every holy heart beats high with love and delight. But they see no beauty, and feel no delight. Let them be brought to the very gate of the heavenly Jerusalem, and let them look in upon that heavenly light before which the sun is ashamed to show his face. That glorious light of heaven is all dark, dark, dark to them. They have no eyes to see the light which shines there. They have no heart to love the God who reigns there. They have no taste for the joy that fills the holy there. Let them be thrust into the heavenly Jerusalem. They would find nothing to love; nothing to enjoy. The happiness of heaven would be misery to them. They would choose to die, rather than to live. And if they must live, they would choose to live any-where on the earth, or under the earth, or to be carried away swiftly beyond the bounds of God's creation, rather than dwell there, amid the praises and joys of heaven, so uncongenial and painful to their feelings. My hearers, we have now turned our thoughts upon some of the interesting objects and movements of this probationary state, and to the developments here made of the holy and the unholy heart; and we have come to the final result of the present life, a result so happy, and so miserable, that language is too poor to describe it. And now as I close, I entreat you to look seriously at two things. First, look at sin; and see what it is, and what it does. Men in general think sin has but little evil in it, and that it does little or no hurt. They even love it and cherish it, as though it were excellence itself. But it is immeasurably evil in itself, and is the source of all other evils. There is nothing in the universe so hateful, nothing so pernicious. Indeed, there is nothing else, which is either hateful or pernicious. All that is vile, abominable and destructive lies in the bosom of sin. All those plagues which have come upon the world from age to age, tell you of the evil there is in sin. But they do not tell you all its evil. The miseries of hell will tell this, and will be telling it forever. Look seriously upon this hateful thing, which the Apostle tried to describe, but could do no more than to call it "exceedingly sinful." This is the evil which has seized upon man, and has diffused its deadly poison through his soul. It has blinded his eyes to spiritual beauty. It has made his heart dead to holy joy. Were it not for sin, it would be heaven everywhere, because God is everywhere. But sin has changed the scene, so that the glorious presence of God causes misery instead of happiness, to the alienated heart. This is the plague, which in an evil hour entered Paradise, and which reigned from Adam to Moses, and from Moses to Christ, and from Christ to the present day; an evil which has bred all other evils; an evil so powerful in mischief, that it has required a mighty effort of omnipotence itself to restrain its malignant power, and to prevent it from destroying all the good in the universe. Look now at one thing more. You have seen what is that evil which dwells in man; how it defiles his spiritual nature, hardens his heart, turns light into darkness, purity into impurity, and alienates the soul from God and from heaven. Now why do not all, who have this evil dwelling in them, feel the wretchedness of their condition; and why do they not inquire, with the deepest solicitude, whether there is any effectual remedy? And if there is, why do they not desire and seek it with all their heart? My hearers, a merciful God has provided a remedy, and the gospel sets it before you. It is "the renewing of the Holy Ghost." He who came to save sinners, says: "Ye must be born again." The regenerating work of the Spirit, who can describe its worth? It takes away pollution, and makes the heart pure. It renders the character and the supreme dominion of God, and all the ways of his providence, welcome and joyful. It prepares man to be happy in any place, where God is. "Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God." This will be the consummation of their blessedness. Their pure heart will be filled with all the fulness of God. Oh! the preciousness of this renewing, cleansing, sanctifying Spirit! The wealth of worlds has no value compared with it. And Christ and heaven will be no joy to us without it. Let all then, with one accord, hasten to the throne of grace, and there prostrate themselves before God in humble, earnest prayer for the precious gift of the Holy Spirit, to cleanse them from the defilement of sin, and to make them pure in heart. A SERMON DELIVERED IN THE CHAPEL OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, ANDOVER, John 14: 28.