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ment? A diminution of light, life, and power in the soul-all that constituted the kingdom of God within, now becomes the subject of decay. Peace, joy, love, hope-all pine and threaten to die. But the pestilence will not be confined to the emotions; it will reach the understanding: doctrinal errors will anon break forth in divets forms, and in various measures. Pure doctrine will never long outlive the power of the truth in the heart of individual believers, and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. This is one of the most certain facts of Christian history. The wreck of morality will quickly follow. Morality as the fruit, cannot long survive the death of the tree on which it grows. The result, therefore, of what is gone before, will be the overflowing of ungodliness.

II. SPIRITUAL LEANNESS IS THE MOST AWFUL CALAMITY THAT CAN BEFALL AN UNGODLY WORLD.

When such a woe overtakes the church, what is to become of the world? The work of salvation is necessarily suspended, and the wicked are left to sport with their own deceivings, and to go down to perdition blindfolded, without even an attempt to pluck them as brands from the burning! The Ruler of the darkness of this world recovers the ground he had lost, and once more iniquity is in the ascendant. The vilest of men become exalted, and the wicked walk on every side.

Families remain unconverted to God, congregations cease to be absorbed into churches, and not only so, but they pine and diminish, while the churches become weaker and weaker till they die out. But collective is only the result of individual death; some fall into gross sin, from which they are never recovered; others die at heart; while, like a tree dead at the core, but with the bark sound, they preserve a form of doctrine, and a round of morality for a time, and, in some cases, till the grave swallow them up! Of those that remain in the field of a formal fellowship, one after another drops and as there is an end of conversion, their places are not filled up; and hence the church becomes less, year by year, till at last it is only a skeleton of the original body,-a skeleton which soon falls to pieces by its own weight, and thus there is an end of the once living Temple of God! Thus the curse spreads, the calamity extends, - the plague-spot first appears upon churches, second upon congregations, third in the neighbourhood of the church, fourth in

our common country, fifthly in the Heathen World.

III. SPIRITUAL LEANNESS IS A CALAMITY WHICH HAS MANY A TIME ALREADY

OCCURRED ΤΟ THE CHURCH OF GOD, AND WHICH MAY, THEREFORE, OCCUR

AGAIN.

This decay began in the times of the Apostles; in most of the regions where the Gospel was first planted; its commencement might be said to be maturity. Babes to day, through the special outpouring of the Spirit, became young men to-morrow; and fathers the third day; but after the first generation, the churches in most places began to decay, and the process of death went onward till utter declension covered all. This principle has received exemplification throughout the whole world. The first fruits have always been the best, and the almost only good fruit that has appeared. The first generation of the Jews in Palestine, were incomparably better than the best that ever after succeeded. The first Christian Churches far surpassed, in point of light, and love, and heavenly mindedness, their successors. To this mournful fact, testimony has been borne in Asia, in Africa, and in Europe. So was it in later times, with the Reformation on the Continent; so was it with the Puritans themselves in New England; and so it has been with Methodism in our own land. Since all this has occurred before, it may occur again. Let him that hath ears, therefore, to hear, hear what history testifies concerning the churches. Even England herself may one day become what Greece has long been-a spiritual charnel-house with here and there a sepulchral lamp rendering the darkness visible. The same causes under the same circumstances never fail to produce the same effects. Satan and sin have undergone no change, and man is, in all points, the same infatuated, polluted creature he ever was. The tendency of individuals, of churches, of whole communities, and of all communities together, is still departure from the living God.

The spirit of the times which are passing over us, is such as to excite in our minds the most serious apprehensions. The statistics of the Christian world at the present hour may well make the ears of the stoutest amongst us to tingle! The facts of the case are such as to excite the deepest solicitude-yea, to prompt sighing and crying amongst those that subordinate everything to the interests of the kingdom of heaven!

Among the effects which ought to flow from it are the following:

FIRST.-A deep solicitude about your own individual condition.

Are you not exposed to the same influences as the multitude who have fallen?-May you not, therefore, be the subject of the same disaster? What is there in your condition that forms a ground of safety as compared with theirs? Is not security, without proper grounds, amid danger, infatuation? Is not the character of the whole, dependent on the character of the parts? If every

member be diseased, where will be the health of the body? The calamity of which we speak, begins with individuals; and only through affecting them does it affect the church collectively. Do then, we beseech you, inquire how the matter goes with your own soul! Look into your heart, and see if "grace be reigning through righteousness!" Is all there sound and healthful? Are you growing in the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ, and increasingly counting all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of him?

