They cherish objections to certain doctrines, or ministers, or usages, which happen to be specially obnoxious as the instruments or media through which divine truth is brought into troublesome proximity to their consciences. These objections are coined only to serve a purpose, and to shed a soothing influence over the period that must intervene between the present and the "convenient season," when they mean to call for God to come back again; but they frequently attach themselves permanently to the Gospel itself, and so lead the victim of delay to incurable skepticism.

8. It is but another step in the sinner's progress that leads him to feel that he is wronged and injured by being pressed and annoyed with topics which he has concluded to regard, for the present at least, and during the truce which he has made with hell, as unimportant, or unreasonable, or out of time. He becomes impatient and angry. His rights are intruded upon Why should he be disturbed about duties which he has deliberately assigned to "a convenient season?" Whose business but his own is this? If the minister and the Church continue faithful to his soul, which they seldom do under such discouragements, they become enemies, and are repelled by coldness, or reserve, or reviling, from approaching too familiarly the castle of one who, having bidden God away from him for a time, will not be molested till the convenient season come for calling Him back again.

II. "When I have a convenient season, I will call for thee." We have seen the results of procrastination. Let us attend to the reasoning upon which it is based. The sinner expects more facilities for beginning his religious course. What would constitute " a more convenient season,' we may learn by inquiring what are the chief obstacles to his present conversion. These are, perhaps,

1. A distaste for religion. In spite of his principles and convictions, the unconverted man feels a strong repugnance to the terms of the Gospel. His heart "is not subject to the

law of God, neither indeed can be." Will the future be a convenient season in this respect? So far from it, his tastes become more and more corrupt.

2. Another obstacle to immediate conversion is the love of the world-its pleasures-associations-honors-wealth. Do these hinderances grow less by procrastination? They are often powerful upon the young, but they may be easily resisted. Acting chiefly upon the imagination, and fortified by no established habits, a little resolution is sufficient to break their charm; but upon men fully immersed in the pursuits of business and ambition, the world exerts an influence of the most fearful character. They seem spell-bound -infatuated-helpless.

3. Another hinderance to immediate conversion is a want of sensibility to religious truth, even when fully believed. Even awakened persons complain that they can not feel— can not realize their sin-ingratitude-danger. Now the direct and inevitable tendency of procrastination is to increase this stupidity. The heart grows harder-the conscience more blind and callous, by every act of resistance to duty and the Spirit. This is a well-known law of our moral nature.

4. Men, as they often allege, are kept from immediate repentance by the want of powerful divine influence upon their hearts. They wait for more mighty drawings of the Holy Spirit. Will the future be a more convenient season in this respect? Will God be conciliated by rebellion? Will the Spirit be given more abundantly to those-not those who pray for it, but to those who resist it? Are we not admonished of the danger of resisting-grieving-quenching the Spirit? The sinner, in the text, presumes upon his ability to be converted when he pleases. "Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee." And thus it is with all sinners who put off present repentance. They claim dominion over God, and they will make His purpose bend to their convenience. They insolently repel him

now, and will call for him when they want him-when convenient to themselves. Will God submit to their dictation? "Because I have called and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at naught all my counsel, and would none of my reproof; I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me."*

XXV.

THE ADAPTATION OF THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR.

The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up, and the poor have the Gospel preached to them; and blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me.-MATTHEW, Xi., 5, 6.

1. THE miracles are mentioned which were not parts of the Gospel, but proofs of Christ's divine power, and consequently of the truth of his doctrine. Miracles are the only kind of proof applicable, if free agency is respected, and, therefore, the most probable and credible of any. They properly ceased with Christ and his apostles, and so showed, by their cessation as well as by their performance, His divinity. They were all benevolent, evincing infinite goodness as well as power, and so won men's hearts to the doctrines of the Savior.

2. "The poor have the Gospel preached to them." This is a permanent proof, and it is ranked with miracles. This care for the poor was divine. No other system was made for the masses, but for the learned-for the rich-for priests. The Father of all provides in the Gospel for all his family, * Proverbs, i., 24-28

and cares especially for the greatest number, and the most needy.

3. It is implied that the Gospel is an antidote for the ills This is seen in the fact that,

of the poor.

(1.) It prevents distressing poverty by the inculcation of industry-temperance-frugality.

(2.) It guards against fraud and oppression by its precepts, and the enactment of the great law of reciprocity, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them."

(3.) It relieves poverty, by enjoining benevolence, charity, alms-giving; by visits of condolence, and sympathy, and practical kindness; by erecting and sustaining homes for the destitute, asylums, and hospitals. Let theorizing philanthropists try this method. Let them direct their efforts to the conversion of sinners, and thus will they lay the best and only foundation for progress. They will thus follow God's plan.

4. The Gospel blesses the common lot of life especially. Christ chose it as the most excellent way. He might as easily have been a monarch as a carpenter's son. All the inconveniences of common life become disciplinary—“ work together for good" to Christians. They make the "weight of glory" greater. They form occasion for the cultivation and the exhibition of virtues that could not exist otherwise : patience-resignation-charity. These facts, if held in lively faith, would a thousand-fold counterbalance the evils of common life.

5. The Gospel is for the poor in its universality-in its freeness-in its conditions. Faith in Christ, which is alike easy to all, requires neither great knowledge, nor great intellect, nor religious education, nor righteousness. Look unto me and be saved, all ye ends of the earth." "Behold the Lamb of God."

6. The Gospel speaks directly to the people, without inter

mediary agencies. Its proper object and function bring it directly into contact with individual minds. It appeals to personal consciousness, and convictions of duty, and obligation. The whole travail and inward history of a soul, obeying, receiving, resisting, or rejecting the Gospel, is made up of matters with which preaching, and ordinances, and Church have nothing to do. It is a struggle between divine truth and fallen nature, vailed from human observation. Men feel that it is an address, an appeal by the Gospel, to themselves. External agencies may have been instrumental in exciting reflection, but they are needs forgotten in the sequel, and all the soul is conscious of are claims inwardly felt, and its own doubts, and thoughts, and fears, and purposes in regard to them. Every man feels this. He knows he is handling the things of eternity-of God, and laying the foundations of his future habitation. If he resists, he is conscious that he does a diabolical and suicidal work-that he works out his own damnation. Unless under some deep delusion, he can not be made to think that the preacher, or the Church, or rites, or creeds, can do any thing in the special business that is in hand. They have been vehicles for bringing God's truth to him, and no more. How he will treat it, what it shall do for him, himself must decide.

7. So of the divine agencies by which the careless are awakened, the penitent converted, and the believer sanctified. The Gospel brings them all home to the people-to the poor-to the individual. "God works in them.' "The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal." His body becomes a "temple of the Holy Ghost.” Not the clergy-not the Church specially-but individuals, are "led”—are "enlightened”—are "comforted" by the Spirit. All this great intercourse with the Almighty is to be carried on by the principal. He can not negotiate by embassadors can not work through stewards and agents. Each individual stands apart from all others. God's Spirit is in him.