-IF YE LOVED ME, YE WOULD REJOICE BECAUSE I SAID, I GO WHEN the time drew near, in which the Saviour was to finish his work on earth and return to the Father, and when he had distinctly told his disciples that he was about to go away from them; it is no wonder that sorrow filled their hearts. How grievous must have been the thought, that their Lord was soon to depart from them, and to leave them alone, poor and powerless, and exposed to dangers on every side. He apprised them of the trials and sufferings which they were to encounter. On the other hand, he took care to guard them against excessive sorrow and dejection. How encouraging and consoling were the instructions he gave them, first, in the upper room, where he instituted the sacred Supper; and then, in the garden, where he had so often met them, and where he then met them for the last time. There were two points which he distinctly suggested to them, for the express purpose of reconciling them to his approaching departure. In the first of these, he appealed to their love for him; in the second to their regard to their own good. First; to reconcile his disciples to his absence, Jesus appealed to their affection for him. "If ye loved me," i. e. if ye loved me with an enlightened and consistent love, "ye would rejoice because I said, I go to the Father; for my Father is greater than I." The argument is, that Christ's going to the Father would raise him to a condition of higher glory and blessedness, than what belonged to him on earth. In coming to this world, he had divested himself of the glory which he had with the Father before the world was. His state on earth was a state of dishonor; for he was despised and rejected of men. It was a state of poverty. He was made poor for our sakes; so poor that he had not where to lay his head. It was a state of suffering. Through his whole life, and especially at its close, he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Such, and more than I can describe, was the dishonor, the degradation and the suffering, to which Jesus was subjected in his earthly state. And if his disciples loved him as they ought, they must have sympathized with him while he endured so many sufferings, and must have rejoiced that he was soon to be delivered from them, and to be exalted to a state of unspeakable honor and blessedness at the right hand of God. The Father's being greater than the Son, seems evidently to refer to his being in that higher state, that state of superior glory, into which Jesus was to enter when he should leave the world and go to the Father. The happy change which was to take place in the condition of Jesus-change from a lower to a higher state from ignominy to glory - from pain and sorrow to celestial blessedness, must have been a matter of heart-felt joy to all his friends. How do Christians now rejoice when they consider that their Saviour has been delivered from all the evils he endured here below, and that he is highly exalted, and has received a name which is above every name. You cannot The Greek word μɛiwv, rendered "greater," has this meaning in some other places; and in this place such a sense of the word is required in order to give consistency and intelligible force to the passage. forget what your Saviour suffered on earth. But you rejoice that he will suffer no more; that he has gone through the painful service which he undertook for us, and now inherits the fulness of heavenly felicity. This was the subject of joy which Jesus suggested to his disciples. He was then in a low suffering condition; but he was soon to go to his Father, and to partake with him of all that was exalted and glorious in the heaven of heavens. What could reconcile his disciples to his absence, if not such a consideration as this? And those same disciples who listened to this last discourse of Jesus, have for many happy ages, been with him in his exalted state, and know better than we can, what reason all the friends of Christ have to rejoice, that he has been delivered from his state of humiliation and enjoys the glory which he had with the Father before the world was. The other consideration which Jesus suggested to his disciples in order to reconcile them to his absence, related to their own spiritual interest. "It is expedient for you that I go away." This is the point which is more particularly to occupy our at tention. In consequence of Christ's humiliation and suffering, God highly exalted him, and gave him a name which is above every name. This state of exaltation carried with it a higher and more glorious agency in accomplishing the work of saving his people, and in conducting all the affairs of his kingdom. The work which the Mediator had undertaken was a work of indescribable magnitude and importance. And he could carry forward this great work better in the courts above, than in any condition below; better on his throne, than on his footstool. The earth was the place appointed for him to humble himself, and to die for the sins of men. Heaven was the place for him to reign, and to exercise his power and mercy in the complete salvation of his people. The earth was a fit place for him to enter on the work of saving the lost. But to exercise his almighty agency as Lord of the universe, he must have a larger place and a higher position, than this earth could afford. It was then no want of love to his disciples that influenced him to leave the world and go to the Father. Far from it. His object was |