SECOND.-Deep solicitude about the condition of the church of which you are a member.

Would it be an awful thing to behold the House of Prayer to which you belong deserted? to behold the House which has hitherto resounded to the voice of praise and prayer, from the lips of the faithful, filled by the silence of death? Do you not cry, "let not this ruin be under my hand?" But it will be under your hand, if in any respect you contribute to it, or if you do not what in you lies to prevent it. Only look about you, and see what has actually occurred, and is now occurring in the land. Are there not houses of prayer, which when you were young were the daily resort of worshipping multitudes, that are now all but deserted?-and are there not others, if not quite extinct, yet in the condition the most precarious? And shall it ever be thus with the edifice in which you were accustomed to worship? Do you not shudder at the thought? But whether it shall or shall not be so, may in part-in a great partdepend upon yourself. Do you ask, then, what is to be done to avert such an evil? The reply is ready. Walk in lovewatch unto prayer-pray without ceasing; and while you pray, labour systematically, skilfully, perseveringly, looking diligently not only to yourself, but your

brother, "lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness spring up among you, whereby many may be defiled."

THIRD.-Prayerful sympathy with the general affliction of the Church of Christ.

This is one of the highest graces of the Christian, and one which, in our day, is, perhaps, the least cultivated. There is too much of a disposition, when piety is low, to look every man and every church upon their own things, and not upon the things which belong to their neighbours. The doctrine of the Apostles was the perfect unity of the church; and as was the doctrine, so was the practice; as the feeling, so the conduct, 1 Cor. xii. 12-23. Let the church look to the world that she may be instructed, corrected, reproved, and shamed! How do the mere men of the world act towards each other in times of famine, pestilence, and war? So ought the children of the kingdom to walk, with more of sympathy and love towards each other.

FOURTH.-Compassion for perishing souls in what are called Christian lands.

The years which are passing over the earth, furnish sufficient cause for sadness. Men may be indifferent to it, but the angels of God are deeply concerned. The joy of heaven is generally but small over the penitence of sinners. In our Old World, for many years, there has been but little or no spiritual spring. In the New World, there is a similar barrenness. Throughout all the earth it is Winter in the Kingdom of God. Shall these things be, and the people of God remain unmoved? Their conduct will prove their diseased condition, and show how much they themselves require the revival of which we speak.

FIFTH.-Compassion for heathen nations, strictly so called.

The church is the appointed instrument of the world's conversion; the first work of the Holy Ghost was to form a church; and that done, he began forthwith, through that church, to convert the unbelieving. This is the established rule, from which there is no departure. Every fresh convert is, therefore, an addition to the means by which the heathen are to be turned to the Lord. Should the church die out, heathenism must for ever remain as it is, or till its fabric shall crumble to pieces by its own weight!

SIXTH.-Zeal for the honour and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.

No intelligent observer of what is passing in the world at the present time,

can be unmoved. The rise of Puseyism was the sign of evil to the piety of the land. The revival of Popery, for which it prepared, followed fast in its train. Puseyism is but Popery in the bud. The one is, therefore, everywhere the seed of the other. The suddenness of the awful change should excite inquiry as to the circumstances which have proved so fatally favourable to its development. The universality of the deadness which now exists throughout every portion of the Church of God, is proof positive that Divine power is withheld, and that until there be an outpouring of the Spirit from on high, the world will remain a wilderness. Sept., 1851.

X.

GUILT AND DANGER OF "LITTLE SINS."

"Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines; for our vines have tender grapes."CANTICLES ii. 15.

THE figurative style of this composition is everywhere such that evangelical principles are of easy application to it. If the prayer of the Bride, in the language before us, be understood as addressed to the Bridegroom, the meaning is obvious. It is a supplication for strength to renounce and resist the first, the smallest approaches of sin. It is a prayer to a superior, not an exhortation to an equal, nor a command to an inferior. Take us the foxes. Take them for us. Take us the little foxes. Cut off the hateful brood while young and feeble, before they acquire cunning of spirit and speed of foot. The Christian's wisdom is to maintain a regular warfare with incipient sins: over these, by grace, he is master. Young boughs are easily bent, and more easily cut than elder ones. Nor is this a needless work. Little as these foxes are, they are capable of spoiling the vines.

"Our

vines have tender grapes." The Church of God, in a healthful state, has a tender conscience. Tender consciences are boundless blessings. A tender conscience is the only safeguard of the human heart. Let us look at

I. LITTLE SINS IN THEIR GUILT AND

AGGRAVATIONS.

