II. Let us next examine the claims of the flesh by what we have already derived from it. Let us see whether it is such a master as deserves to be served any longer. Of the boasted pleasures it has afforded, say christians, what remains but a painful and humiliating remembrance? " What fruit had ye in those things of which ye are now ashamed?"... Has any thing accrued to you from the service of sin, which you would wish to renew? Though it might flatter your imagination with the appearance of good, did it not afterwards "bite as a serpent and sting as an adder?" You remember the wormwood and the gall you were made to taste, when you were first convinced of its evil; and you know what a bitter and evil thing it is to depart from the living God. It has already brought you to the brink of destruction; it has placed you in a situation in which nothing but the interposition of sovereign mercy could have saved

you. By estranging you from God, it shut up the path to real good. In your unconverted state, it indisposed you to prayer, armed you with prejudice against the salutary truths of the gospel, darkenedyour understanding, and seared your conscience. Such was its deceitfulness, that you were led by it to put "evil for good, and good for evil; sweet for bitter, and bitter for sweet." Your ears were closed to the voice of the charmer, charmed he never so wisely. You were made to fancy that true religion was melancholy, that tenderness of conscience was needless scrupulosity, and that

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happiness was only to be found in the pleasures and pursuits of this world. It engaged you in the chase of innumerable vanities. You" followed after your lovers, but could not overtake them ;" fled from one refuge to another, till, to speak in the language of the prophet, "You were wearied in the multitude of your way." In the mean time, to all pleasant and delightful intercourse with the Father of spirits, to the soothing accents of peace and pardon issuing from Christ, and to all the consolations of piety, you were utter strangers. In your more serious and reflecting moments, your heart meditated terror; death, judgement, and eternity, were awful sounds in your ears, and you only felt a delusive and sickly repose, while you forgot they had any existence. On a calm

review of your conduct, you felt an uneasiness, which you were conscious was so just and well founded, that you seldom dared to reflect. Surely you will acknowledge, that you, at least, are not debtors to the flesh. And what has the flesh to plead for its services, which will bear for a moment to be weighed against these great evils? What has Satan to plead, who, by means of it, "rules in the children of disobedience?" Will he venture to mention a few vain and sinful amusements, a wanton arbitrary liberty, or a few transient guilty pleasures, which, I trust, you are so far from wishing to repeat, that you never think of them without blushing before God? How are you more indebted to the flesh, since you had reason to

II. Let us next examine the claims of the flesh by what we have already derived from it. Let us see whether it is such a master as deserves to be served any longer. Of the boasted pleasures it has afforded, say christians, what remains but a painful and humiliating remembrance? What fruit had ye in those things of which ye are now ashamed?" Has any thingbaccrued to you from the service of sin, which you would wish to renew? Though it might flatter your imagination with the appearance of good, did it not afterwards" bite as a serpent and sting as an adder?" You remember the wormwood and the gall you were made to taste, when you were first convinced of its evil; and you know what a bitter and evil thing it is to depart from the living God. It has already brought you to the brink of destruction; it has placed you in a situation in which nothing but the interposition of sovereign mercy could have saved

you.

By estranging you from God, it shut up the path to real good. In your unconverted state, it indisposed you to prayer, armed you with prejudice against the salutary truths of the gospel, darkened your understanding, and seared your conscience. Such was its deceitfulness, that you were led by it to put "evil for good, and good for evil; sweet for bitter, and bitter for sweet."Your ears were closed to the voice of th

hope you formed a saving acquaintance with God? The partial indulgence to its dictates has robbed you of your comfort, has retarded your progress to heaven, and made you pass many a day sad and disconsolate, when, but for this, the joy of the Lord would have been "your strength."

The more we observe what passes around us with a serious mind, the more we shall be convinced how little men are indebted to the flesh. Look at that young man, the early victim of lewdness and intemperance, who, though in the bloom of life, has his bones filled with the sins of his youth." Survey his emaciated cheek, his infirm and withered frame, and his eyes sunk and devoid of lustre; the picture of misery and dejection. Hear his complaint, how he mourns at the last, now his flesh and his body are consumed: "How have I hated instruction and my heart despised reproof, and have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined my ear to them that instructed me!-I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation of the assembly." Is he a debtor to the flesh? Behold that votary of the world, successful as he has been in the pursuit of it, and stained by no flagrant crime. Yet he has lived" without God in the world;" and now his days are drawing to a close, he feels himself verging to the grave, and no hope animates, no pleasing reflection cheers him. The only consolation he receives, or rather, the only relief of his anguish, is in grasping the treasures he must shortly quit.

Is he a debtor to the flesh?