WILL BE WHOLLY TRUE HEREAFTER,

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who it was that could say with truth to his Father, "I know that thou hearest me always." We know what it is that hinders God from hearing us always; because we are not thoroughly one in his Son Christ Jesus. But this unanswered prayer is not properly the state of Christ's redeemed: it is an enemy that hath brought us to this; the same enemy who will, in time, make all our prayers to be unanswered, as some are now; who will cause God, not only to be slow to listen, but to refuse to listen for ever. Now we are not heard at once, we must repeat our prayers, with more and more earnestness, that God, at last, may hear, and may bless us. But if, instead of repeating them the more, we do the very contrary, and repeat them the less; if, because we have no comfort, and no seeming good from them, we give them up altogether; then the time will surely come when all prayer will be but the hopeless prayer of Esau, because it will be only the prayer of fear; because it will be only the dread of destruction that will, or can, move us;-the love of good will have gone beyond recall. Such prayer does but ask for pardon without repentance; and this never is, or can be, granted.

So then, in conclusion, that very feeling of coldness, and unwillingness to pray, because we have often prayed in vain, is surely working in

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UNLESS WE TAKE HEED IN TIME.

us that perfect death, which is the full truth of the words of the text. Of all of us, those who the least like to pray, who have prayed with the least benefit, have the most need to pray again. If they have sought God, without finding him, let them take heed that this be not their case for ever; that the truth, of which the seed is even now in them, may not be ripened to their everlasting destruction, when all their seeking, and all their praying, will be as rejected by God, as, in part, it has been already.

November 8th, 1835.

SERMON XIII.

MARK Xii. 34.

Thou art not far from the kingdom of God.

In

WHOEVER has gone up any hill of more than common height, may remember the very different impression which the selfsame point, whether bush, or stone, or cliff, has made upon him as he viewed it from below and from above. going up it seemed so high, that we fancied, if we were once arrived at it, we should be at the summit of our ascent; while, when we had got beyond it, and looked down upon it, it seemed almost sunk to the level of the common plain; and we wondered that it could ever have appeared high to us.

What happens with any natural object according to the different points from which we view

134 DIFFERENT senses of the kingdom of God.

it, happens also to any particular stage of advancement in our moral characters. There is a goodness which appears very exalted or very ordinary, according as it is much above or much below our own level. And this is the case with the expression of our Lord in the text, "Thou art not far from the kingdom of God." Does this seem a great thing or a little thing to be said to us? Does it give us the notion of a height which we should think it happiness to have reached; or of a state so little advanced, that it would be misery to be forced to go back to it? For, according as it seems to us the one or the other, so we may judge of the greater or less progress which we have made in ascending the holy mountain of our God.

But while I say this, it is necessary to distinguish between two several senses, in which we may be said to be near to the kingdom of God, or actually in it. These two are in respect of knowledge, and in respect of feeling and practice. And our Lord's words seem to refer particularly to knowledge. The scribe to whom he used them, had expressed so just a sense of the true way of pleasing God, had so risen above the common false notions of his age and country, that his understanding seemed to be ripe for the truths of that kingdom of God, which was to make the worship of God to consist in spirit and

ITS HIGHEST SENSE.

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in truth. Now, as far as the knowledge of the kingdom of God is concerned, although, undoubtedly, there are many amongst us who are deficient in it, yet it is true also, that a great many of us are in possession of it; we are familiar enough with the truths of the kingdom of God, and our understandings fully approve them. But we may be near to or far from the kingdom of God, in respect also of feeling and practice; and this is the great matter that concerns us. It is here, then, that we should ask ourselves what we think of our Lord's words in the text; and whether he to whom they were spoken appears to us an object of envy or of compassion one whom we envy for having advanced so far, or pity for not being advanced further.

"Not far from the kingdom of God." Again, if we take the words Kingdom of God in their highest sense, then the expression contains all that we could desire to have said of us in this life; hope itself on this side of the grave can go no higher. For as, in this sense, the kingdom of God cannot be actually entered before our death; so the best thing that can be said of us here, is, that we are not far from it; that we are in the land of Beulah, so happily ima gined in the Pilgrim's Progress; all of our pilgrimage completed, save the last act of crossing the river; with the city of God full in sight,