have spent years of formality and impenitence in the church; but in the vast majority of cases, I doubt not, that he who enters the church a self-deceiver, continues so until he is startled by the frightful glare of everlasting burnings.

Here then is a most solemn admonition to those who profess to be the disciples of Christ, to rest on no sandy foundation. Does conscience sometimes suggest that all is not right within, and that you have not that heavenly mind which constitutes the qualification for heavenly glory? Beware how you stifle this impression by a recurrence to the fact, that you are a professor of religion. Rather yield to the impression that you may be deceived; and derive from it a new argument to do your utmost to make your calling and election sure. And, rely on it, when you have reached that point that you can resist such an impression, that you can fold your arms and compose yourself to a state of spiritual slumber merely on the ground that you are a professor, you have reached a point of appalling danger; a point at which, if you remain long, you render it almost certain that you are self-deceived.

2. In the character of Judas we may contemplate a degrading vice, putting on the garb of two estimable virtues. The vice to which I refer was unbounded, insatiable avarice; the virtues were prudence and charity. When Mary anointed her Master, in token of her affectionate regard, Judas objected, not on the ground that he was himself indifferent to the honor of Jesus, but on the more plausible ground of his regard for the poor. "Wherefore," he asks, "is this waste?" and immediately suggests that the ointment should have been sold, and the avails of it applied to purposes of charity. But the truth was, Judas all this time had a heart of rock. He cared not for the poor, but would have ground them to the dust, if he might thereby have subserved his own covetous designs. Nevertheless, this furnished him a most convenient and plausible pretext for the indulgence of his ruling passion. If he could do this, and yet pass it off under the attractive names of economy and charity, he wanted nothing more.

Happy had it been for the church, if Judas had furnished the last example of this hypocritical spirit. But who does not know that even in our own day, when there is so much that is exciting to a spirit of Christian liberality, the claims of real charity are often set aside by some apology which is neither more consistent nor more honest than was the objection offered by Judas. No doubt it is the duty of every man first to provide for his own family; for inspiration hath declared that he who neglects to do this, "has denied the faith and is worse than an

infidel" but who can be ignorant that this plea serves the purpose of multitudes who give away nothing, and yet horde up their thousands? Go to them and present the cause of the widow and the orphan; or the cause of millions ready to perish for lack of the bread of life; and you are pointed instantly to a large and expensive family, as putting in requisition their best efforts for their support; and not improbably the difficulty of the times may be pleaded, and possibly, too, that most convenient, but unscriptural maxim, that "charity begins at home." In other cases, the utility or practicability of the object will be called in question, and other objects will be spoken of as having superior claims, when the melancholy fact is, that other applicants are treated in reference to those very objects in precisely the same manner. Now, I ask, whether this is not the very spirit which Judas manifested, when he objected to the offering which Mary made to her Master? He did not choose to state the real ground of his objection; for then his conduct would have received its proper name, and his character would have been seen in its real odiousness; but he put on the cloak of economy, and assumed the lying look of charity; and thus endeavored to pass off what was really odious for what was noble and praiseworthy. Let the reader judge whether in this very particular, there are not multitudes who really walk in the steps of Judas.

Bat this is by no means the only case in which vices the most odious and degrading choose to put on the angel form of virtues to which they have really not the least alliance. Who does not know that even in our own land, which boasts of its intelligence and its virtue, foul, deliberate murder often shields. itself under the cloak of honor, and the murderer is suffered to go at large with impunity; nay, even boasting of his bloodstained laurels, when he ought to be imprisoned, and tried, and hung up between the heavens and the earth? Who does not know, that under the cover of zeal for the glory of God, there have been in every age scenes of fanaticism, scenes of cruelty, I may say, scenes of horror, which have sent religion and even humanity away to weep in secret places? And to speak of what is less gross and revolting, how common is it for the levities of a professed follower of Christ, which make the cause of his Master bleed at every pore, to be passed off under the name of good nature, and Christian cheerfulness; and how common, on the other hand, for a cold and gloomy and unsocial spirit to be identified with deep religious seriousness, and devotedness to Christ! In short, there is no error in human conduct that loves to assume the responsibility of standing forth before the world in

its naked deformity. There is a principle in human nature—I mean the moral sense-which does not leave men at their option whether to disapprove of vice or not, when it comes out without disguise; and the only way in which men can make themselves easy under their own vicious conduct, or preserve their characters from disgrace in view of the world, is to call it by some name which it does not deserve, and make themselves and others believe that the name is not mis-applied.

You see, then, the vast importance of calling things by their right names; for an error on this subject is sure to lead, in a greater or less degree, to self-deception. I exhort you to practise all the Christian virtues without a single exception: but take care that in every instance it is the genuine virtue, and not some vice that has stolen its garb, or assumed its name. Be charitable; but let not your charity be a mere ostentatious offering to your own self-complacency. Be prudent; but let not your prudence freeze up your heart, or clench your hand against the calls of benevolence. Be zealous; but let not your zeal be a destructive fire kindled by a spark from beneath, but a holy flame lighted from off the altar of God. Be cheerful; but take care that under that pretence you do not rush into the levities of the world. Be serious, and earnest, and devoted; but mistake not for these qualities any thing that is austere, or mɔrose, or unsocial. In short, whatsoever things are lovely and praiseworthy, and of good report, not only think of, but practise; and be sure that you practise the very things, and not their counterfeits.

