our spirit, that we are the children of God ;* and His presence is known by the joy which he imparts, the serenity which he diffuses, the hopes which he communicates, and last, not least, the holiness of life which he produces. The fruits of the Spirit are, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. This is our rejoicing, (excuse me that I multiply quotations on this most important subject)—this is our rejoicing, what! the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in this world.

Ask then yourselves, my brethren, have you this day a well-grounded hope of entering into that rest which remaineth for the people

*Rom. viii. 16.

+ The peace which a religious soul is possessed of is such a peace as passeth all understanding-the joy that it meets with in the way of holiness, is unspeakable and full of glory. Religion leads us into the porch of Heaven, and to the confines of unity-it sometimes carries the soul into a mount of transfiguration, or to the top of Pisgah, where it may take a prospect of the Promised Land—thus giving to it sometimes, some anticipations of blessedness, some foretaste of those joys, those rivers of pleasure, which run at God's right hand for evermore. See John Smith, Cambridge, Select Discourses, 4to. p. 415.

+ Gal. v. 22.

11 Cor. i. 12.

of God? Are your lives a testimony that you may rank with the people of God, with the the holy Church of Christ throughout the world, and in every age? Are you conscious of a growing conformity to the precepts of the gospel, an increasing resemblance to that mind which was in Christ-a gradual, but progressive subjugation of the unruly affections and corrupt thoughts, to the obedience of Christ? Happy are the people who are in such a case; yea, blessed are they who have the Lord for their God.

But if on the other hand, you have never yet taken your part with the people of God; if you are of the number of those who profess that they know him, but in works deny him; receive with meekness the word of admonition, which I address to you earnestly and affectionately. The error which condemned the Israelites was the hardness of their hearts; the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. It is the same reason, which in the present day, operates as a bar to the sinner's entrance into the rest of God. He hears the Saviour's call, come unto me, and I will give you rest-but he receives it not with faith in the heart; if he believed it, he would hail it with joy, for that Gospel is the power of God

unto salvation to every one that believeth; he would come to Jesus Christ as to a sure refuge; he would cast himself entirely upon him, and take him as his only Saviour; he would feel that there is no rest either here or hereafter, but among the people of God; and that if the Lord should swear in his wrath, we shall not enter into his rest, everlasting woe, the worm that never dieth, and the fire that never shall be quenched, would be the fearful condition of the condemned soul throughout all eternity.

May the Lord Almighty, my brethren, grant us every one to escape that awful doom, by laying hold of the hope that is set before us; may his grace enable us to walk by faith here, that we may enjoy hereafter that glorious rest which remaineth for the people of God. Arrived, if I may so say, at the very confines of our heavenly Canaan; beholding its delightful valleys, its goodly gardens by the river side, its trees which the Lord hath planted; may none of us by our hardness of heart and unbelief find ourselves at the last excluded. Behold our Joshua ready to conduct us in; let us go up At ONCE and possess the land, for through his strength we are well able to overcome it; there we shall find rest for our souls, there, there alone

*Numb. xiii, 30.

we may hope to enjoy a perpetual Sabbath in the immediate presence of God; to pass an eternity of happiness "in those elevations of pure devotion, which the sublimest moments of our most sacred and happy days on earth can teach us but imperfectly to conceive."*

* Doddridge.