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to awaken longing desires after the uninterrupted enjoyments of heaven, produce, in their operations upon the unconverted, results of quite an opposite character. They are apt to sour the feelings and harden the heart. They lead to repining, and discontent, and bitter complaints-to the arraignment of God's goodness, and equity, and impartiality, or to a practical atheism which excludes all divine supervision and agency from a world so constantly disturbed with untoward and disastrous events.

When such sentiments become habitual, when God's mercies and judgments are alike misinterpreted and misimproved, the mind, it is obvious, is closed against a class of agencies not only very efficient, and adapted to our condition in this world, but much relied on in the divine administration as means of religious impression and moral training.

Only one more disaster greater than this remains to befall the impenitent sinner, and that is likely to follow as the unerring effect of so many potent causes. The Holy Spirit is the great agent acting through all the subordinate agencies by which the soul of man is enlightened, sanctified, and saved. By the working of the affections, by the testimonies of conscience, by the ministries of the sanctuary, and by the operations of Providence, prosperous or adverse, does the Holy Spirit strive with men, to turn them from their sins to the living God. The divine agent pours light upon every mind, but never converts or sanctifies a soul but with its own con

sent and concurrence. His presence and operation within

He is

us renders our own efforts effectual to moral ends. ever ready to encourage, to enlighten, to comfort, to assist; but indifference grieves, and opposition insults him. Now the great evil and danger of procrastination are in its relations to the Holy Spirit. It always retards, and in the end effectually checks his work. Carried to the extent to which the impenitent is always tending, it expels the Spirit from the soul, which is henceforth doomed to darkness and ruin.

pours

This is the ultimate result; but the evil and the danger exist in many degrees, which to mark distinctly it would be necessary that we should know precisely the spiritual condition of men. It is sufficient for us to know that all sin, and especially that all postponement of repentance, and all opposition to religious convictions, tend to weaken the Spirit's influence within the soul, and obscure the light which he upon it. Carried to a certain point, these sins put an end to this agency altogether, and extinguish this light. That point once reached, salvation becomes impossible, because there is no longer any place for the play of its agencies and the fulfillment of its conditions. There is no longer any light, and "he that walketh in darkness, knoweth not whither he goeth."

Without dwelling with greater fullness or particularity upon this awful subject, I invite your attention to one incidental allusion in our text. This walking or groping in darkness suggests the idea of religious efforts made in the absence of religious light, after the divine manifestation has become wholly extinct, or, rather, too dim to guide us. A most pitiable and fearful condition is here set forth, though, we have reason to suspect, no very uncommon case. The light of the Spirit is usually withdrawn by gradual and imperceptible degrees, as the sinner advances in hardness of heart, and in the blindness of unbelief. He may often retain, under such circumstances, a very clear view of what is right with very little disposition to do it. It may often happen, too, that, under some pressure of outward circumstances or of felt inward wants, he may have a strong wish to secure the advantages of piety, even after the perversion of his moral powers and his dim spiritual manifestation are little favorable to any Christian movement. This is a case of which I think I see an intimation in our subject, and a case most deplorable it unquestionably is. A man has spent his best days in sin, resisting much divine influence, and fairly thrusting out

the Holy Spirit from his soul. In the sequel, without becoming a better man or really more friendly to the Savior, he experiences a want which the world can not satisfy. His passions are perhaps tamed by age-his powers of sensual enjoyment pretty well exhausted and benumbed. Religion, it may be, has become popular, and so has lost its most objectionable feature in his estimation, and he concludes to promote his respectability or happiness, or to quiet his conscience, or to appease his fear of death by becoming a Christian. There may even be in the movement some degree of sincerity and earnestness. Nothing in the world can be more erratic, unsatisfactory, and unfruitful, than the efforts which such persons often make in their new enterprise. What crude ideas do they express! What strange views of the plan of salvation do they embrace-what contradictions! They seem to beat the air. They appear to have lost all proper conception of the relations of religious ideas—of cause and effect of antecedent and consequent. They grope in dim twilight, and attempt to walk when there is no vision. Men well instructed in early life in religious truth, and in the plan of salvation, fall into the grossest errors. They adopt a system of forms, or of visions and empty speculations. I have known men of strong, cultivated minds, who seemed on this subject alone bereft of all the attributes of reason and intelligence.

I think, too, we often find the victims of this retributive delusion among nominal, backslidden professors of religionmen who have been long in the Church, and familiar with the duties of religion, but who have lost its spirit and power, without being fully, if at all, aware of it. You shall see in religious observ

such persons the strange union of regular ances, and much zeal for the Church, with indomitable worldliness, severity of spirit, and even relaxation of morals, an incongruity which they seem not to perceive, any more than to suspect the genuineness of a piety so long professed, and sanctioned by so many decent observances.

ness.

1. Walk while you have the light, and so keep off darkCo-operate with the light. The feeblest manifestaclear day. This is God's To him that hath shall

tion will lead the true-hearted into economy. Use, and receive more.

be given. Move toward the light; the slightest conviction, such as you all have had or have, is enough to lead on the dawn of a day that shall never end.

Trust in any,

2. Believe in the light while you have it. the smallest of God's manifestations; they contain the germ of all good things. Be willing to know your whole duty as well as your whole privilege, and act upon these intimations liberally and honestly. It is the only way to become real Christians-children of the light.

XIV.

THE WIDOW'S TWO MITES.

And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much. And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing. And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast more in than all they which have cast into the treasury. For all they did cast in of their abundance, but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.-Mark, xii., 41–44.

SINCE it has become so customary to solicit and to make pecuniary contributions for religious objects, conscientious Christians have come to feel the greatest solicitude to perform this duty on strictly Christian principles, and their attention has been drawn much more than formerly to an examination of these principles. It is not always easy to determine the reason why the prosecution of the divine plans is left dependent on such means and agencies as they are. It was not so at the beginning. Then much more was accomplished by miraculous interpositions. The apostles and early

preachers, for example, were miraculously endowed with a knowledge of all the languages of the people to whom they bore the Gospel. Now we are subjected to the laborious and tedious process of studying the Gentile languages, of translating and printing books, of establishing schools, &c.

Then the apostles were forbidden even to "take money in their purse, or to take two coats apiece;" their supplies came from the people to whom they preached, or from some source not particularly mentioned. It would be as easy now as it was then for God to provide in this way for the exigencies of his cause. He who deposited money in the mouth of a fish to pay the tribute to Cæsar's tax-gatherer, could open mines richer than those of Mexico for the support and spread of his religion. He could open the hearts of kings, or of the heathen themselves, to defray the cost of converting all nations. Why does a merciful God lay burdens on his people, often poor, to accomplish his work, rather than follow out the original plan? This I suppose to be the reason of the change there was, at the first, no Church to be honored and profited by doing this great work for Christ. Now there is, and it is for the promotion of our piety, and happiness, and sanctification, and the strength of our moral energies, that the day of miracles has given place to a day of sacrifice, and faith, and love. It may not always be easy to perceive the utility of the duties to which we are thus called, but I think it is usually obvious enough. All our labors and gifts are so much fruit by which God is glorified, and so much spiritual discipline to train us for holiness and heaven. (The missionary to China an example for the utility of the study of tongues.)

If it be true that God, for the good of his Church, makes it the great instrument of promoting his designs on the earth, we must expect to be called out more and more to this work. •We are to meet it as a great abiding duty, and it is of the highest importance to understand the true grounds of our

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