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conscience, with all the earnestness of ministerial fidelity, he shields himself against their force, by the fallacious subterfuge, that he is not altogether destitute of religion, and is not therefore directly aimed at, by the denunciations levelled against the ungodly and profane. Thus, by a strange infatuation, he pleads at one time that he is not a Christian, in order to avoid the obligation of present duty; and at another time that he is a Christian, in order to avoid the dread of future punishment. Whether he can have any valid pretensions whatever to the character of a Christian, even of the very lowest order, is a question which he is always anxious to evade. It is this very state of uncertainty, accompanied by this undefined profession, which becomes the occasion of protracting the vain and wretched attempt to unite the service of God with the friendship of the world. But is he happy at heart under the covert of this wilful delusion? He is not happy. It is in the very nature of things impossible. that he should be happy. His conscience has too much light to allow it perpetually to slumber. It whispers, if it speak not in thunders, the language of reproach and alarm. Sometimes it seems almost to compel him, by its remonstrances, to form a resolution of abandoning the, service of the world: but still indecision continues; while his disquieted, struggling, baffled conscience, though it cannot prevail, inflicts on his heart many a wound, and infixes many a sting.

From all this misery the man is exempted,

who yields cheerful and unreserved obedience to the will of God. He hesitates not between two conflicting opinions. His resolution has been taken and carried into effect, determined that whatever others do, he will serve the Lord. He is distinguished by one uniform principle of action; by one even tenor of conduct; by one dignified and consistent course of life. Let it clearly appear to him, that any line of conduct accords with the will of God, he hesitates not to pursue it. He asks not in what light it will be regarded by the world; or whether it will expose him to reproach or ridicule, or whether it may prove injurious to his worldly interests: it is sufficient for him to know, that it is the requirement of God: he finds it a good and a happy thing to have "the heart established with grace," Heb. xiii. 9; and he has a daily source of pure and tranquil satisfaction in his own mind, from being, under all circumstances, prepared to say, "I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart." Psa. xl. 8.

V. It is a source of high delight to receive those Divine attestations to Christian character, and those communications of spiritual joy, which may be expected in a course of unreserved obedience.

You wish, it may be presumed, most ardently, to ascertain, whether you are personally interested in the blessings of the great salvation, and authorized to exult in the hope of approaching glory. You are well aware, that if you are the children of God, by faith in

Christ Jesus, the prospect of futurity is beyond expression blissful. With a view to prosecute the momentous inquiry, you thus read in the epistle to the Romans, "If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live: For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." Rom. viii. 11, 12. From this representation, then, you learn, that they have the evidence of being the children of God, who, by the influence of the Holy Spirit, are led to resist every forbidden propensity, and to pursue a course of unreserved obedience to the will of God. It is added, "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ." Ver. 16, 17. Our own spirit, then, bears witness in our favour, when, enlightened by Divine truth, it testifies, that it is our habitual desire and delight to do the will of God. With this testimony of our own conscience, the Spirit of God bears a concurrent testimony in our favour. He invigorates the holy principles and dispositions which he has himself implanted, so that we have a distinct and decided consciousness of their existence; and he enables us to discern the correspondence between that which we feel in ourselves, and that which. we read in the Scriptures, with regard to the discriminating marks and tests of Christian character. The happy result, then, of this concurrent testimony is the inference legiti

mately drawn, that we are the children of God and the heirs of glory. Oh, is it not most joyous, to arrive on solid grounds at this conclusion? Do you not trace, in every part of the process thus described, the intimate and necessary connexion between this gladdening inference, and a course of willing, cordial, unreserved obedience to the will of God?

To a similar train of reflections we shall be led, if we advert to the gracious assurances of the Saviour, recorded in the fourteenth chapter of the gospel of John. "He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him;-and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." John xiv. 21, 23. Unreserved obedience to the will of Christ is here represented as the grand evidence of love to him; and to every one who thus evinces his attachment, there is given one of the most glorious promises contained in the book of God. "I will love him," said the Saviour; " and my Father will love him, as one of his adopted children; and I will manifest myself to him. I will reveal myself by the light of my countenance, and make known to him the love of my heart. He shall pass his days on earth, with the assurance of my favour, and the kindest intimacies of my friendship. His heart shall be the dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit, whom I will send as the Comforter, and who shall not depart." If such be the import of our

Saviour's words, do you not perceive that the attainment of spiritual joys, resulting from Divine communications, is inseparably connected with that obedience, which is the appointed and the natural expression of our love?" Does it not sufficiently appear, that of all the children of inen upon the face of the earth, he must of necessity be the happiest who, with the greatest cheerfulness, alacrity, and diligence, obeys the will of God, and makes the nearest approximation to the character of his beloved Master and perfect Exemplar, saying, from his inmost soul, "I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart." Psa. xl. 8.

With a view to some practical improvement of the subject, I would observe,

1. That they who decline the service of God are chargeable with folly no less than with guilt.

From the considerations adduced it appears, that they who refuse obedience to the will of God, abandon the true and only way of happiness, they forsake the fountain of living waters, and hew out to themselves broken cisterns which can hold no water.. Jer. ii. 13. "They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy." Jonah ii. 8. "What fruit had ye," asks the apostle, "in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death." Rom. vi. 21. No one ever repented of engaging, with all his heart and with all his strength, in the service of God; but thousands have bitterly repented of

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