vomit from their minds every pleasant recollection connected with sin.

Now let them seriously ask themselves what chance they have of doing this. Let them reflect on the very ungovernable nature of their thoughts and feelings, and they will see it is no easy matter to be disgusted at what they have been in the habit of admiring, or to admire what they have always regarded with contempt. They will perceive that these feelings do not spring up at once or die away at once, but they grow up by slow degrees, and, as it were, get to be part of ourselves. A man can no more hate what he wishes to hate, and admire what he wishes to admire, than he can throw off a disease which has long fastened on him, or straighten his limbs when they have grown crooked. Indeed, the expectation that we shall be able to become good, that is, return to a healthy and vigorous state of mind as soon as we leave off the bad practices in which we may now indulge ourselves, is just about as reasonable as that of a man who wishes to fit himself against a certain time for performing exploits of strength and activity, but in the meantime continues to live on in idleness, eating and drinking the most unhealthy food, or neglecting all the exercises which tend to strengthen the body, with the hope that all will come right at the last, and that when he takes to living strictly, he shall be able to make up

for his former carelessness. The situation of this man, when he comes at last to the trial of his strength, will not be worse than that of him who indulges in deliberate sin, and expects that all will be well with him when he at last desists from it. He will find his bad tastes and bad thoughts stick to him, as the other finds his bodily diseases. He will return to his father, not as a little child, but as a diseased and deformed man.

This is a train of thought which the text may well suggest to those who are now indulging in deliberate sin.

On the other hand, it is full of consolatory reflection to those who approach their Father with a broken and contrite heart, who are conscious of a stedfast purpose to lead a new life, and of endeavouring, however ineffectually, to make themselves such as God approves. Such persons may and often must feel grieved, and intolerably burdened at the recollection of all the bad thoughts and deeds in which they have opposed the will of their Heavenly Father; they may be forced to observe in themselves with disgust and anguish the traces of those bad pleasures in which they have unhappily indulged themselves. But they may be assured, that their Heavenly Father regards these things with different eyes. He does not expect of them that strength and dignity of character which they have now lost the power of acquiring; He does not require of them that they should show themselves

men in His service, and do the great things which they might have done, if they had served Him severingly from the first.

ever.

per

This they have lost the power of doing; the opportunity was once given them, but it is gone for To rank with the great Saints of God, with the glorious company of the Apostles, and the noble army of Martyrs, is indeed no longer theirs. But it is still given them to sit at meat at their Master's table; their sins have not utterly excluded them from His presence, if they will acknowledge their abject condition, and seek Him as little children. Their safety now rests on their humility; they must humble themselves under the mighty hand of God, and He will yet extend it to protect and deliver them.

SERMON XIV'.

RELUCTANCE TO KNOW OUR DUTY THE EFFECT OF DISOBEYING IT.

EZEK. XX. 32.

"That which cometh into your mind shall not be at all, that ye say, We will be as the heathen, as the families of the countries, to serve wood and stone."

THE state of mind which is here described by the prophet Ezekiel is indeed most surprising and deplorable; it is the last state of God's chosen people in their last state of degeneracy. Throughout their history they had shown themselves a disobedient and gainsaying people, a rebellious house; but we here see them going still farther in folly. They not only refuse to conform their conduct to the will of their Almighty Governor and Protector, but actually endeavour to forget His existence. They turn away their eyes from the contemplation of those glorious truths which had been held up to them from generation to generation, and endeavour to forget the inestimable privileges which the knowledge of these truths conveyed to them. They say, } [Written in 1830.]

We will be as the heathen; as the families of the countries to serve wood and stone. And this their temper of mind is still more surprising, if we take into consideration the circumstances in which they were placed at this period of their history. They were now suffering those very calamities which God had so long threatened to bring upon them: the long suspended judgments, which had been so often foretold by Jeremiah, were now in the very act of being executed. Their nation was in a state of captivity; the greatest part of them had been carried off from the land of their fathers, and the inheritance of Israel was in the hands of the king of Assyria. Such was their present miserable condition, to which they could not blind themselves whether they would or no. And one would think that they could hardly conceal from themselves, what was equally evident, that it was their own obstinacy and hardness of heart which had brought all these things upon them. Yet, instead of owning their transgressions, and bowing before God's chastisements, they chose voluntarily to forget the reason of their sufferings, and the Gracious Father, who even yet held out to them prospects of a return to His favour. They preferred regarding themselves as heathens, rather than as the seed of Abraham, and the inheritors of the promises.

Now, if we inquire the reason of this infatuated conduct, we shall see that they wished to forget God, because the thought of Him was necessarily