"What man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?

"If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him." Matt. vii. 11.

Therefore,

and ye

you.

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Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto

"For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." Luke, x. 9, 10.

"Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove!
With all thy quickening powers;

Kindle a flame of sacred love

In these cold hearts of ours.

Our hearts are set on things below,
Fond of these earthly toys;
Our souls how heavily they go,
To seek eternal joys!

In vain we tune our lifeless songs,

In vain we strive to rise:

Thy praises languish on our tongues,
And our devotion dies.

Dear Lord, and shall we ever be
In this poor dying state?
Our love so faint, so cold to thee,
And thine to us so great!

Come, Holy Spirit, from above,

With all thy quickening powers;
Come, shed abroad a Saviour's love,
And that shall kindle ours."

My God, if I may call thee mine,

From heaven and thee removed so far,

Draw nigh, thy pitying ear incline,

And cast not out my languid prayer.

Gently the weak thou lov'st to lead;
Thou lov'st to prop the feeble knee :
O break not then a bruised reed,

Nor quench the smoking flax in me!
Buried in sin, thy voice I hear,
And burst the barriers of my tomb,
In all the marks of death appear,

Forth, at thy call, though bound, I come.
Give me, O give me fully, Lord,

Thy resurrection's power to know:

Free me indeed-repeat the word;

And loose my bonds and let me go!"

VIII.

Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." LUKE, Xiii. 5.

We have now taken two steps in considering the subject of repentance.

I have endeavoured to shew you, first, that we are of ourselves quite incapable of changing our feelings towards God.

And, second, that repentance is God's free and unmerited gift, bestowed upon us for the sake of Jesus Christ, and wrought in us by the Holy Spirit.

And yet it will be our own fault if we perish.

Because the precious gift was purchased for us by Christ, when he "led captivity captive and received gifts for men."

And we have God's faithful promise, that it shall be bestowed upon all who ask for it in his name.

And now, therefore, he "commandeth all men every where to repent." Acts, xvii. 30.

The Bible is full of exhortations to this duty; and God never gave a command, without at the same time giving the power to obey.

So that it will be in vain to plead our natural inability, as an excuse for disobedience.

Do you remember the man with the withered hand?

When Jesus told him to stretch it forth, he might justly have said that he was quite unable.

But he made the attempt because Jesus required it: "he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other." Mark, iii. 5.

It was the same with the "impotent man," " and "the man sick of the palsy;" both received strength in the act of obedience.

And spiritual strength will be given to us in the same manner. It is said of the Lord Jesus, that, as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.' John, i. 12.

Our plain duty, then, is to turn from all sin as far as we can, and seek diligently for the help of the Holy Spirit.

Though we have no power to change our feelings towards God, it is quite certain that we can in a great measure control our actions.

We can refrain from doing what we know to be wrong, and this God requires of us: he promises neither help nor forgiveness to those who wilfully continue in sin.

The Bible is full of exhortations to forsake sin, be

F

cause God knows that heaven itself could not make us happy while we continue in it.

He says:

"Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;

"Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow." Isaiah, i. 16, 17.

"For if ye throughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye throughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbour;

"If ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt;

"Then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, for ever and ever." Jer. vii. 5, 6, 7.

From these passages of Scripture we learn that there must be a decided effort on our part to forsake sin, and to obey God's commandments, if we wish to be made fit for his kingdom in heaven.

There is no such thing as getting there without diligence and exertion

We are told the same thing in many parts of the New Testament.

Jesus says: "Strive to enter in at the strait gate." (Luke, xiii. 24). "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross; and follow me.' Matt. xvi. 24..

"And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, he cannot be my disciple."

Luke, xiv. 27.

So we must strive against idleness, and selfishness, and ill-temper, and greediness, and deceit, and dishonesty, and everything else which we know to be wrong and displeasing to him.

It is hard to do this at first, but there is no other way to the kingdom of heaven.

Our Saviour says, "the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force." Matt. xi. 12.

That is, if we really wish to go there, we must strive earnestly to be made fit for it.

The life of a Christian is compared in Scripture to

a race.

"Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.

"And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible." 1 Cor. ix. 24, 25.

"Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended; but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.' Phil. iii. 13. 14.

"Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us." Heb. xii. 1.

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The life of a Christian is also compared to a warfare. Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called." 1 Tim. 6. 12. "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:

"For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds:

Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." 2 Cor. x. 3, 4, 5.