be contradicted; they do not like to be told that all do not forget God, or prefer their own will to his, or care for the things of earth, to the degree in which they are content to do soin short, that there is a higher and a holier walk, not only attainable, but which it is our indispensable duty to attain. If those to whom we so speak are high and self-confident spirits, they dislike and ridicule the holy pretension; if they are meek and timid, they feel it a reproach, and are discouraged by the doubt it seems to throw on the reality of their principles; for I am not speaking now of persons who, having not the principle, excuse sin because they love it, but of some who have truly found the Pearl of price, and would not, with all their faltering, part from it, to save the life they love too much, or buy the world they too much care for; but from misapprehension of its use and beauty, they have laid it for safety in the casket when they should have hung it about their neck, the pride, the ornament, the joy of their existence.

When man fell from his state of innocence in Eden, we know not the extent of his forfeiture, we know not to what condition he would have attained, had he continued in obedience; nor do we know what measure or what manner of bliss he parted from when he went out of paradise; but we are told he was created in the image, and lived in the favour of God; and when he sinned, he lost that image and he lost that favour. The death of Christ having repaired the injury that sin has done, and removed from his people all the curse and all the consequences of the fall, has placed them in a condition not worse, but better, than that in which Adam was created. For this, it is not enough that they be restored to the favour of God, pardoned, reconciled, received again, they must be restored to his image also; else is their sentence not reversed, their ruin not retrieved. Is it not true, then, that they who rest satisfied with a bare and barren hope of being safe for eternity, by which little more is understood than safety from the punishment

of hell, do meanly estimate the Redeemer's work, accept but the half of what he has purchased, and wearily and unsafely postpone the other half, as something beyond our present reach. True, it is beyond our present reach in its ultimate perfection; holiness and happiness unalloyed are not the inhabitants of a still sinful bosom in a corrupted world. The sinless perfection of the divine Original cannot be copied entire till the spirit has put off mortality. So are the depths of science beyond the reach of the young intellect in its first attempts to reach them. So are the treasures of the earth beyond the reach of the miner when he begins to bore the surface. But is that a reason they should not begin? Would they ever reach their end, if they waited till it were at once within their grasp? Is it not rather true, that the sooner they begin, and the more hopefully they labour, the sooner will the one be learned and the other rich, and both be gratified with the possession that seemed at first so distant and impossible? Thus is it

It

with the Redeemer's work; holiness and happiness-to be with him and to be like him-that blessed consummation of our desires is indeed beyond the grasp of sinful, suffering humanity. Hope itself cannot compass it, for it knows not what it is: "We know not what we shall be." But we know that when he comes we shall be like him. From the moment that the favour of God is restored to us by the imparting of the Holy Spirit, we are wakened to a new existence and a better principle. becomes his task, it becomes ours, to retrace in our bosom his obliterated image; to remould us into his likeness; to begin the change which can be perfected only in eternity. And let us not suppose it does not signify how fast or how slowly this change proceeds, so that it be accomplished in the end. Does it not signify that we forego for years on years the measure of happiness within our reach? that we withhold from God the measure of glory which should be reflected from our bosoms? Should we make so light of the

Saviour's gift as to be in no haste to enjoy it till we possess it all, if indeed we can possess in eternity what we have made no progress towards in time? Those who think so must take all the risk of the adventure; I see no security for them in the word of God; I see there, on the contrary, that growth, increase, progression, are the terms in which the divine life is spoken of; "increasing in stature," "growing into the likeness," "going on to perfection." Such figures and expressions do not characterize that sudden change at death which some rely on. The first sowing of the seed is a momentary act; the putting in of the sickle is momentary also; but it grows not in an hour, it ripens not in a day. Does the husbandman, when he comes into his field to reap, expect to find it as he left it when he sowed? or when suns have shone on it in vain, and in vain the waters of heaven descended, will it start into perfection under the reaper's sickle? These are scripture figures, therefore I need not fear to speak unadvisedly. And