In strict speech no sin is little; and sin must not be looked at only in its effects on the society of this world. Greater and smaller sins are simply sins in different gradations of maturity. Take an example: a clerk in a counting-house has acquired sufficient confidence with his employers to put it in his power to ab

scond with money. On a fixed day he takes his flight, with £5000 in his pocket. Another clerk in the same house thinks proper to be satisfied with smaller gains, and, on a diminished scale, carries on a system of secret plunder. He is always robbing his master, but he is studious of concealment. A third clerk is more abstinent it suits his purpose occasionally to take sometimes a sovereign, more frequently a few shillings. Supposing all these facts to be disclosed on the same day, and the culprits brought before the bar of justice, what would be the judgment of the master or of any honest man respecting them? Though they differed in the manner and the amount of their depredations, would they not be deemed all equally devoid of principle?

1. Little sins are a heinous violation of God's holy law.

The only thing to be looked to here is the authority of the Lawgiver. He has said, "Thou shalt not kill;" "Thou shalt not steal;" "Thou shalt not bear false witness." These injunctions are all absolute and general, in the highest degree. The stealth of a turnip from your neighbour's garden is as much a contempt of the authority of the Lawgiver as the murder of a magistrate. In this view all sins are equal, although in their effects on society they greatly vary. The very essence, then, of the evil of sin is, contempt of the Divine authority. Such is the view of Inspiration: "Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all."

2. Little sins indicate even a greater contempt for the Divine authority than great sins.

The measure of provocation is a most important element in the consideration of an offence. Stealth from mere covetousness is one thing; stealth to supply the wants of famishing nature is another. The stall-fed youth, who demolishes a fence in mere wantonness of mischief, and the friendless orphan, who breaks through a hedge to reach roots or fruits, that he may satisfy his craving appetite, are not to be viewed in the same light. "Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry," Prov. vi. 30.

Look at the first test of man's obedience. It was a small thing to take of the fruit of the tree of life, say some. Well, was it not a small thing to leave it undone? These small sins, therefore, show the greater contempt of the authority that forbids them.

Try the thing on a different principle. You desire a friend-one who has made frequent and lofty professions of friendship for you-on a great emergency, to advance you £500 on your own security. He declines to do so. Granting his ability, he may see what appears to him sound reasons for so doing. He sees that to give it you would only be to put back a day which, in the existing state of your affairs, must soon come; and to injure himself, without materially or permanently benefiting you. He may do all this without the least abatement of friendship for you. He sees that a time will come when he can step in to much better purpose. You may not lose confidence in his friendship under the circumstances. The very magnitude of your demand is his protection. suppose that you are destitute of daily food, and that you implore the veriest trifle to keep soul and body together, till your energies be once more put in motion for the support of your household; and for this your friend refuses to advance you a sixpence! Would you not feel that the small denial was a much stronger proof of the hypocrisy of his friendship than the greater denial? Would you not reason thus,-If it be a small favour to withhold, it is a small favour to confer; and its being nevertheless withheld proves that man to be at heart no friend of mine?

But

Wilfulness and wantonness are measures of guilt; whence it is obvious that multitudes who commit only what they call the smallest sins are the greatest sinners. Satan's chief inducements are pleasure and profit; but where there is neither, what can prompt sin but the love of sinning?

3. Little sins constitute the sum of human transgression.

Great events, like great men, are the production of circumstances necessarily few in number; so it is with great sins. Many small gains make up wealth, and form a fortune; and multitudes of sinners grow rich in iniquity, and treasure up to themselves wrath against the day of wrath, by what you term little sins. The soul of the sinner must have some repose. The ocean does not always rage, nor the wind always blow; but the water and the air are always in being. The drunkard is not always intoxicated; it comes in fits upon him. Small sins, then, fill up the space between one great sin and another. No man deals only in great sins-in wholesale transgression! Sharp

diseases cut off only a part of mankind, and that part small compared with the remainder. Let us next look at

II. LITTLE SINS IN THEIR TENDENCIES.

One thing here deserves special consideration :

1. Little sins open a passage into the heart of man for the greatest sins.

The little thief that creeps in at the window, and who alone may be capable of little mischief, may yet open the door for others that stand without, who may rob the mansion, and murder the inmates! The tendency of every seed, cast into the earth, is to the maturity of the vegetable that grows from it. Sin is a progress onward to hell! The Apostle James sets forth the matter in a clear but dreadful light: "Every man is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed; then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." This is the sinner's progress to perdition, where

