as a first principle in the matter. We say of the man who puts honey into his mouth, but has no consciousness of its sweetness, that his palate is vitiated; but, with equal certainty, may we say of the man who engages in religious exercises, without a consciousness of their spiritual sweetness, that his moral taste is vitiated: and as, in the former case, the diseased taste is usually an index of disease in the animal system, so it is, in the latter case, with still greater certainty, an index of disease in the moral system. For although a man has been found in bodily health, who could not discern the sweetness of honey, yet a man in spiritual health was never found, who could not appreciate the pleasures of religion. The very same sins or short-comings, which interfere with your progress in holiness, are sure to interfere with your religious enjoyment; by inflicting the one injury on your well-being, they necessarily inflict the other, and much that was stated under the former head, is equally applicable to this.

But it is necessary here to come a little nearer to the point. You complain of the want of religious enjoyment; and we tell you that the cause of it is, sin in your heart, and, of course, in your life. But you reply, that although this may be true in general, yet you know not any particular sin, or class of sins, to which the evil can be fairly traced. Well, here is the very point where your self-knowledge fails you, and where a renewed prosecution of it must commence, in order to your deliverance; for you must come to particulars, and pass from one particular to another, in eager self-research, till you arrive at the identical sin or sins which, more than

any others, "have separated between you and your God, and caused him to hide his face from you." A little attention will show you, that, although your religious concern be perfectly sincere, and your desires considerably earnest, yet you cannot desire, with all your heart, that God would effectually wean your soul from every secondary source of enjoyment, and fill it exclusively with delight in himself. You may attempt this, or inadvertently suppose you can do it; but if you set yourself to it with grave consideration, you will detect within you, a latent misgiving, a deep and subtle mental reservation, which very sensibly chills the desire, and interferes with its entireness, while you are in the act of breathing it out. Now, it is this very thing, however minute you take it to be, which is the bane of your enjoyment; and until it be discovered, confessed, and forsaken, in its true and proper consistence within' you, and in its certain tendency to practical iniquity, you cannot expect your case to be remedied; for be assured, it is only when desire is free and enlarged, the fair expression of a whole heart, that it proves itself the harbinger of spiritual delight.

This lurking element of evil, which so sensibly represses your spiritual desires, may be of various kinds. It may be the principle of frivolity, or spiritual indolence, or impure affection, or inordinate propensity to the gains, or honours, or dissipating pleasures of this fleeting world, or any one of the nameless forms which inward depravity so often assumes. It may be no more than a single root of bitterness, or it may consist of several acting in conjunction. But, whatever it be, it is latent, deeply imbedded in

the affections of your heart, exerting its pestiferous influence almost entirely unperceived; and unless you are brought to see it in its true and proper enormity, your heart cannot go out to the fountain of all goodness, and the springs of spiritual solacement cannot be opened within you.

Addressing you as a Christian, we know of no stronger motive for urging you to know yourself in this department, than an appeal to your présent unhappy condition. You are in a state of painful uncertainty about your real standing in the sight of God. You enter his sacred presence, and attempt to engage in the acts of his worship, in doubt about the character in which you approach him; you intermeddle with holy things, in a state of dark uncertainty about the relation in which you stand to these holy things; weeks, or months, or years elapse, while the cloud of this uncertainty still continues to envelop your mind, and fill you with distressing anticipations. This is your condition, and it must continue to be so, without the slightest hope of change, so long as you shun the point of inquiry which has been set before you; for a man must know what he is in any circumstances, in order to acquaint himself with what he has to do in these circumstances; and it is only in doing that which becomes him, even under a dispensation of the sovereign grace of God, that his heart can arrive at satisfaction. This is a maxim of practical piety, as well as of common life. To adhere to it, is to follow the dictates of wisdom, and arrive at wisdom's reward; but, to depart from it, is to unsettle your exercise, and render it unavailing. You bewail the want of

religious enjoyment, and in this you are deeply to be sympathized with, for who, that has ever tasted this enjoyment, can cease to lament the loss of it; but, if you neglect all the while to appreciate the gift of God that is in you, or to search out, and ascertain, the opposite agencies which counteract it, you inflict the injury with your own hand, and nurse the very evil of which you complain. By this one omission, which the cause of your uneasiness disposes you to palliate, you deny to God the highest honour which any creature can pay to him; (for it is not the spirit of bondage, but of liberty and delight, which illustrates the true glories of the Christian dispensation :) and do you think it meet, that he should deny himself also, and reward you for doing him dishonour, by lifting up upon you the light of his countenance? Assuredly it is not meet, and common reason might convince you, without the aid of higher arguments, that thus to smile on your perversity, would neither be fit nor desirable. Let experience tell you how the matter stands, and if it shall testify to your face that you fail to peruse the Scriptures, or to utter a prayer, or to enjoy the rest of the Sabbath, or to prosecute the general duties of religion with the special relish of the spiritual man, just because you halt between two opinions, and dare not pronounce yourself a spiritual man, then is it clear as the light of noon, that this is the grand point of inquiry which demands your immediate and earnest attention.

To the question, how shall I attend to it, so as to arrive at a satisfactory result? it may be briefly replied, that the Bible says of men, "by their fruits shall know them," that is, by their appearances of

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conformity or disconformity to the requirements of Christian law. But these appearances are not the test, by which you can arrive at a knowledge of your true character, as converted or unconverted in the

are

sight of God. Appearances of ungodliness may be so uniform, as to be quite decisive against a man's conversion; but appearances of its opposite, however regular or well-sustained, cannot be relied on, as a sure sign that he has passed from death unto life. They may satisfy a Christian brother, who sees not beyond the exterior of character, but they ought not to satisfy you, who furnished with the means, and solemnly charged with the duty, of searching into your heart. But this is not all: the necessity for looking into the heart, is awfully enforced by the consideration, that, in a state of society like ours, there are so many inducements to Christian decency, which have no vital connection with Christianity itself. Open ungodliness is generally checked by the force of a virtuous education, or the prevailing spirit of society, or the influence of settled habit, or the control of a legal conscience, or a constitutional superstition, or a desire for religious respectability, or the hope of success in secular pursuits, among those by whom piety is esteemed. These things, and others like them, are often powerful enough, especially when they operate in combination, to form a character, which man must allow to pass for Christian; although, in the judgment of Him who seeth the heart, it is rejected as spurious, because not a particle of genuine Christianity has entered into its formation.

It is not external actions then, but the spirit of actions, the motives from which they spring, or the