all who are in such a situation, as that they must either reform or perish. They have it in their power, and it must be now their only hope, by strong and firm exertion to make themselves an exception to the general lot of habitual sinners. It must be an exception. If they leave things to their course, they will share the fate in which they see others, involved in guilt like themselves, end their lives. It is only by a most strenuous effort they can rescue themselves from it. We apprize them, that their best hope is in a sudden and complete change, sincerely begun, faithfully persisted in; broken, it is possible, by human frailty, but never changed into a different plan, never declining into a compromised, partial, gradual reform; on the contrary, resumed with the same sincerity as that with which it set out, and with a force of resolution, and an earnestness of prayer, increased in proportion to the clearer view they have acquired of their danger and of their want.

XXXIV.

CHRISTIANITY NOT A MERE FEELING, BUT AN ACTIVE
PRINCIPLE.

MATT. VII. 21.

"Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven."

THESE Words are addressed to mankind at large. They are not, like some of our Lord's discourses, relative to the particular circumstances of those who stood round him at the time. Christ here speaks to all his disciples, in whatever country of the world they may live, or in whatever age of the world they might come to the knowledge of his name. He speaks, in this text, as much to those who are assembled here in his worship, as to the very people who received the words from his mouth. The words themselves are the conclusion of our Saviour's celebrated

sermon on the Mount, and they close that divine discourse most aptly and solemnly.

When the fame of our Lord's miracles had drawn great numbers after him from every quarter of the country,-from Galilee you read, from Decapolis, from Jerusalem, from Judea, and from beyond Jordan, --he deemed that a fit opportunity to acquaint them with those great moral duties which they must discharge, if they meant to be saved by becoming his followers: for which purpose he went up into a mountain, for the conveniency, it is probable, of their hearing and of his own retirement, and also in imitation perhaps of Moses, who delivered the blessings and curses of the old law from the summit of a hill. When the people in great multitudes were assembled round him, he pronounced that great lesson of duty, that summing up of weighty precepts, that statement of Christian morals, and of a right Christian disposition, which you read in the 5th, 6th, and 7th chapters of St. Matthew; and when he had finished the particular precepts he had given them,-the several distinct commands which he enjoined upon his followers, he concluded with this reflection, which was applicable to them all, and was indeed the great point he wished to leave upon their minds, and not only upon theirs, but upon the hearts and souls of all who should afterwards profess his religion:-"not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven."

It was very natural for those who attended our Lord to feel a glow of zeal and affection, to be transported with admiration, to cry out "Lord, Lord," from the very fervency and ardour of their love and reverence, when they beheld the astonishing works which he wrought, and heard the words of salvation which flowed from his lips, or saw the sufferings which he underwent, or his meekness and resignation under them. It was natural for them, and the same thing is natural for us. When we meditate at all upon these subjects-when we turn our thoughts towards the great author and finisher of our faith, the Lord Jesus Christ-when we reflect that he is our way and our life, that what we know concerning the life to come proceeds from him, that our hopes of attaining it are through him, that he is our guide and our instructor, our redeemer and mediator, that he came to lead his followers to heaven, that he laid down

his own life to give them eternal life, that he still sits at the right hand of God to interest in our behalf-when we reflect, I say, upon the infinite, unutterable importance of saving our souls, and what he has done, and continues to do towards itwe cannot help crying out," Lord, Lord;" we cannot help feeling ourselves overwhelmed, as it were, with the vastness and immensity of the subject, and the deep obligation which we owe to the Saviour of the world. This sentiment is still more apt to come upon the mind when any worldly distress or affliction drives us to take refuge in religion-to fly for succour to God Almighty's protection, and to the dispensation of his righteous will in another world-" to take hold," as St. Paul speaks, "of the anchor of hope," and the strong consolation which is ministered to us by the Gospel of Christ. It is upon these occasions that we find religion to be our only stay, trust in God to be the only firm ground we can set our foot upon. No wonder, therefore, if we be drawn almost involuntarily to cry out, "Lord, Lord,"-that we are constrained by his love-that we feel our dependence upon him--that we are brought to understand, that to be saved in the day of judgement is that concern which wraps up all others—that there is none other name under heaven, whereby we can be saved, only the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. No wonder, I say, that in moments like these our affection towards Christianity is increased, our thoughts serious, and our devotion sincere.

Sometimes also, without any external causes, or any cause that we are acquainted with, strong impressions of futurity,awful apprehensions of our great change, come over the mind. The things of this world are diminished to nothing, when we place them by the side of that great event which will arrive, and in a short time, to all of us. Life appears what it is-a span; inconsiderable at the longest; liable every day to be put an end to: what shadows we pursue, what shadows we are! The unsatisfactoriness of all our worldly enjoyments, the uncertainty of all our worldly hopes, seizes the imagination with irresistible force. Here then again the soul turns to God. Beaten and repulsed from every other source of confidence and contentment, it seeks them in the future mercies of a faithful Creator.

Or again, it may and does happen, that a sudden glow, a certain warmth and elevation of heart, as to the concerns of religion, spring up at particular times in our breast; we cry

VOL. IV.

E

Lord, Lord!" with rapture-the promises, the views, the consolations of Christianity, fill our hearts;- we rejoice (as Saint Paul, who felt much of this animation, expresses it) in the hope of our calling, and in the joy of the Holy Ghost.

Now concerning all these various states of mind and affection, the first thing to be said is, that they are all good. Whatever draws the soul to God, whether it be reflection upon the astonishing history of our Lord Jesus Christ, the ardour of his love, the patience of his sufferings, undertaken and undergone for our sakes;-whether it be some outward visitation and discomfiture, some stroke of Providence, which brings us to ourselves, which makes us serious in the business of religion;whether it be some inward sinking and misgiving of the mind, some cloud which overcasts the spirits; or whether, on the contrary, we be raised and lifted, as it were, towards heaven by the life and flow of our devotion, still all is good. We ought to regard and accept these stirrings and motions of the mind towards religion, from whatever cause they proceed, as favourable and hopeful intimations of a righteous principle forming within us. We are to invite, cherish, and cultivate them ;wait and desire the return of them;-above all, be thankful for them, and account even calamities as blessings, when they tend to make us religious. It is a sorrow not to be repented of, when it leads to salvation.

Nothing that our Lord says in the text ought by any means to be construed to the undervaluing or discouraging of devout feelings of any kind, or from any cause: but the great misfortune is, these thoughts are apt to be short-lived;-they are wont to be soon forgotten, and forgotten entirely. In the night we cry, “Lord, Lord!" in the morning we return to our sins. That world, with its pleasures and honours and cares and contentions which we lately thought so little worth our strife and our anxiety, courts us again with new temptations, and is pursued with fresh eagerness. That enduring, imperishable soul, the saving of which we judged the only concern we need to care about or to be afraid about, obtains not our consideration amongst the multitude of thoughts which crowd upon us; those prospects of everlasting happiness in heaven, which awhile ago opened so bright upon our view, are again shut out. Some loose, sinful pursuit, some mean advantage, gets hold again of our hearts, and closes up that passage where religion was enter