comes from the gentle suggestions of God; and, from the momentous consideration that He is thus "working within us," to bring fully into operation the power "to will and to do of his good pleasure," the Apostle makes it our duty to "work out our own salvation with fear and trembling." Good desires, properly cherished, may become the

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hunger and thirst," here required; and these emotions, in full vigour, not only constitute the capacity for pure enjoyment here, but, by being duly fed with present "joy and peace in believing," they become an expanding and enripening capacity to be feasted at last with the full bliss of life everlasting; a state of high blessedness to be realized in His presence, where only "there is fulness of joy; and at whose right hand there are pleasures for evermore."

SERMON II.

MATTHEW III. 3.

"FOR THIS IS HE THAT WAS SPOKEN OF BY THE PROPHET ESAIAS, SAYING, THE VOICE OF ONE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS, PREPARE YE THE WAY OF THE Lord, make HIS PATHS STRAIGHT."

THE forlorn hope in war is understood to be a desperate enterprize, in which men cast. their lives upon the most reckless hazard. But no hope can be so forlorn, so destitute of probability, so void of all chance of succeeding because no hope can be so far from all truth-as that vain expectation of salvation, under which men most commonly "continue in sin," because, as they suppose, grace will abound in their case-abound beyond all

their guilty provocations; and contrary to the plainest declarations, and most express denunciations, which, like an unbroken chain of truth, run through the whole body of sacred Scripture. People catch at the idea of hope, however distant and doubtful; because they fancy that under its glimmer, faint and feeble though it be, they can find some countenance for present sinful indulgence, and their habits of careless thought. The "longing after immortality" is, indeed, such a "fond desire" in the human breast, that men gladly cherish it in every extremity; and yet as unthinkingly risk it, by all the recklessness of common indifference, and groundless conjecture. That immortality is brought to light by the Gospel they pretend to believe; but what are its nature, its necessary influence, its prescribed conditions, and the qualifications required in those who would finally share it, are points willingly left in undisturbed ignorance, even by those who have the master-key of all needful truth and information in their hands, in having the Bible.

But when reckless to the full extent of this indifference, and when in part they admit it, men think there is one means of gaining a sure passport for heaven, which they persuade themselves, in their case can never fail-that is, repentance; and a repentance which, if it should but heave a sigh, wring out a tear, and be only the regret of a man who finds he can enjoy his sins no longer, is thought to be all that God can expect; a repentance void of all moral sensibility, and, such as it is, left to all the extremity of a last hour, is thus made to comprise all which can be absolutely necessary; all to wash away their sins in their guilt, and pollutions, and give both a title and meetness for heaven.

But low and imperfect as is the common idea of repentance, its rank or position in religious sentiments is as much misunderstood. It is thus thought to be everything, when, perhaps, strictly speaking, it is the least, and the very first movement which can be expected from sinful creatures as we are. It is regarded as the end of religion; when, in fact, it is but its commencement. In its first