"Fix'd is their everlasting state:

Could they repent, 't is then too late : Justice stands guarding mercy's door, And God's long-suffering is no more!" The reason of this may be found in the fact that human corruption is of a growing and thriving nature. Small sins, like furze, will grow without the aid of culture, and cover the whole soul. By little and little the heart will get brimfull of iniquity, and, sooner or later, from the fulness of the heart the mouth will speak; and when once iniquity is so far matured as to speak out at noon-day, without a blush, the whole man will soon become its servant. Experience speaks loud on this point. The destroyer of souls always drills his victims by little sins, and thus prepares them for larger crimes! The moment any man comes to look on any sin as little, he is undone ! Comparing sin with sin, and not with the law, he is certain to fall into the abyss!

2. There is a bottomless deceit in small sins, which hastens the sinner onward to perdition.

"Failings"-" infirmities" you call them. No; presumptions! rebellions! That is their proper name. "Who can

understand his errors?

Cleanse thou

me from secret sins." Ships may be sunk by sands as well as by milstones. Men shrink at the thought of murder, blasphemy, and the like, but are unconcerned about idle words, petty oaths, small thefts, and commodious lies! It

matters little, however, whether eternal fire be kindled by one flaming brand, or by many sparks. Let us look at

III. LITTLE SINS AS A TEST OF CHA

RACTER.

The allowance and approbation of the least sin is a certain and infallible sign of rottenness and hypocrisy of heart. The Lord Jesus came to deliver us from sin, and destroy the works of the devil. His blood cleanseth from all sin. No man, be his seeming attainments what they may, has ever yet attained to a true state of mind, who does not, with the Psalmist, hate even vain thoughts, Psa. cxix. 6. "Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all thy commandments." To respect some, and not others, is present hypocrisy, and will be shame and confusion at last. The commission of the greatest sins may consist with the truth of grace, but the approbation of the least is not consistent with it. Be assured that if you hate every false way, if you delight in the law of the Lord after the inward man, this single touchstone reaches to the inmost soul. It is a most sure, an infallible test of heart, state, and character.

REMARKS.

1. You may hence learn the awful condition of those who rest on their freedom from gross sins, and reject the atonement of Christ.

You may rely upon it that this is a most fatal delusion. It is destroying many on all sides. Are you steadily resisting all sin? Are you more concerned to be good than to seem good? If so, that looks well, and shows your heart is right.

2. You may here see the necessity of Christians coming daily to a throne of grace, for the pardon of their hourly shortcomings.

Little sins, so called, are just those from which they have most to fear. We should humble our souls before the Lord continually on account of our corruptions, and mortify them to the uttermost. They cleave to us in prayer, praise, benevolent exertion, and everything. Let us then rejoice that we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous!

3. We should further learn from this to make light of no sin.

The heart ought at all times to be deeply impressed with a sense of the evil of sin, as a contempt of the authority of the great God! As one means of safety, it behoves us to entertain an awful and

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Paul

THIS is a part of the commencement of
the Second Epistle to Timothy.
speaks of himself as an apostle of Jesus
Christ "according to the promise of life
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." We
might, therefore, now insist from the
text upon the manner in which the mini-
stry of Paul contributed to the communi-
cation of the knowledge and the benefits
of the promise of eternal life which is in
Christ Jesus. But though this might be
to some an interesting subject, we
rather aim at general usefulness by con-
fining ourselves to the consideration of
the promise, and of its being in Christ
Jesus. We, as individuals, if Christians,
are receiving our support from this pro-
mise. We who are united together in
church-fellowship, build our hopes upon
it. Those that join us join us under
this hope, and it is the incumbent duty
of us all to walk worthy of it. We shall
attend, then, to these two particulars:
I. The promise of life.

II. To its being in Christ Jesus.
And first as to the promise of life.

All the promises of God are cheering and encouraging, and worthy of himself. But there is something in the promise of life particularly so, whether we consider the nature of the benefit promised, or its duration. In offering a few observations on the promise,

1. We remark its richness and gloriousness. It is, as it were, with respect to our own happiness, the promise of promises. It is comprehensive of all felicity. To live-to live for ever! and in all the happy, holy, and glorious circumstances connected with the promised life, is felicity indeed. To serve God here by Jesus Christ, renewed in the spirit of our minds, and then after the dangers, fears, and toils of this state, to enjoy eternal rest and peace in the worship of God in a future heavenly state, with the eternal banishment of sin, sorrow, and death,

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