joyful confidence, which you see is enjoyed by his faithful worshippers. We urge you, therefore, to awake, and arise from this doubtful state, by two considerations:

1. First, by its great and trying disadvantages. There is scarcely a single religious exercise, which a doubtful mind does not spoil and hinder, like a worm in the bud, or rottenness in the bones. It takes away the life and the power of prayer: for the principal requisite for prayer is faith: "Whatsoever ye ask, believing, ye shall receive;" but here is a state of doubtfulness and misgiving. It almost entirely stops the noble exercise of praise: for how shall you offer praise, an act, as it is, of joyful confidence, when your soul is cast down, and your heart disquieted within you? It mars the delightful exercise of searching the Word of God, and prevents it from drawing the affections, and filling the heart with grateful love : for the gracious promises which the Lord has given to his saints, to win their love to him, this doubtful mind is afraid to feed upon, lest haply they are not intended for it it haunts the mind continually, and says of promise after promise; Presumptuous sinner, that promise is not for thee! It stands as a brazen wall between the Saviour, and the soul: for in order truly to rejoice in him, and feel the union to which the soul is invited with him, we must be able to say with the Church of old, "My beloved is mine, and I am his ;" but this it is plain the doubting, timorous, unbelieving spirit, can neither say nor yet dare to feel.

In short, it blunts the energy for duty. It chills the religious affections. It makes the heart sad and sorrowful. It deadens all ardent and active zeal for the blessed work of the Gospel, in extending the knowledge of salvation, and establishing the kingdom of Jesus Christ in the world. And, beloved brethren, if

you should so continue till life is ended, what will it be to doubt when you come to die? What will it be to be uncertain, when your eyes are closing for ever upon this visible and material world, where, the next moment, they shall open; in the presence of God and of Christ in heaven, or else for ever and ever, in the hopeless regions of the damned in hell! Who that is wise would not give, with a cheerful compliance, the whole of this perishable world, to have, in that hour, the sting of death taken from him? to be able to say, with a certain confidence, “I know in whom I have believed;" and therefore, “O death where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory ?"

2. Finally then, we urge you to come forth from this state of doubt and uncertainty, by the absolute needlessness of it. Why should you resolve to suffer such a painful state of mind to oppress you, when the Lord declares himself ready to save and deliver you from it? The Gospel offer is to conduct you to the "full assurance of faith ;" and the souls of the faithful saints have ever proved it and found it true. "Lord, I am thine," says one of them, "thou art my portion, therefore will I hope in thee." "We know," says another, of himself and his fellow-disciples, "we know that we are of God, and have passed from death unto life." "There is," says another, "laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord at that day shall give me.” "In whom," says another, of himself and the saints at large, “in whom,” that is in Christ, "though,” it is true, we see him not, yet believing we rejoice, with joy unspeakable and full of glory, receiving," now receiving,* "the end of our faith, even the salvation of our souls."

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Brethren, follow this example. Receive the word:

* Gr. κομιζόμενοι. pres. part.

and in the

strength of Jehovah, believe, determine, and begin. "Lift up the hands that hang down, and confirm the feeble knees." Give your heart to the Lord. Make your covenant with him, to be his for ever and ever. Rest your all upon his faithful promises. And then, "rejoice in the Lord, and again I say rejoice."

The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart: and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit. Psalm xxxiv. 18.

The city

IT is one of the great impediments to the progress of true religion, that the professing people of God are so little marked and distinguished, as they ought to be, by a holy and gracious character, from the rest of the world around them. The trumpet gives an uncertain sound. The light of the world is under the bushel. The salt of the earth is without its savour. of God is not set, as it ought to be, on the hill. There is plenty of vain and ill-founded pretension to the name and dignity of the saints of Jesus Christ, without their inward and holy character. There is plenty of the Shibboleth of party-spirit :—those that have a doctrine, a tongue, a revelation, or an interpretation. There are plenty of different sects and divisions, which are each of them saying, while excluding others from community, "The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, The Temple of the Lord are we :" whereas this very spirit is that which excludes themselves, for it is the very spirit of the world, and not the spirit which is of God.

See Note page 128, and page 124.

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But if a man, who should be brought, we will say, under the strong awakening influence of the Holy Spirit, should begin to enquire after God, after the way to God, and not only so, but after the people of God, as his appointed fellow-pilgrims in the way; where shall he find that people? How shall he know that people? Who shall that people be? If he reads their description in the Word, that they are a spiritual house," a "chosen generation," a "royal priesthood," a "holy nation," a "peculiar people,”* and then looks round and compares it with the world, or the Church, around him; where, I say, shall he find them? O how completely different from what commonly passes for them, how little in man's esteem, how small in notoriety, how few in number will they be! True it is that their light does shine before men, for it is appointed to do so; but not with that noisy, and troublesome, and self-sufficient declamation which we so often see. It is a quiet witness for God, a living martyrdom for their Lord and Saviour. Like him, as their bright example, they do not strive, nor cry, nor cause their voice to be heard in the streets.† And many of them, probably, are altogether hidden by him, and sheltered in his pavilion, from the infidel gaze of the world around them. The seal upon God's foundation is "The Lord," not man, "knoweth them that are his."+

But whatever other marks there may be, as doubtless there are many, by which the people of God, whom he has loved and chosen in Christ, are marked in this world, there will, at all events, Firstly, be those two, which are laid down for us in this text: "The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit:”—that is, that all true saints may be known, if they are care