neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert

cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth."

And note here, that to every one Christ may truly say, "I know thy works." He is fully acquainted with the actual quality of all our actions. He knoweth of every deed we commit, how far if wrong it is done wilfully; how far if right it is done out of fear towards man, or, as it should be rather, out of love towards God. He knoweth not every deed only, but every word, nay every thought we conceive. And from them He can truly discern whether we are hot, or cold, or neither.

To be hot means to be zealous in the service of Christ, fervent in our affection to Himself. It means that we should manifest, and should feel, the same earnest lively desire to please and to obey our Saviour, that we cherish towards our nearest earthly friends, whom we most entirely and faithfully love. The same it means in kind, only purer, and greater in degree.

all to be brought, by reflexion on what Christ hath done for us; on his goodness in dying for our souls' salvation, on his grace daily offered to bring us near unto Himself. To be cold, on the other hand, is to be deliberately ungrateful for all this; to be altogether insensible to our Saviour's goodness, to be hardened in disobedience to his commands, to live without any reference whatsoever of our inclinations to his sovereign will, any conformity whatsoever of our lives to the pattern He has exhibited for our use. This is indeed an awful state for a church or for an individual to be found in. And many, by way of avoiding it, think to better themselves by some trifling religious observances, by some slight attention to religious duties, by some small cultivation of religious feelings. They frequent perhaps the outward worship of God. They read occasionally a chapter in his word. They abstain from some of the more gross violations of his will. And they even purpose, at some projected convenient season, to look more thoroughly into the matter; hoping then

to feel more deeply its importance. These, I say, would fain trust, that by such unwilling service they have escaped the condition of being absolutely cold. And so indeed they have. But let them hear their sentence: "I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth." Abhorrence, and disgust, and utter rejection, are prepared for the lukewarm; for those who are neither hot nor cold, for those who having approached in some sort to the sight of God's majesty, even then press not on to the enjoyment of his presence; who owning in some degree the obligation of Christ's Gospel, even then give not their hearts to its fulfilment.

The faithful witness, in wishing that the Laodiceans were cold or hot, does not mean to disparage the faintest degrees of zeal in his faith and service. Any degree of religion, provided it be in earnest, is better, far better, than none. But He would warn them, and through them, would

the more we know, the more we affect of: religion, the more perilous is our state, the more disgraceful is our conduct to the faith we profess. To be cold is indeed to have no religion, but to be lukewarm is at once to have none, and to fancy we have enough, to have none, and to pretend to have abundance. It is to use Christ's ordinances, without improving by them, to repeat his name, without obeying his will, to say over his prayer, without desiring his grace, to contemplate the heaven He has revealed, without laying up there our treasure, or setting thereon our affection.

That the faithful witness should wish rather we were even cold than thus, may be accounted for by the following considerations.

There seems to be more likelihood of repentance, where men are manifestly wrong, than where there is ever so small ground on which they flatter themselves that they are right. Conscience in the one case may be awakened more readily by God's ordinary dispensations of providence and grace, than in the other, where

it is lulled by the fatal satisfaction of be ing no worse than the world in general, of being almost if not quite a Christian. It were better, in the sense of extreme coldness, to cry, "God be merciful to me a sinner," (Luke 18. 13.) than in the conceit of lukewarm obedience to thank God that we are not as this publican. (See Luke 18. 11.) And not better only; but more probable also it seems to be, that in the first case we might be truly changed in heart, than in the other be made sensible that any change is required.

Again, the absolutely cold are in one respect less hardened than the lukewarm. They have at least usually less familiarity with those means of grace, whose abuse is as sure to harden the heart, as their right use is to melt and refine it. They perhaps make no prayer at all. The others say over prayers, but pray not. So much the more difficult will these find it to attend heartily when they try. They perhaps never come to church at all; the others come, but with dispositions averse, and with thoughts otherwise engaged.

So