his creatures with more indifference than the transient news of the day? They may perhaps be able to reason well on the topics of religion they may comprehend the drift of a sermon-they may follow the prayers of the church by the utterance of their lips. But the very sceptic and scorner may do the same, by means of that common understanding inherent in the animal soul. No man can believe effectually, until the spirit within him has been brought into action. God has affirmed, that spiritual things shall be spiritually discerned.

And will you live insensible to this great truth? Oh! let the spark that lies slumbering within you be kindled by the prayer of faith-not into the wild blaze of enthusiasm-but into a pure and steady light; your own spirit communing with the Spirit of God, and proving the reality of that great scriptural doctrine, that another province of man's constitution must be invaded, before he can be placed in a state of salvation.

Then will the work of sanctification proceed. You will become enlightened to a perception of the deadly horror of sin, and the value of the remedy. You will be awakened into high and

heavenly views-you will be sensible of the power of faith-you will be safe and happy in the assurance that your spirit, soul, and body will be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

THE parable from which this sentence is extracted, cannot but be familiar to us all. The fruitless fig tree was condemned to be cut down; the dresser of the vineyard interposes, and recommends a trial for another year, concluding with the reasonable suggestion;-"If it bear fruit, well; and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down."

The Holy Scriptures are full of every species of exhortation that can impress the heart of man. They are the oracles of God speaking to us in distinct and intelligible terms, the whole drift and current of their argument being the salvation of

immortal souls. They bear upon us sometimes by threatenings, sometimes by expostulations; in one place we are accosted in the language of personal appeal, in another by indirect allusion, conveyed in the pleasing form of parables and similitudes; here we meet with simple and familiar imagery, there with deeper and more recondite meaning. Hence the most ignorant may gather abundance of obvious instructionthe profoundest scholar may gratify his thirst for knowledge. So that our sacred records are a mine of intellectual wealth, as they are, also, in their sublimer character, the very message of God

to man.

Our blessed Lord seems, in many instances, to have drawn his similitudes from objects before him, and probably in reply to some unrecorded observations of his attendants. Thus where he speaks of himself as the true vine, we may imagine him contemplating a vine of signal richness and beauty, with its wide stretching branches and plentiful clusters of fruit; then pointing out to his disciples the close union between the central stem, which personated himself, and the shooting boughs, laden with their rich produce, represent

ing the spiritual nature and fruits of holiness, derived from him by his true followers. So, in regard to our present subject, it is quite consistent to suppose that, in another of his walks of mercy through the land, he had entered some of its numerous vineyards, and beholding there a fig tree, bending under the weight of its luscious fruit, and calling forth the admiration of those that stood around him, he might have contrasted with its abundant produce the case of a similar tree, fruitless and withered, and only fit to be cut down, that it might no longer be cumbersome to the ground. He knew that sensible objects are apt to make the deepest impression on the human mind by the hold which they take upon the memory; he, therefore, in communicating his precepts, resorted not to metaphysical subtleties and abstract reasoning-but took what lay before him, and sent his instructions at once to the heart.

The object of this parable is to be collected from the preceding verses. It was designed to correct the mistaken judgment of the Jews, who imagined that God, like his fallen creature man, was wont to inflict punishment for the gratifica