any squeamish, and slavish, and theorizing scrupulosity about the order of his directions, would he have said to him, in the words of the text, Go out from among them, and be ye separate.

Now, my brethren, I apply this to you and to your idols, and to the acts of sin which you perform in their service. I call upon you to be separated from them all; but I call upon you, also, to refrain from the very first act of sin that you may have opportunity of performing in the service of any one of them. Conceive it possible that this were the moment of such an act. I would not only tell you to separate yourself altogether from this kind of wickedness, but I would tell you to force yourself away, and that actually, from the particular act of wickedness you were now engaged in. Were I by the side of a young friend who was surrounded by dissipated companions, and in the full career of intoxication amongst them, I would tell him to separate himself from the idol of pleasure; but the office of his monitor would be woefully unfinished did I not whisper in his ear, and that with all the energy of alarm, that at this moment he should go out from among them. Were he the member of some unrighteous combination, a partner in some extended system of illicit merchandise, the companion of a brotherhood who practiced their covenanted acts of dishonesty against the interests of the public, I would not let him off with an exhortation of such feeble generality as, Separate thyself from the idol of covetousness, but would press it upon him that without a moment's parrying or delay he should withdraw himself from that fellowship of iniquity, and go out from amongst them. Were he a worshiper at the shrine of fashion, and in that wretched competition of extravagance which has banished from society. all the simplicity of kindness; were he to force out a splendor in the eye of his neighbor which pressed upon the means or the conveniences of his family, I would not stop short at telling him to separate himself from the idol of vanity, but I would urge him, in noble defiance to his former associates in expense, and to all their paltry insinuations, that at this

moment he should bid adieu to their heartless parade, and come out from amongst them. I would not satisfy myself with the general direction; I would follow it up with the point of a specific requirement; I would bring it to the touchstone of an instantaneous act of obedience; I would not merely say, Be ye separate, but I would also say, Come out. An entire separation from all idols is the mighty object of a Christian's ambition; but it is an object. to which he must move, and if I see no one act of breaking off from his idolatry, I have a right to say of him that he has not moved a single footstep in the way of obedience. One act of withdrawment may be performed by him who falls short of the habit of separation, but the habit of separation will never be reached by him who performs no act of withdrawment. Oh, no! my brethren; you may amuse yourselves all your days with the distant contemplation of the full stature and graceful accomplishments of the perfect man in Christ Jesus, but it is only by growing up unto Him that you will ever reach it; by moving from one degree of grace unto another; by an actual commencement of the course, and a steady perseverance in it. If I have not got you to cease from one act of homage to an idol, I have done nothing. If I have not prevailed upon you to resolve against the very next occasion of sin, I have given all my earnestness to the winds. If I have only wrought in you the conviction that it is your duty to separate from idols, but have not wrought in you the purpose to come out from among them, ay, and that immediately, I feel amongst you all the humiliation of a defeat-I am baffled in my attack upon the power of darkness within you. The lifting up of my voice has not awakened you from the deep spirit of slumber, nor has the word of exhortation which I have sounded in your ears been acknowledged by that Spirit who can alone make the word effectual by giving it the energy of a hammer breaking the rock in pieces. I look around me, and see every symptom of attention engraven upon the countenance and expressed by the attitude of a listening people; but if all this is not accompanied by

the purpose of abandoning the next act of homage you are tempted to render to an idol, under the imposing cover of all that stillness and seriousness which now sit so visibly among you, there is an enmity of heart arrayed against me in all the obstinacy of resistance; I have effected no lodgment in the inner man; and in my attempt to shake you out of the deceitfulness of sin, the enemy who reigns in and who occupies your bosoms has withstood, and he has over

come me.

In the great work of separating from an idol, and turning unto the Lord, there is an immediate movement that I would impress upon your footsteps. They must haste and make no delay to keep the commandments. It is right that the object of an entire renunciation should be fully in your eye, but this object will never be attained unless the work of renunciation is begun to, and I lay it upon you to begin it immediately. It is right for you to understand, that you do nothing to the purpose unless it be done in the spirit of a general desire to do everything unto the Lord; but what signifies the purity of the motive that you should wish to do everything, if in deed and in performance you have not done anything, and are not prepared to do the very next thing which time and opportunity bring round to you? In the act of turning to the Lord, you must frame your doings, and every moment of delay you incur in the doing of this one and that other prescribed thing, you are keeping separate from Him and clinging in service and in affection to one or more of your idols. I call upon you to break loose from every one of them; and if you do so, you will at this very instant emerge into the field of active obedience. You will go home, and put their services and their society away from you; you will forbear the wonted homage that you have been daily and hourly rendering them. If hitherto you have worshiped the idol of sensual pleasure, your very next feast will be a feast of temperance. If hitherto you have made an offering of truth to the idol of gain, your very next bargain will be a bargain of integrity. If hitherto you have made the offering of a sinful compliance to the

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idol of popularity among your profligate companions, your very next meeting with them will be signalized by an act of virtuous independence. I admit of no parrying in this matter. I will not be satisfied with the faint generality of a wish that you should be separate, but I insist on the wish being turned into business immediately, and evincing its strength and its reality by your coming out now from among them. I want to break up this dream of indolence; I want to blow in pieces every delusion which prolongs it. Whatever the employment of mind be which keeps you from embarking in the career of immediate exertion, I pronounce it to be wrong. Should it even be the hard knot of some doctrinal difficulty which shortens you and binds you up from putting forth an instant activity in this matter, I would cut it through, and tear it asunder as a spell of infatuation. Ah! my brethren, it is not enough that you be told how there must be an entire separation from idols ere you reach that place where nothing unclean and unholy ever enters. The hour of your departure from this world looks a distant futurity, and you put it far away from you; but I tell you that on this hour you must begin the work of separation; and knowing that delay is ruin, and how artful are the pleadings of the soul for a little more sleep and a little more slumber, I ply your consciences with the energy of an immediate call, and lift in your present hearing the solemn announcement that now, even now, you must come out from amongst them.

SERMON XIX.

[PREACHED in the Tron Church at the first Sacrament dispensed by Dr. Chalmers in Glasgow, 5th November, 1815.]

II CORINTHIANS VI. 17, 18.

"Wherefore, come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty."

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THE sinner who turns with his whole heart and whole soul to God comes to be separate from all idols. This is the object of his unceasing attempts and aspirations-this is the purpose by which he is actuated. The commencement of this purpose is marked by his coming from the service of idolatry, and at this time he comes out from among them. The continuance of this purpose is marked by his keeping from the service of the idolatry, and then it is that he refrains his hand from touching the unclean thing. He has come out from among them, and he will not go back again; and lest he should be allured, he refrains from the most distant approaches that may tempt his return. will not even venture upon the borders of temptation-he will not even so much as touch the unclean thing. He dreads the power of seduction that lies even in the very outworks of idolatry, and he keeps studiously aloof from them. If temptation meet him, whether he will or not, he must grapple with it; but if he has a choice in the matter, he would rather fly from it. This is the safe and the scriptural way of managing every temptation-when it is in your power, keep without its reach. If your seducing companions have still a power of seduction over you, shun, if possible, their presence. If a luxurious entertainment has still a power of oversetting your purposes of control,