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Christ? and thus it is that many who have been called by the Father's love, whom he hath begun to visit, that they fall from that estate to which they had arrived, for it is so ordained my friends that although he who is omnipotent does call us, his weak, his poor creatures, that we are left with the power of accepting, or rejecting; that there is on our parts a free agency either to receive or to reject, and therefore it is of the highest importance my friends that when we have been favoured with the visitations of the Father's love inviting us to come unto Christ, that we do indeed receive him with full purpose of heart, that we do indeed resolve that we will fear him and him only; but I am persuaded you know, as I can well remember myself the many struggles of the youthful mind against the cross, I can well remember in how many ways; yea I know much of it at present, in how many ways we would fain evade it, and not walk in that way which is cast up for the redeemed to walk in, and thus it comes to pass my friends, that instead of giving up, instead of going forward in our christian course, we come to be lame, to be partially blind, that the work is marred upon the wheel and we do not become those perfect vessels in the Lord's house which he is designing his people to be, but although this may be the experience of many of us, yet I trust and believe that there are those who have heard the master's call, and who have arisen up, left all and followed him; O what

a blessed simplicity is this, how blessed, my brethren and sisters, are they who have counted all as loss, and all as dross that they might win Christ and be found in him, for assuredly if we were not blind to our own interests, if we did rightly appreciate things according to their actual value, and if our natural eyes were not thus jaundiced by sin, so that we see not things rightly, we should see, we should indeed behold, we should indeed feel that this way into which we are called is the way of our real, of our greatest interest, we should then see in their real dimensions and proportions things temporal and things eternal; and it is my friends the office of the holy Spirit thus to open our eyes, to see things as they really are, but then the eye is not perhaps altogether opened at once, he who knoweth all things, and what is good for his people, he hath chosen that they should be partially, and gradually illuminated, that they should see that part in the course upon which they are called to walk and not the whole of the journey that is before them, and here my friends is a great part of spiritual wisdom, to be willing to walk according to the light received; the enemy who can transform himself into an angel of light is very busy when the eye is thus partially enlightened to lead us to believe that now we can understand all mysteries, that now we can embrace with our little view, all those things which belong to the kingdom of heaven, that we can pronounce at once upon what

is right and what is wrong in all things which pertain unto salvation, but my friends this is not the state of the child like scholar, and it is only as we are willing to become child like scholars, and to sit in deep humility at the feet of the great Teacher to whom the Father's love hath in degree brought us that we can learn aright; he doth not choose that we should fly on the wings of our own imagination, nor be carried forwards by the prowess of our own natural understanding, for he hath chosen the weak things of the world, and things which are not, to confound the things which are strong, and the things which are, and he hath ordained that no flesh should glory in his presence; he then who would walk in this way, in the way everlasting, he who would have his way cleansed, who would become clean, he must be willing to learn of Christ who was meek and lowly of heart; and this is the course of his teaching, that he leadeth his people on in his school from one form of knowledge unto another, from one step and from one class unto another, and they who will not submit to be led by him, they who are not willing to be employed and engaged in that service in their own hearts, in this part of the process of working out their own salvation with fear and trembling, but will be engaged in other things, and in other questions, they will I fear find that they have lost their time, they will I fear have to come back again, and to re-enter into the school of Christ, and blessed be

the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, he is pleased to call those who may have been seeking some other way, as many of us I doubt not have known the seeking of another way rather than the way of the cross, and yet those who have been thus wandering from the right way he is still pleased to recall, to call them to return unto him, to enter again into his school and to learn of him who is meek and lowly of heart; so that my dear friends if we would have an answer to the enquiry, "wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?" and we would understand the meaning of that answer, "by taking heed thereto according to thy word," we must indeed be willing to come unto him who hath been set forth as the propitiation for our sins, and who hath also declared that he will be with his disciples even unto the end of the world; how affectingly, my brethren and sisters, is the love of Christ in his visitation of his children set forth to us in the New Testament," Behold," saith he in the Revelations, "I stand at the door and knock," at what door my friends but the door of our hearts, and though he is exalted at the right hand of the Majesty on high, he is still in his matchless condescension pleased to visit us. O my friends should not this consideration melt our hearts into obedience, and the most perfect yielding unto him, "Behold I stand at the door and knock, if any man hear my voice, and open the door;" so then my friends there is a possibility of our closing

the door against this illustrious visitor, closing the door against our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ: yes my friends, when we are visited with a sense of the Father's love drawing us unto Christ, when we are made sensible of these things, then may it be said that Christ standeth at the door of our hearts, and shall we shut the door? shall we not open the door unto him? "If any man hear my voice," O my friends if we hear, and open the door, "I will come in" saith Christ, "and sup with him, and he with me." O my dear friends, is it not an affecting instance of the love of Christ that he is thus pleased to condescend unto his unworthy children, that he cometh unto them and offereth so to visit them as to represent his intercourse with them in this familiar manner, "I will come in and sup with him, and he with me;" but my dear friends, have we not known. the shutting of the door, and a keeping of the door closed against this holy visitor? O if it has been so with any of us in times that are past, from whatever cause it may have been, if we have been too much occupied with the various cares and concerns of time, if we have been wishing to put off to another day this heavenly visit, and have thought, at another and a more convenient time I will send for thee: O how rude, how unworthy a treatment of this holy guest, we know not my friends how soon we may be deprived of the hearing of that voice, it is only when he is pleased to call of his free grace, and he calleth when he will, he is absolute in his