continue in doubt as to the love of God. Beware lest you keep yourselves in darkness, when you might be rejoicing in the light. You need not live in doubt, if you are really living to God. A full assurance of His love may be attained; it has been attained by others, it may be attained by you. It is this that will make your thoughts of God cheerful, His service your delight, and the hope of glory joyous to your souls. Oh! seek then to attain it, and diligently take heed of every thing likely to interfere with it. Your doubts, if doubts you have, may be the suggestions of Satan, or they may be the consequence of carelessness in your spiritual life. The happy conviction I have spoken of is incompatible either with a life of sin, or with a little religion. You must have no doubt that you are living to please God, if you would have no doubt that He looks upon you with His favour. Want of decision is of necessity accompanied with want of confidence ; and want of unreservedness with want of joy and peace. Study therefore to be wholly given to the will of God. Beware of little sins. Beware of everything, as to the lawfulness of which stand in doubt. Beware also of having hard thoughts of God. Pray that He will reveal to

you

you His character; that you may know His love as the angels do in heaven. Thus to know that

He loves you will be your highest joy. It will alleviate the sorrows of life and illuminate the prospects of eternity. It will make you independent of the world, and will be to you as a well of water that never fails. It will make you gladly go into the presence of God, and joyfully perform His will. It will be the greatest comfort to you in the hour of death, and throughout eternity you will have no higher joy than to know and believe the love that God has to you. May He then graciously give you this blessed assurance, that your life may be full of peace, your death full of hope, and your state beyond the grave full of that joy unspeakable, which the soul will feel, when nothing will ever make it doubt or distrust any more the infinite loving-kindness of God!

SERMON IX.

THE POWER OF CHRISTIANITY.

GALATIANS v. 16.

"This I say then, Walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh."

It is clear from the writings of the Old Testament, that one of the chief predicted blessings connected with the introduction of Christianity into the world, was to be the communication to man of the Holy Spirit of God. The same truth distinctly appears in the Revelation contained in the scriptures of the New Testament. Every where the gift of the Spirit is spoken of as the crowning gift of the new dispensation. Bearing then this in mind, let us consider what are the ideas which commonly prevail as to the peculiar nature of Christianity; and in pursuing the enquiry we shall find, I think, that there are several views entertained respecting it, containing indeed more or less of the truth, but yet falling short of the complete idea of the Christian system.

For instance, some regard Christianity as being simply a republication of the religion of nature. They look upon it as giving an authoritative sanction to the impressions of conscience, and a deeper and clearer delineation of the several departments of duty. Of course this is true, as far as it goes, but it is not by any means the whole truth. Revelation does mark out most distinctly the several lines of moral duty, which were only feebly traced, and with more or less of uncertainty, by the reasoning and reflective powers of the mind of man. Christianity is a system of deeper morality, of more express and extensive moral teaching than any system previously existing. And coming to us from heaven, it possesses an authority to which no system originating with man could possibly lay claim. Nor is it a little matter that we have such clear directions in the word of God as to the eternal distinction between right and wrong. It is a great blessing to feel we are beyond the reach of guesses and conjectures, and have a plain, open path before us, wherein to walk and please God. But to confine the gifts of Revelation to the blessing of having a clearer rule of life and a more just and authoritative system of morality, than we could ever have arrived at by our own powers, is to take a most superficial estimate of its real