must sink yourselves into the very lowest depths of hopeless misery. If you perish—and you cannot perish but by your own obstinate refusal of a salvation, ready to be bestowed on you if you will but accept of it-your perdition will be no ordinary perdition. The awful declarations of the Apocalypse will be realized in your experience: "The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night."1 But, oh, why should it be so? God has no "pleasure in your death;" he swears by his life that he has not. He wills you to turn from your evil ways, and live. If you perish, you must be self-destroyers. "Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die?" Be no longer disobedient to the word of mercy. Receive it gladly, gratefully; and in receiving it you will receive the Saviour and his salvation. The feast of gospel grace is set before you, and urged on your acceptance: "O taste and see that the Lord is good." May the good Spirit render effectual the invitation of the word, and induce you all to take of the bread and the water of life freely, that, eating and drinking, you may live for ever. 1 Rev. xiv. 10, 11. NOTE A. Saxo quod adhuc vivum radice tenetur.-OVID. Met. xiv. 714. vivoque sedilia saxo.-VIRG. Æn. i. 171. ALEX. MORUS' note is curious:-" Apud Ethnicos quoque lapidum vivorum reperies mentionem, λιθους εμψυχους. Plutarchus de fluminibus non semel vocat lapides vivos, inter quos parvdetλov Eurotæ proprium lapidem nominat, qui tuba sonante, prosilebat, ad ripam scilicet; Atheniensium autem audito nomine, mergebatur in profundum. Nec minus fabulosa quæ Suidas habet de Heraisco Ægyptio Philosopho qui rite dignoscere calleret αγαλματα τα ζωντα, και μη ζωντα vel αψυχα και αμοιρα θειας επιπνοιας. Contra Petrus fideles vere lapides vivos vere spirantes ac loquentes, Dei statuas spirituales et participes eas evoιas hic dixit." Notæ ad quædam loca N. F. p. 210. NOTE B. -ELS Προσκόπτουσι. Απείθουντες. Horum autem verborum prius designat proprie pœnam, posterius culpam; pronomen autem ad quod refertur ad prius, non ad posterius. Improbos destinavit Deus CAPPELLUS. ad pœnam non ad culpam. 66 Προσκοπτουσι ATTEιOUTES: " the former of these words designates punishment; the latter, sin. The pronoun ó-es & refers to the former, not to the latter. God appoints the wicked to punishment, not to sin. Some anti-Calvinists have found in these words a proof, that even they who perish through unbelief were appointed to salvation. They refer ó, in the teeth of grammar, to λoyos; and try to bring out, or rather put in, the sense, to use the words of one of them, a very worthy Lutheran, HEMMINGIUS: "Etsi illis destinata erat salutis promissio, tamen non crediderunt." It is sad when the love of system leads good men thus to "pervert" the word of God. "Mens Petri est: Hoc infidelium præsertim Judæorum scandalum et рooкoμμа, ad Christum lapidem angularem dudum a prophetis, Christo, aliisque assertum et prædictum esse."-Jer. viii. 14, 15. Matt. xxi. 42, 44. Luke ii. 34. Rom. ix. 32, 33.-KYPKE, ii. 430. DISCOURSE IX. A SECOND FIGURATIVE VIEW OF THE STATE AND CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANS, WITH APPROPRIATE EXHORTATIONS. 1 PET. ii. 11, 12.-Dearly beloved, I beseech you, as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul; having your conversation honest among the Gentiles; that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation. THESE two verses, which form one sentence, bring before our minds a very important department of Christian duty; to the illustration and enforcement of which it is our intention to devote this discourse. The subject naturally divides itself into two parts; an injunction of duty, and a statement of the motives which urge compliance with that injunction. The duty enjoined is twofold: abstinence from fleshly lusts, and having their conversation honest among the Gentiles. The motives are these: "Ye are strangers and pilgrims." "These lusts war against the soul;" and abstinence from them, and the maintenance of an "honest conversation among the Gentiles," have a tendency to overcome their prejudices against both you and your religion, and to lead them to "glorify God in the day of visitation." To unfold, then, the meaning of these injunctions, and to point out the force of these motives, are the two objects which I have in view in the following remarks. 1. THE DUTIES ENJOINED. § 1.-Abstinence from "fleshly lusts.” The first duty enjoined in the text is, "Abstinence from fleshly lusts." Lusts, in the New Testament use of that word, signify desires; strong desires; usually, inordinate, unduly strong desires. The phrase "fleshly lusts" is often considered as meaning, desires for sensual enjoyment; desires which obtain their gratification by means of bodily organs. This is, however, very unduly to limit the signification of the term. Among the "works of the flesh," which are just the lusts of the flesh embodied, we find enumerated, "hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies," as well as "adultery, fornication, uncleanness, and lascivious Flesh is the principal constituent of the human body, and the body is the visible part of the compound being, man. Hence flesh comes to be used for human nature, or mankind." All mankind, since the fall, are depraved beings; and hence flesh is often, especially in the epistolary part of the New Testament, used to signify fallen human nature, or mankind as depraved.3 Agreeably to this use of the term flesh, fleshly desires signify those desires which characterise mankind as depraved, which belong to, and are distinctive of, fallen human nature, what are elsewhere termed "worldly lusts."4 The desires, including under that name the appetites and the passions, as well as those principles of which the word desires is the appropriate technical name, form a very important part of our active nature, and are fitted to serve 1 Gal. v. 19-21. 2 Gen. vi. 13. Psal. lvi. 4. Matt. xxiv. 22. Rom. iii. 20. John i. 14. numerous useful and benevolent purposes. The desire of meat and of drink; the desire of knowledge; the desire of esteem; the desire of power; the desire of property, and other desires of a similar kind, belong essentially to human nature, and are as much the gifts of God as reason or conscience; and, like these higher faculties, are plainly intended and calculated to minister to man's improvement and happiness. Some of these desires, as belonging to man as an embodied being, may be termed fleshly, as they cannot exist in purely spiritual beings; but these are not the desires here referred to. God never requires impossibilities; and to abstain from the desires we have mentioned is an impossibility. Those desires are neither virtuous nor vicious. They are parts of our constitution, which ought to be regulated and restrained when they come in competition with more important principles, which, in a perfect state of human nature, they never would. To eradicate them, if the thing were possible, which I believe it is not, would not be to improve, but to mutilate human nature. The amputation of arms and legs would not at all add to the beauty and usefulness of the human body; and just such an improvement on the mind, would be the depriving it of any of those active powers with which its infinitely wise and benignant Author has endowed it. That were to make us "new creatures," in a sense very different indeed from that in which the Apostle uses the term. Our In no part of our nature has the malignant influence of the fall been more apparent, than in our moral or active faculties; and in none of these active powers do we discern clearer marks of degeneration than in our desires. desires, in very many instances, seek their gratification in objects, the pursuit of which is proscribed by God, as his will is indicated by reason, by conscience, or by an express revelation; and where the object of desire is not in itself improper, the desire itself is often foolish, in consequence of its being disproportioned to the real or comparative value of |