earthly wishes. They are carnally minded, which is death. They have sown unto the flesh, and of the flesh they shall reap corruption.

And this, I would have you to observe, is the consummation of their present being and living :-not because they have lived either in profane or openly profligate wickedness, but simply because they have lived without God; because they have made earth their sole desire and resting place, and were altogether pleased with what is perishable; their general habits have marked them to be citizens of earth and not of heaven; and shown that this world is the alone repository of their interests and their hopes, without one pilgrim's sigh, and far less one pilgrim's step towards the land of eternity. Now, were we to put it to their choice-and, let me add, my brethren, let each individual of you put it to your own choice, that you may try yourselves whether you are indeed in the faith-were we to put it to the choice of all, whether, if all were prosperous here, is it not here that they would like to live for ever? It would bring, or be a step to bring, their affections to the test, and decide the question-whether they are carnally or spiritually minded. Let the proposal be made, that with health and fortune, and friendship, and the bloom of perpetual youth, and the pleasures of a joyous companionship and the blessings of an affectionate family, there should be the elixir of immortality poured into your added to all the allurements scattered over the face of this goodly world, so full of sweets and the sunshine of endearments, you should be permitted to expatiate here for ever: tell me, if upon these terms you would not cleave with the fondest tenacity to your present existence, and be willing to live all wrecklessly, as heretofore, of that God from whom every gift proceeds? Would you not be glad to take your everlasting leave of your Maker? and could you only be spared the encounter with that hideous death which disembodies the soul, and conveys it to the world of spectres, would you not prefer to sojourn and spend your eternity in this more congenial land, than pass the bounds of the grave? In other words, would you not prefer, that God and you should be everlastingly quit of each other, rather than that you should be wrested from

cup,

your tenement of clay, and deprived of your footing upon that territory where alone those earthly enjoyments abound which are suited to your earthly senses? Tell me, if you could not forego heaven and all its psalmody freely, to be fairly let alone; for the sake of a lasting and undisturbed inheritance in this vain world, would you not agree that God should withdraw himself in eternal oblivion into his everlasting courts from you, and that you should be eternal outcasts from God's spiritual tabernacles?

You may plead an apology-an apology, perhaps, which many of you may feel at this moment; you may plead an apology, that in choosing earth rather than heaven, you are but making the universal choice of nature; and it is from this choice that we gather the strongest internal argument for the truth of Christianity, and a concession from those against whom we argue. It is a most striking concession in favour of a principle uniformly and strenuously insisted on throughout the whole of the Bible, that of the disruption of man from God, by the fall, and the state of distance and moral alienation in which we live from God, and man's rebellion against God. It is, indeed, very true, that in choosing earth rather than heaven, you make but the universal choice of nature, and this, my brethren, only proves the truth of this great Bible position-that nature is in a state of exile from God, and that there is, indeed, a wide disruption between the planet on which we dwell and the rest of God's unfallen creation. It only proves that you are yet of the flesh and not of the spirit, and that you have not made the mighty transition that is yet to take place, by which the affections are carried upwards from the dust of this perishable world, to that upper sanctuary where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God, and where God sitteth on a throne that is at once a throne of grace and of righteousness. If that be your case, be assured you are not in a state in which it will do for you to die, it will not do in the day when there will be no such earth as that you now inhabit left for you, after the present economy is dissolved, and succeeded, on the one hand, by a heaven wherein the soul will find all to be sacred and seraphic ecstacy; and on the other, a hell, where all

is the defiance and desperation of rooted, and resolved and implacable ungodliness.

Such a middle region as the one we at present occupy, where the creature enjoys himself amid the Creator's gifts, and cares not for the Giver, cannot long be tolerated. It is an anomaly on the face of the creation, and as such, will be swept away; meanwhile, according to the processes of my text, your pursuits, to which you are fixed, are those which connect your dying hour with one or other of the two destinies hereafter. If you sow unto the flesh, you will of the flesh reap corruption; but if you sow unto the spirit, you will of the spirit reap life everlasting.

