were willing to believe in Christ were accepted; but the Jews taken collectively as a nation, had the guilt of Christ's blood upon them, and therefore were driven from the inheritance which God had given to their fathers; they forfeited his favour through unbelief, and therefore their name and nation were taken away.

The sum of what has been said is simply this; that when God is said to harden men's hearts, the meaning of the sacred penmen is -that when, by their own want of faith and wilful disobedience, they have become so hardened in sin and impenitence, as to resist his grace and quench his Holy Spirit, he then leaves them to their fate, and refuses any longer to strive with them. He will not fail to use every means to release us from our sins, and save our souls; but if we obstinately refuse his gracious offers of pardon, and reject his messages of peace, he will give us over, and suffer us to perish in our sins.

Can we then, Christian brethren, conceive any case more deplorable than that of him who is thus abandoned of God? Surely it

K

is bad exccgh to know that we have all sinned, and sinned so grievously, that were be extreme to mark what is done amiss, his justice must condemn us. But while we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous-we have hope; while we have a Comforter in the Holy Spirit—we need not despair; that hope, that comfort we have all the power to obtain, by prayer, by faith, and by sincere endeavours to obey the will of God. Yet it is an appalling thought, that we may forfeit that hope and consolation—that we may provoke our heavenly Father to harden our hearts, by refusing any longer to vouchsafe to us the warnings of his Spirit, and the assistance of his grace. O think of this, you who are heedlessly pursuing a course of thoughtless vanity, and are wantonly neglecting the word of God! Think that every step you take in your wild career, is removing you further from your Maker and Redeemer; gradually weakening your faith, alienating the Spirit from you, and must finally end in absolute reprobation. God is merciful and long

suffering, and of great kindness; yet he is also a jealous God, who will not suffer his honour to be abused, nor his patience to be trifled with. A time will come when even his long suffering will have an end, and that gracious voice which is now calling to you to repent and come to him, will in anger bid you depart from him as unworthy of his

mercy.

Yet while we stand in continual awe of this dreadful fate, let us never cease to adore that mercy, which "endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction," which has contrived a means for the sinner to escape from judgment, and find refuge in the arms of mercy. And finally, brethren, be assured that whatever may appear mysterious or incomprehensible in the ways of Providence, will one day be made clear to us; the time will come when we shall know and understand that he who judgeth the earth is a God of righteousness; and however his unerring justice may condemn the hardened and impenitent, yet that

7 Rom. ix. 22

his tender mercy is over all his works, and that he will not suffer a single lamb to stray from his flock, without striving, with the care of a good and watchful shepherd, to bring it back again; and that if we ultimately fail of obtaining such great salvation as that which is offered to us through Jesus Christ, the fault must be imputed, not to the extreme rigour of God's justice, but to the wilful folly of our own obdurate hearts.

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SERMON X.

ROMANS viii. 9.

Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

THE history of every age of man since the fall, has both certainly and fatally proved, not only that his understanding is too limited to comprehend the nature of the Deity, but also that he is in his own nature so corrupt, as to be incapable of forming any idea concerning God, but by his own special revelation. It is true that the whole face of creation bears the impression of the image of a Deity; and his existence is proclaimed as well by those marvellous works whose "voices are heard" in every nation, in “every