delay. Grieve him no longer by refusing him your confidence, a confidence which he has so richly earned. He has a heart to pity the wretched though unworthy. His arms are open to receive you. If the voice of Sinai thundering in our text be unheeded, O let the inviting voice of Calvary woo you to his arms.

3. I would address those who dream that they love God better than father or mother or life, and yet are sluggish and unconcerned in such a day as this; in other words, those who are chained to death by a false hope. This is the most frightful description of people we meet with in revivals. Infidels are on the open field of battle; mockers are on the open field, and we know where to find them; but these skulk under our feet and we stumble over them: we lean upon them and they let us fall: we confide in them and they betray us to the enemy. They are the most perplexing and discouraging of all men. They stand in the way; they cumber the ground, the consecrated ground of the vineyard itself; they are only fit for the flames.

Unhappy men, I have nothing to do with you at present but to assail your false hope. Others I urge to come and embrace a Saviour; you I would tear away from your lying hold of him. But I shall not prevail. I shall probably shake hopes, but not yours. It is easy to alarm the humble, who know the deceitfulness of their hearts; but to demolish a false hope, deeply embedded in selfishness and ignorance, and sworn to by the grand deceiver, this the labor, this the task is. I would rather undertake

to convert ten infidels, than to demolish one false hope, especially if pampered by the sacramental elements. I thought to make an address to you, but I turn away discouraged. I seem to hear him say, "He which is filthy let him be filthy still." There is very little prospect that your hope will ever leave you until it is sunk in eternal despair.

Finally, let the children of God,-the dear, lov'd children of God,-renounce all remaining confidence in creature resources,-broken cisterns,—and receive what with all my heart I present them, the precious promises which succeed our text: "Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh; but her leaf shall be green, and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit."

SERMON VIII.

TAKING THE KINGDOM BY VIOLENCE.

MAT. XI. 12.*

And from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force.

This refers to a remarkable revival of religion which commenced under the preaching of John and continued during the ministry of Jesus. In that day of God's power people flocked to hear the Gospel and with mighty efforts pressed into the kingdom of God. There was all the earnestness common to modern revivals; and this the Saviour, so far from rebuking under the character of irregular warmth, as modern formalists do, distinctly approved. He speaks of it as though it was an attack upon a fortified city which must be carried by storm: and that single figure shows what ideas he had of the exertions needful in this conflict. "Ago

• Preached in a revival of religion.

nize," said he, "to enter in at the straight gate." He would have men come up to the work with all that agony which is necessary in sacking a strong city: and that agony diffused through a community presents all the earnestness of a revival of religion, -of that revival in particular to which the Saviour referred with so much approbation.

Make a law that men shall never break over that formal round in which they are accustomed to move when their heart is cold and engrossed by business or science, and you never will rouse the multitude from sleep,-you never will break the enchantment which binds them to the world,-you never will lift them above their pride, which stands like an armed giant to guard the door of their pri

son.

The necessity for these strong exertions arises from the immense difficulties in the way. These difficulties may be classed under the following heads.

1. The world, as comprehending both objects of attention and objects of attachment. As the first, it diverts the attention from God and eternity and holds it spell-bound to earth. Business and amusement and vain society throw an enchantment over the mind and allure and enchain it as by magic. As the second, it plunges men into the grossest and most incurable idolatry. Honor, wealth, and pleasure become their trinity. And what an obstacle this is to salvation the Scriptures plainly teach. "How can ye believe which receive honor one of another?" "It is easier for a camel to go through