We have hitherto used the term corruption in the sense given to it in the text; that is, the property of being perishable and transitory. That is the real meaning of it here; and here we conclude, in a few words, without adopting the common sense of the term, as denoting the property being criminal and faulty, that I think that in vindicating the jurisprudence of heaven we are here on very high vantage-ground; but it is impossible that I can at present enter at great length upon the subject to prove that to live to the flesh or to be carnally minded is not only corrupt, in the sense of transitory, but corrupt also, in the sense of criminal. There could be no difficulty in proving it to be criminal if we had time to enter into it. It could be triumphantly demonstrated, I think, that to enjoy the gifts of God and to live in continual neglect of the Giver is just the great master crime, the great master delinquency of the creature. But I confine myself very much to the term corruption in the sense that that which is corrupt is perishable or transitory; I cannot afford at present to expatiate on the word corrupt in its spiritual meaning, but let me give one remark, it is this-that the man who soweth unto the flesh, or, in other words, labours to secure some earthly enjoyment, shall reap only corruption, or reap only that which at length passes away from him or ceases any longer to be. Now all this is in perfect keeping with all the analogies of nature in human life; and do not think that I am urging a doctrine by which I do outrage and violence to all the analogies of nature and experience, because

In

it is a doctrine that completely harmonises with them all. If you sow unto the flesh, or labour for that which is only temporary, verily you may have your reward. As is your labour, so is your enjoyment. I say it is in utter violation of all the analogies of nature and experience to think, that, as the fruit of all that you labour for, you are to be put into possession of something of quite a different nature. It is inconsistent with all experience, and in utter violation of all analogy, that if you have laboured intensely for any one object, which is comprised in sowing to the flesh, the upshot should be that you should be landed in the possession of those enjoyments which you never cared for and which you never sought after-the spiritual and everlasting enjoyments of heaven. I say, then, it is the proper result, that by sowing unto the flesh a man shall reap corruption. This is the proper result, and the course of all things-it is the proper result of the course on which he has entered. It is in conformity with all that is taking place elsewhere in all the paths of the activity and exertions of men. all things it is found that as the aim is, so is the accomplishment, if the aim and design and exertion succeed. The school-boy seeks for amusement and he finds it. He gets the one thing his heart is set upon, but not another thing, he gets not the acquisition of a fortune, for example, in the pursuit of amusement. The daughter, of many graces, and many accomplishments, seeks for distinction in the circles of fashion, and that may be gained, but you would never look for the realization of such an aim and enterprise in distinction in the world of politics. The citizen looks forward in perspective, and labours in the busy walks of merchandize for the sum of money which he thinks will satiate the ambition of his nature. This he may reach; but surely this will not give him literary eminence. And so, in reference to every other case, every other path of exertion; as is the seeking, so is the finding. The man of business does not get a name in philosophy. The man of letters does not get to the pinnacle of affluence. The man of victory in war does not obtain the glory which is achieved by the man of discovery in science. And so, to use a designation comprehensive of them all, the man of the world realises some one or other of the world's objects, but

he does not realise the things or the interests which belong to heaven. Verily he hath his reward: he may have gotten what he sought after, and he has no right to complain if he hath not gotten what he never did seek after. He attains the appropriate termination of his path. Time and eternity were both set before him; he made choice of time instead of courting eternity. To him, time was the prize, and his eternity is now a blank; and it were a violation of all the analogies of human experience if it were otherwise. It is thus, if we had time to illustrate the theme a little further, that a flood of light might be thrown upon the position that not because a man's actions are criminal

we are not charging him with that-but simply because his affections are earthly; not because in the deeds of his hands there has been aught of the vile, but simply because in the desires of his heart there has been nought of the spiritual; not because he has done that which should disgrace him in this world of sinners, which is soon to pass away, but simply because he has neither sought after a place in, nor laboured in the work of preparation for, that world of saints which is to remain in brightness for ever and ever. On these grounds alone, and without the imputation of any notorious delinquency of character at all, there is many a respectable citizen who, viewed in reference to his occupations in life and to his capacities as an immortal creature, has lived all his days in a state of utter negation and nakedness; and who, when overtaken by death, will find himself on the margin of an unprepared-for eternity, which will open upon him with nought in its mighty and unexplored vastness but the dark imagery of utter desolation, and ruin, and despair.

I should be exceeding the text were I not only to attempt to point out, as a third lesson, that sowing to the flesh is corrupt in the sense that it is transitory, and leaves you completely unprovided with the higher objects and interests of another world, but were I to attempt furthermore to prove that to sow unto the flesh were also criminal. You observe, then, were it only corrupt in the sense of what is being transitory, then the appropriate upshot of such a life of folly and indulgence would be evanescence; but instead of that, we are taught in Scripture that it is a