nor of his Son. That divine power which attends the Gospel, by which the blind are made to see and feel Bible truths, and by which wonderful transformations of heart and life are effected, producing all the real goodness which has appeared in our world since the advent, furnishes proof no less decisive than the darkness and the earthquake which attended the crucifixion. It is evidence for which we are not indebted to historical records, but which lies before our eyes as obviously as the miracles did before the spectators of the passion. By this power many are now convinced that they have been crucifying the Son of God, and are returning from their wickedness smiting their breasts. You see their tears, you hear their sighs: Let this great earthquake by which so many hearts are shaken, awaken all from the sleep of infidelity, and break off the covering of the graves that the spiritually dead may come forth.

But no evidence will bring man to submit without the effectual operation of almighty grace. Calvary may send forth a thousand wonders; Pentecost may speak with a thousand tongues; revivals of religion may stamp the attestations of the Holy Ghost upon revealed truth; but all to no purpose to hearts resolved not to feel. And many, like the Jews, will continue to resist all the light that heaven and earth can yield, until wrath comes upon them to the ut

termost.

Even those who are brought by conviction to smite their breasts, will hold out with stubborn perseverance against God. Nothing but all conquer

R

ing power can bring them to apply for cleansing to the blood they have shed.

But there is another class who constitute the greatest wonder of the creation. They rank with the Jewish priests who opposed and crucified Jesus as the Messiah. It seems impossible that any but madmen should have pursued such a course. But we see the same thing acted out in modern times. Men oppose the truth, knowing it to be the truth of God, and reproach revivals, knowing them to be the work of God, and persecute Christians because they are the friends of God. Some of them struggle against their convictions and try to disbelieve. Others, without even an attempt to doubt, remain as stupid as animals without souls. Others, roused to a little more reflection, resolutely say to God, "Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways." They will not pray; they will not attend religious meetings; they will not meditate upon God. Others are rancorously opposed to God's law, to his decree of election, to the eternal punishment of the wicked; and cavil against him, and hate him and his service and his people, and openly oppose every thing that belongs to God, knowing all the time that it is God they oppose. They all sin in defiance of conscience. And many of them, by sinning malignantly against light, commit the sin unto death.

Unhappy men! can you hope to prevail against God? to put down his religion? to change his government? "Hast thou an arm like God? or canst thou thunder with a voice like him? Or do you hope to escape out of his hands? No, you have

some indefinite purpose to be religious before you die, to turn him off with the dregs of life-to serve him after you have done serving yourself. And do you hope that he will accept that service? After you have thrust him away with contempt and rebelled against him thirty years, on the presumption that he will help you repent at last, can it be expected that he will help you? The manner in which he treats other aged sinners gives you little reason to hope. Seldom is an aged sinner converted. But the times are changing and greater grace may be expected, and more old sinners will be converted hereafter. No, the aged sinners who are now sometimes brought in, never sinned, when young, against such grace as you now abuse. You are likely soon to fill up the measure of your iniquity, and either to find an early grave, or be left, abandoned of God, to prepare for a deeper hell. Of all men you are among the most wicked, the most presumptuous, and the most exposed; and I may add, the most unwise. With all the accuracy of your reasoning on other subjects, here you reason like madmen. With all the boasted soundess of

your calculations in other matters, here you are more wild than suicide itself. And it is all the unconquerable obduracy and daring of your heart. Your intellect plainly sees what your interests are; your conscience feels your obligations; and yet that hard and profligate heart rushes to its objects in defiance of the heavens and reckless of your eternal interests. You know what you are doing; you know whom you are provoking and challeng

ing; and yet your implacable enmity to God and his ways carries you on. The great deceiver who whispers in your ear, and your own deceitful heart, suggest a thousand excuses, a thousand hopes of escape, and a thousand allurements to tempt you from anxious thought. And willingly you yield to the suggestions. You hear God invite and command, but you heed it not. You will not pray; you will not think. All the expostulations and entreaties of friends cannot persuade you once to bend the knee, or to read your Bible, or to attend the special religious meetings. There is no plea of inability in the case. These are things which you acknowledge you can do. But you will not. It is your deliberate choice not to become Christians at present. It would interfere with the plans of life which you have laid out. And those plans you will pursue whatever God says. You are determined that your own self shall be gratified, however much God is disobliged and offended. If he tells you of his Son who died on the torturing spikes for you, it does not move you to forego one gratification for him, nor once to thank him, nor to repent of sin which made him bleed. It does not eclipse the disk of your joy, though it put out the sun. It does not shake your steadfastness, though it shook the mountains. It does not break the rock in your breast, though it rent the rocks of Calvary. It does not bring you to smite your breasts, though it thus affected the insulting Jews. It does not move a fibre of your callous heart, though it subdued Roman soldiers, with their bloody hands,

into fear and contrition and an acknowledgement that he was the Son of God. Go then and pursue your ways and be the hardest of all men. Go and sink to a lower hell than Sodom found. Go and spend an eternity in longing to ascend to the sublime heights of Gomorrah. Is it any wonder that God has built an eternal hell? Is it any wonder that such obstinate contemners of dying love should sink lower than pagans,-lower than devils?

There are some who, though not yet brought to smite their breasts, are less hardened than these. To them I can come with greater hope. Here then we stand by the cross of Christ. Draw near and behold what your sins have done. View the Son of God dying for your offences, and go not away with the stupidity of the chief priests. Why should not that blood which is dripping from the cross dissolve your hearts? Why should not the darkness and the earthquake convince you? Shall spiteful Jews, shall Roman soldiers, shall a dying thief, sooner yield to evidence, and go into the kingdom of heaven before you? Fall down at the feet of a dying Saviour, and let your hearts bleed their life away for the treasons which have caused his death. Hasten to be baptised in his blood, and evince your gratitude by lives devoted to his service.

What did it avail the unbelieving Jews to shut their eyes to the claims of the Messiah? Could they always keep them closed? Eternity was appointed to do away their mistakes. And with what unutterable astonishment, when their eyes opened in eternity, did they find themselves at the bar of