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that you have not: I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes: nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my supplication, when I cried unto thee. And thus while powerfully drawing you he has been secretly sustaining you, as in the case of David, who said—my soul followeth hard after thee-thy right hand upholdeth me.

Now all this is really his work. By the grace of God you are what you are. It is he that has made you thus to differ from others and from yourselves. And if the Lord had a mind to kill you, why should he have done so? The conclusion is as obvious as it is encouraging. He could have destroyed you without all this. Surely he does not excite expectations to disappoint us or desires to torment us. Surely he does not produce a new taste, a new appetite, without meaning to indulge, to relieve it. Besides-as he does nothing in vain, so he does nothing imperfect. What he begins he is able to finish; and when he begins, he designs to finish. With regard to other agents we cannot certainly infer the completion from the beginning-their views alter; they meet with unexpected difficulties; their purposes are frequently broken off-but it is otherwise here. The foundation of God standeth sure, and the top stone shall be brought forth with shoutings; grace,

grace unto it. It shall never be said of the God of our salvation he began to build, but was not able to finish. We are confident, says the apostle, of this very thing, that he who hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.

May you likewise be humbly confident of the same truth. May you be enabled to say with David The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me; thy mercy, O Lord, endureth for ever : forsake not the work of thine own hands. And when you are converted from your doubts and fears, and dejections, strengthen your brethren. Comfort the feeble minded; support the weak; be patient towards all men. Lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; and make strait paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.

DISCOURSE XVIII.

THE PROFANE EXCHANGE.

Lest there be any fornicator, ar profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears. Heb. xii. 16, 17.

THE history of the wicked as well as of the righteous is useful. By their crimes we are cautioned, and by their miseries we are warned. And as the Israelites fled from the tents of Korah, when the ground clave asunder and swallowed them up, saying, lest the earth swallow us up also-so should we abandon the course of the ungodly world, lest we share in their tremendous ruin.

Anxious for our welfare, the scripture addresses our fear as well as our hope, and holds

forth instances of divine vengeance, as well as proofs of divine mercy. Hence the command of our Lord: Remember Lot's wife. And hence the admonition of the apostle, Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birth-right. For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected; for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.

And what is all this to us? Much every way. I compare your privileges with his privileges. your sin with his sin-and your doom with his doom.

I. Let us view Esau in his original stateand compare your privileges with his privileges. To stand supreme in the house of the patriarch Isaac, was no trifling prerogative. His house was the house of God, and the gate of heaven. In this family, Jehovah revealed himself; and there he was adored and served, while idolatry prevailed over all the other nations of the. globe. And such was once the condition of this unhappy character. Accordingly he possessed the birth-right, and stood in a fair way to obtain all the advantages flowing from it. And these were great and numerous.

To the birth-right belonged pre-eminence over the other branches of the family. To the

birth-right appertained a double portion of the paternal inheritance. To the birth-right was attached the land of Canaan, with all its sacred distinctions. To the birth-right was given the promise of being the ancestor of the Messiah, the first-born among many brethren, the Saviour in whom all the families of the earth were to be blessed. And to the birth-right was added the honour of receiving first from the mouth of the father a peculiar benediction, which, proceeding from the spirit of prophecy was never pronounced in vain-Such were the prospects of Esau.

And what are yours? It is true you were. not born in the house of Isaac, but you have been brought forth in a christian country, in a land the Lord careth for, where the darkness is past and the true light now shineth. You have the bible; you have sabbaths; you have sanctuaries; you have ordinances; you have ministers; you have the throne of grace, you have the pro mise of the Holy Ghost; and all things appertaining to your everlasting happiness are now ready. You possess much, but all your present advantages are not to be compared with those glorious hopes to which you are called by the gospel. You have the prospect of becoming a kind of first fruits of his creatures, of joining the