he is kept safe and unmoved by the sure and steadfast anchor of the soul. Be it, that trials await him, he is certain of final victory, and therefore he goes forward to conflict and to conquest.

Here then, my friends, we have the only safe test of our religious state. It is not that we are reputed believers; it is not that we have high hopes of heaven; it is not that we are not troubled with doubts and fears as to the future. Away with all such delusive tokens of a safe condition. Do we labor to purify ourselves? Do our hopes excite us to grow in grace and holiness? Do they constrain us to cultivate integrity of character, simplicity of heart, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness, temperance? Do they make us crucify the flesh with its affections and lusts? Talk not of your views, your feelings, your confidences, and your hopes. Religious profession and religious talk are in themselves worthless, and prove nothing. Are we actually purifying ourselves as Christ is pure? If not, our hopes are spurious, and will lead us to eternal despair. Be not deceived, my hearers, in this amazingly solemn and momentous concern. Every one-yes every one who has a christian hope-a hope which will not prove a spider's web in the last day, is living in the daily mortification of every sin and sinful affection; and in the spirit of habitual obedience to the will of God.

SERMON XX.

Repentance of Judas,

MATTHEW XXVII. 3, 4, 5.

THEN JUDAS WHICH HAD BETRAYED HIM, WHEN HE SAW THAT HE WAS CONDEMNED, REPENTED HIMSELF, AND BROUGHT AGAIN THE THIRTY PIECES OF SILVER TO THE CHIEF PRIESTS AND ELDERS, SAYING I HAVE SINNED IN THAT I HAVE BETRAYED THE INNOCENT BLOOD. AND THEY SAID, WHAT IS THAT TO US? SEE THOU TO THAT. AND HE CAST DOWN THE PIECES OF SILVER IN THE TEMPLE, AND DEPARTED, AND WENT AND HANGED HIMSELF.

IT must ever be an object of serious concern with such as are earnest in the pursuit of salvation, accurately to distinguish between what is essential on their part, and what is not, to so happy a close of their probationary existence. In the light of the scriptures, the grounds of such distinction are not, indeed, obscure. As might be expected, the word of God very clearly and fully announces what man must do to be saved. Throughout its great disclosures, are variously presented the conditions on which it pleases the Father of lights to offer eternal life to the children of men. To prevent the misapprehension of these conditions and to illustrate their nature, there is exhibited on the pages of inspiration the character of those who so fulfilled them, as to share the promised salvation. But as these conditions consist very much in certain dispositions and exercises

of mind, which, in some of their forms and modifications, may be cherished by those who are far from righteousness; to make it still plainer what must be done in order to be saved, by showing what may be done with apparent reference to this end and yet be lost, the scriptures present us with individual cases, which strikingly illustrate the difference between acts or dispositions of the mind, which are nominally alike, but essentially and decisively unlike. Such an illustration is furnished in the cases of two of the first disciples of our Saviour. They both abandoned themselves to acts of extreme guiltiness. Judas betrayed the Saviour into the hands of his murderers. Peter denied with an oath in the presence of his enemies, that he knew him. They both repented. But Judas perished, went to his own place, was lost etc:nally. While Peter obtained forgiveness and everlasting salvation. Their repentance must, therefore, have been entirely different in its nature. This difference will be sufficiently apparent, if we examine the case of each. And with a view to present clearly to every mind the distinction between that repentance which is unto life and that which worketh death, I propose to consider in two separate discourses each of these interesting cases. The one which the text brings to view, will suggest topics for present remarks.

I. Let us notice several respects in which the repentance of Judas resembled true repentance.

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1. It resembled true repentance in the conviction of sin with which it was attended. It is not important to inquire through what means or instrumentality he was rendered conscious at the time of his deep sinfulness. It have been occasioned by the direct agency of the Holy Spirit. Or it may have arisen from a more clear perception of the deep spirituality, the exceeding comprehensiveness, and ineffable purity of the divine law. Or it may have been only the actings of a conscience not yet wholly seared. But that he had strong

convictions of sin, is apparent from his whole deportment. He was evidently filled with horror at the sinfulness of his conduct. He saw and felt the truth of what the Saviour had declared in reference to him, that it had been good for him, if he had never been born. It seems probable, that as soon as he SAW THAT CHRIST WAS CONDEMNED, an overwhelming sense of his sins came suddenly upon him. Such a sense as he had never before had. Such a taste of its bitterness as surpassed all his previous conceptions of the evil of sinning against God.

2. His repentance resembled true repentance in that it led him to an undisguised confession of his guilt. His language is full and affecting on this point. I HAVE

SINNED IN THAT I HAVE BETRAYED THE INNOCENT BLOOD. He manifests no disposition to conceal his criminality, to apologize for it, or to blame others for it. He does not tell them as in truth he might, that they had sinned in hiring him to betray the harmless Jesus, but that he had sinned in doing it. This confession, no doubt, was heart-felt as well as full and unequivocal. Though he saw it was too late to repair the injury he had done, when his Lord was CONDEMNED, bound and led away by the cruel priests and elders, yet he could not forbear to proclaim his own guilt and the Saviour's innocence.

3. True repentance is attended with sorrow, and so was his. When he considered what he had done, he was filled with grief and anguish of soul. He perceived himself to be the guilty occasion of all the indignities and cruelties, which had then begun to be heaped on his Lord and Master. Indeed, what could he think of at that awful crisis, which would not pierce his soul with sorrow. The Saviour bound, and buffeted, and spit upon the priests with whom he had conspired against him-the cankered and burning rewards of his iniquity still in his reluctant possession and his own hopeless destiny, were the only subjects upon which

his mind could dwell. And they were subjects that must bring over his soul the tide of consuming sorrows, in fierce and increasing violence. Though he did not express it in language of words, yet by his conduct he declared that his sorrow of heart, the curse of God upon him, was greater than he could bear.

4. His self-condemnation resembled true repentance. There was nothing in his language or conduct, which could be interpreted as evincing any disposition to justify himself; on the contrary all he said and did was of a nature to show, that, from some cause or other, he felt disposed to blame and condemn no one but himself. It seems likely that the sudden discovery of his foolish and ruinous act in betraying his Master, absorbed his whole mind, and left him no thoughts to bestow on the guilt and wretchedness of his late confederates in crime. He condemned himself, not because he had sinned against God; but because he saw the unreasonableness of delivering, into the hands of bloody men, the meek and unoffending Saviour-because he perceived the extreme folly of exchanging his personal comfort and happiness for so worthless and wretched a trifle-and because he could not but feel that the benevolent Jesus deserved from him a very different treatment.

5. He resembled a true penitent in his anxiety to prevent the evil consequences of his crime, and in his renunciation of its rewards. As soon as he saw his Master CONDEMNED, bound, and dragged away by the mad priesthood, he hastened to those priests and elders who had been parties with him in the traitorous covenant, with a view, if possible, to stay the horrid procedure, and to prevent the fatal catastrophe. This, indeed, however much the object of his desire, he had no good reason to expect. After what Christ had repeatedly declared in his presence respecting his approaching death by wicked hands, and the agency which this falsehearted disciple should have in the transaction, he might have known that in this stage of the affair the crisis was