solemnly, as in the sight of God, Have I any realizing hope of beholding and sharing the happiness in which the Saviour reigns? If I talk of hope in Christ, the hope of being with him, do I in the meantime see and appreciate the moral perfection of Jesus Christ, as the standard to which it is the will of God that I should rise? Do I feel the power of the Gospel motives working within me, to accomplish this moral change in my character; and touched by the feeling of gratitude for the forgiveness of sin, of filial love to a reconciled Father, and in holy anticipation of the joys of a sinless world, have I attained to the sanctification of my thoughts, my tempers, my affections, my intercourse with men, and my conscience towards God? Can I, who am best acquainted with the real state of the case, and most capable of speaking to the fact; can I say, that in any ascertainable degree, this is the case; and that wherein my resemblance to Christ is yet imperfect, there is my sorrow and lamentation?'

These are very home questions; but remember that true religion is a very serious reality. The gift of it is no other than a deliverance of a lost soul from the power of satan; and a new birth of that soul in the likeness of God. If, therefore, you cannot conscientiously answer these questions, and say that in some degree, however small, you have reason to believe it is so with you, you have no reason to conclude that you are yet in possession of the Christian hope; you have yet to seek reconciliation to God, and the prospect of a happy eternity.

Be entreated, then, to make this the most serious object of thought and inquiry. Let this great question be determined bcfore any other. Bring the matter resolutely to a point, that you may ascertain whether you are the child of God or the child of the devil; in fact, that you may ascertain as speedily as possible, the awful, but essentially important truth, that you are yet an unconverted perishing sinner. Do not suffer yourself to be deceived either by false reasoning or by delay. Put the case home to yourself. If your thoughts, tempers, affections, doings, are habitually earthly and irreligious, though you understood all mysteries and all knowledge, and had faith to remove mountains, it would profit you nothing. He that has this hope purifies himself. He that is Christ's, crucifies the flesh. And while this is the case you cannot be safe. Go, then, where you will, let this truth fol

low you; let it poison your cup, let it cloud your prospects, let it mar your sleep, and wait on your waking; let it follow every thought, word, and deed, a ceaseless, sleepless monitor; let it ring perpetually in your ear,-"You are yet in your sins;" and "The soul that sinneth, it shall die."

SERMON XII.

THINGS UNSEEN BEHELD BY FAITH.

By the late Rev. CHARLES WOLFE, A. B.,

Curate of Donoughmore, Ireland.

HEBREWS xi. 1.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

We all profess a firm belief in the truths which God has been pleased to declare. Now the Scriptures contain certain threats and certain promises;-threats of vengeance, and punishment to every soul that sinneth; promises of mercy and immortality to all that fly to the refuge appointed in the Redeemer; and therefore, when we declare, that we believe in God's word, we at the same time profess a firm faith in the reality of these threats, and these promises, and in the certainty that, sooner or later, they will be carried into execution.

And perhaps nothing could shock or affront us more than, that any man should venture to hint a suspicion of the soundness of our faith, or insinuate that we doubted the truth of these things. However, there are so many men of all kinds, of all characters, of all descriptions, who declare that they have this faith; men,

who, perhaps, never spent one serious and solemn hour, in the course of their lives, in the consideration of these things, which they profess to believe: men who live just as they would if they never believed them,--that there is some reason to fear that some fatal mistake exists among mankind upon this point; and we shall do well to look to ourselves, and examine whether we do really and truly believe the things that the word of God contains.

Now the word of God itself supplies us with an excellent method of considering this subject; and it is the more satisfactory, because it is one which our own common sense seems to acknowledge at once; "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." It is to us instead of sight; it is as if we had seen the things that we believe, and is therefore to produce the same effect. This is a principle to which our common sense subscribes; for if we were to assure any man that a certain fact existed, and require him to act as he certainly would if he had scen it himself, what reason could he give for refusing? None, but that he doubted it, that he was not sure of its existence.

Thus, then, if we believe those things sincerely from our heart and soul-if we are not dissembling with God and deceiving ourselves, our belief of those things must be as if we had seen them; our belief of the threats and the promises of God must be as if we witnessed them actually fulfilled.

