sions, or, in other words, what appropriate and suitable reward we ourselves are here encouraged to expect, if we be careful to preserve our purity of heart in future.

To see God, my fellow Christians, since it cannot, except in the way of allusion, be understood literally, must be considered as implying the enjoyment of the closest and most intimate communion with him. Nothing can be more certain than that every shade of sin and impurity must contribute to obstruct this communion, and cloud our spiritual vision. What man so happy or so thoughtless as not to have frequently felt an unwillingness, resulting from a secret consciousness of guilt, to give himself up to the contemplation of the Deity, or even so much as to admit the thought of his existence! Who has not frequently shrunk with shame, and even with horror, from the idea of the presence of a God of purity? Have there not been times with many, perhaps with all of us, when, oppressed beneath the recollection of recent sin, we dared not raise our hands or eyes to heaven in the attitude of prayer, and when, had we ventured to do so, the bending knee would have tottered beneath us, and the faltering accents of supplication would have died upon our lips? Have we not suddenly

thought of the Psalmist's inquiry, "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? and who shall stand in his holy place?" and have not the first words of the answer, "He that hath clean hands and a pure heart," fallen heavily upon our ears, and choked our utterance? And what, my fellow Christians, has been the reason of all this? Has it not been, that we had not long before experienced some moral defilement ? Has it not been, that sin had been lately passing over our souls, and had left this withering blight behind it? Has it not been, in a word, that we had been forfeiting the blessedness of the " pure in heart"?

The more nearly, on the other hand, we can approach to the attainment of perfect mental purity, the more intimate and delightful will be our communion with the Deity, and the more numerous, as well as brighter and more glorious, the manifestations of his attributes which we shall be permitted to behold. The clouds of sin will no longer shut out from our view the great luminary of the creation. We shall behold him in all his majesty, and feel him in all his power. His genial warmth will foster in our minds an innumerable multitude of interesting and edifying thoughts and of pious and benevolent feelings, and the whole face of the moral, as well as

of the natural world, will be gilded by his beams. We shall no longer "love the darkness rather than the light, because our deeds are evil." Instead of shrinking from the Divine presence, we shall be constantly endeavouring to discover new manifestations of it. We shall see God in the glories, and in the beauties of external nature : in its smiles and in its terrors. We shall see him in the conduct of his providence; in his favours, and in his chastisements. We shall see him in the pages of his revealed word, and behold him gloriously and graciously manifested in the face of Jesus Christ. Nor does the blissful vision of the Almighty, reserved for the "pure in heart," terminate in this world. In the society of the just made perfect, they shall experience a more complete, as well as more lasting enjoyment of it. There, where the sun shall no longer be required to give light by day, nor the moon by night, and where the Divine glory may be manifested, in a way of which we can now form no conception, the "pure in heart" shall experience a complete fulfilment of the Saviour's promise, and "see God" throughout eternity.

Can we believe these things, my fellow Christions, and not be influenced by them? Can we contemplate these glorious rewards, and have our breasts warmed by no desires that we may

be found worthy of them? Should they not rather lead us to resolve that, in future, with the Divine blessing, we will aim at the attainment of a higher degree of purity? Should they not induce us diligently to employ every means likely to assist us in the accomplishment of our purpose? Should they not cause us carefully to shun the society of the vicious, and to endeavour to derive as much improvement as possible from that of the virtuous? Should they not lead us to attend to the regulation of our time, and by providing ourselves with a constant succession of useful, improving, or at least innocent occupations, to exclude as far as possible the contagion of impurity? Should they not induce us faithfully to employ the means of grace committed to us-daily to present ourselves before a God of purity, and drink of the fountain of purity which he has opened up to us in his word, and weekly to attend upon his courts in company with our brethren? May God enable us all so to employ the several means of grace, whilst they remain to us, that we may be prepared at last for inheriting his glorious promises!-Amen.

SERMON XVI.

FEEBLE RESOLUTIONS.

MATTHEW, xxi, 30.

He answered and said, I go, sir; and went not.

THESE words contain a brief but very striking description of the character commonly sustained by the Jewish teachers of religion in the time of our Lord. Loud in their professions of regard to the law of Moses, as well as to the numerous traditions by which it had been encumbered, and too often, as it would appear, explained away, and scrupulously, and, indeed, ostentatiously, attentive to external observances, their moral conduct is represented by the Jewish historian, Josephus, as well as by the Evangelists, as having been disgracefully inconsistent with their professions. Impartial history sanctions the declaration, that they omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith. Notwithstanding all our advantages, characters no less inconsistent are too common in the Christian church; and so long as there are any such to be found within its pale, and still more, my