3. In the history of Judas, we have an awful exemplification of the depravity of the heart. There was in his conduct a complication of avarice, of hypocrisy, of treachery, of cruelty, which must forever render his character detestable in the eyes of every intelligent being. And what greatly aggravated his guilt was, the circumstance that all this was directed towards his benefactor and master; towards the most pure and benevolent being who ever visited this earth; and withal, towards Him who came to die that sinners might live. There are those who will have it that mankind are not all depraved, certainly not greatly depraved; but there are none, who have any respect for their own characters, who will attempt to set up a defence for Judas; who will not readily acknowledge, however it may be with others, that he was a monster of wickedness.

It cannot be denied, that Judas furnished an example of great and aggravated crime; and that he committed a sin which never has been committed in the same form by any other human being. Nevertheless, we are by no means warranted to

say or to believe, that Judas was the greatest sinner that ever walked this earth. If there are no others who have ever betrayed, or had the opportunity to betray the adorable person of Christ into the hands of the Jews, there are multitudes who have betrayed and still betray his cause, and who show clearly enough by their conduct, that if they could reach his person, that would not be secure. And, notwithstanding they have never had the privilege of seeing his face or enjoying his society, as Judas did, yet they have had, in some respects, greater privileges than he: they have the will of Christ revealed to them in his word; and they have his Spirit offered them for their illumination and guidance; and they may commune with him as really and as profitably, as if they had immediate access to his person. And who will venture to say, that when they, with all the obligations and vows of professed disciple-ship resting upon them, act in contempt of these vows and obligations, and deliberately stab the cause of Him to whom they have promised before earth and heaven to be devoted,-who, I ask, will venture to say, that in the eye of Heaven, they may not accumulate upon themselves as fearful a load of guilt, as did the man who betrayed his Lord in the garden with a kiss?

But there is something to be learned from this example which looks beyond individual cases of aggravated crime; something which respects human nature itself. The fair and obvious deduction from this history is, that the heart of man, of every man, is, by nature, desperately wicked. Do you ask whether this statement does not need to be qualified; whether it is possible that the amiable, the refined, the engaging, the tender hearted, previous to conversion, must fall under the awful censure of being entirely alienated from God, and of bearing upon them, to the eye of Omniscience, the marks of the curse? I answer, no qualification to this statement can be admitted: the doctrine is true, in all its length and breadth, that that which is born of the flesh is flesh; no matter how much it may be moulded and polished by education, until it is new created by the Holy Spirit, it has in itself the elements of an eternal death. It must always remain true that the carnal mind, let it be found wherever or in whomsoever it may, is enmity against God; is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

If then you would form the most perfect idea of the depravity of the heart, I would not advise you to limit your views, or even to contemplate chiefly, those instances of daring and flagrant crime which outlaw their perpetrators from society, and for which the law demands either their liberty or their life;—no, I

would advise you to enter into your secret chambers, and commune with your own heart; and if you do this honestly, faithfully, and with an earnest desire to know the worst of your case, I venture to say, that the result will be a conviction that there is at least one heart which fully answers to the Bible description of human depravity. And if you have no such impression already, believe me, it is because you are a stranger to the business of self-communion. I have seen the man (and doubtless many of you have known similar instances) whose whole deportment had been amiable and unexceptionable, and who was strongly entrenched in a habit of self-righteousness, when he came under the awakening influences of the Holy Spirit, declaring that his iniquities pressed him down to the earth, and scarcely venturing to lift his eyes to heaven. I have seen such a man turn pale with horror in view of what he saw of his own heart, and declare with agonizing earnestness that the mercy of God could not cover such enormous guilt, and that he must inevitably sink down beneath it into the gulf of despair; when I knew that the time had been, that if he had been pressed with the necessity of regeneration, he would have doubted and cavilled, on the ground that he saw nothing in his own heart on which to predicate the necessity or the reality of such a change.

Does any one ask, if the awful crime of Judas in betraying his Lord was only the legitimate operation of that principle of depravity which reigns in every unrenewed heart, why then are not all men as bad as Judas? I answer, it is because they are subject to the restraining grace of God. Let the restraints which God in his providence imposes upon the depravity of the heart once be removed, and I care not how much of native amiableness there may have been, you will see the standard of rebellion against God lifted high, and the evil passions of the soul coming forth in the madness of rage and desperation. Yes, I venture to say, that that very man who contemptuously denies the doctrine of depravity as a libel upon human nature, and adduces his own experience as proof of it, has that in his heart, which, if it could pass under his eye, would completely cure him of his skepticism. And I am sure that the day will come when he will be cured of it; either by waking up to timely conviction and repentance, or by opening his eyes upon his ruin, when the case admits of no remedy, in the world of

torment.

Where then is there hope for the sinner? I answer, in the sovereign influences of God's Holy Spirit, and no where else. If the spiritual malady under which man labors was less deep,