Our inquiry, then, naturally is, what would be the case if we really beheld them? Suppose that we were now suddenly conveyed into a world of Spirits, and it was given unto you to see the strange doings of futurity; suppose the curtain withdrawn that conceals them from view, when you should behold a "great white throne, and Him who sat upon it, from whose face the carth and the heaven fled away, and there was no place found for them;" thousand thousands ministering unto him; the judgment set, and the books opened; when you should hear the trumpet sound, and in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the dead, small and great, stand before God, to be judged out of those things that are written in the Book; (for all this is actually in the word of God; of all this, faith is the substance and the evidence;) and then you should find that "without holiness no man could see the Lord;" that none but the "pure in heart should see God;" and that it was the secrets of men's hearts that God judged in that day, and that for every idle word they must give account, and that every

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mouth was stopped, and naturally, "all the world was guilty before God," and that " by the deeds of the Law no flesh was justified in his sight;" (for all this is actually in the word of God, and of all this, faith is the substance and the evidence;) and then, when you should find that "without shedding of blood there is no remission," and that there was but one Mediator between God and man; when you should perceive that there was then "one name," and but "one name under heaven by which men must be saved," and it was inquired, whether "every one that named that name had departed from iniquity;" and that, in consequence, he separated one from the other as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats;" that on the left were those who walked after the flesh, and those who were guilty of "adultery, fornication, uncleanness, laciviousness, hatred, variance, emulation, wrath, strife, sedition, heresies, envyings, murder, drunkenness, revelling, and such like;" and that on the right were those "who walked after the Spirit," and who brought forth "love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance;" and when you should hear him say to those on his left, "Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels;" and to those on his right, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:" (for all these things are actually in the word of God, and of all this, faith is the substance and the evidence;) and then, when this scene was closed, if you were to follow these two different classes of men, to the abode that was to be theirs to all eternity, what would be your sensations? When first you should visit the abodes of everlasting misery, and should behold "indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon the souls of those who had done evil;" when, through the regions of outer darkness, you should hear "weeping, and gnashing of teeth," and should discern through the gloom, the writhings of the worm that dieth not, and the waving of the flame that shall never be quenched: and when, in the second place, you should enter the heavenly Jerusalem, and should be saluted at the first step with the sweet melody of angels over "sinners that had repented," and should see the Lord God wiping away all tears from their eyes; where there was no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain for ever; where they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; where the city hath no need of

the sun or moon to shine in it; for the glory of God lightens it, and the Lamb is the light thereof: when you should see there the pure Water of Life, and in the midst of the street of that city, the Tree of Life, and the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne feeding them, and leading them unto fountains of water; "and hear them sing a new song before the throne, which no man could learn, save those that are redeemed from the earth; (for all this is actually in the word of God, and of all this, faith is the substance and the evidence;) now, after having thus looked into futurity, and taken a view of the objects of faith, suppose you again alight upon earth, and return to the company of human beings, and the pursuits of your ordinary occupation-what a changed man would you be! what a new aspect would the earth wear, and all the objects by which you are surrounded! what new conceptions would you form of happiness and misery! what new desires, nay, what new passions would you find, as it were, introduced into your heart! what a stranger would you find yourself in the midst of those things among which you were perfectly at home! "How is the gold become dim, how is the most fine gold changed!" "How are the riches corrupted, and the garments motheaten!" How poor is wealth, and how mean are honors! For when you looked on them, there would occur to you the riches you had gazed on in the heavenly Jerusalem--the glories by which it was illuminated.

With what horror would you then look on the drunken revel and the wanton debauch; for the moment they presented themselves before you, the groans would sound in your ears that you had heard from the bottomless pit. When you heard the laugh of wild intemperance and frantic intoxication, it would be drowned in the shricks of the damned, that would be still echoing about you; and if you heard a fellow-creature sin, whether against yourself or not, no matter, (you have just seen what will make you think very lightly of all earthly pains and injuries,) what would be uppermost in your minds? Any little petty rancor, any little mean revenge, or any cold and unheeding indifference? No: but you would think of the terrible portion which that man was earning for himself in "the lake that burns with everlasting brimstone," and you would fly to "snatch him as a brand from the burning;" you would look upon all around you with an anxious and affectionate interest, recollecting that they were all heirs of the hapVOL. II.-16