the sufficiency of the foundation on which our hopes are built, not shifting sand, but solid rock,-the foundation of which Jehovah himself hath said"Behold, I lay in Zion, for a foundation, a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation; and he that believeth on him shall not be ashamed."

You will tell me, perhaps, that your affections are not as they ought to be they are so cold, so dead, so inadequate to the extent of your obligations and the merits and claims of their object, and altogether you are conscious of such failures, that-how can you have peace?-To those, then, who speak thus (and many such there are) I would say, not in scorn, but with all affection:

First: Remember, that the exercise of your affections towards Christ is not to be your justifying righteousness;-no, nor any part of it. It is not to be, in any degree whatever, the ground of your hope towards God. It is HE who is the object of your faith and love that constitutes that ground, even CHRIST HIMSELF, in his perfect righteousness and atoning blood.-See, then, that you keep these things distinct; for many have, perhaps unconsciously, confounded them, and, by confounding them, have been "led into darkness and not into light."

Secondly: Although love to Christ is the effect and evidence of faith, so that there is no faith where there is no love,-I hope you never will come to think of yourselves, that you love him sufficiently; with a love at all adequate to his deserts, or to your own obligations:-for while you live on earth, this will never be true; and even in heaven itself, although your heart shall be as full of love as it can hold, yet, when measured by the deserts of its object, even such love will ever be far beneath them; for these deserts are infinite, and the love which would be a suitable return for them would require

to be exercised by an infinite mind :—a created soul, however enlarged and however holy, can never contain it. I trust, moreover, that you will never cease to fear lest your love should cool, exposed as it is, in this world, to so many refrigeratory influences. The very fear of not loving arises from love, and from an impression of the high claims of its object; and this description of self-jealousy is included in the saying before cited, “ Blessed is the man that feareth always."

Thirdly: How is it that the affections are to be excited, and maintained in lively exercise, towards their objects?-How are they elevated and invigorated towards an earthly object? Is it by sitting down to muse on how you have felt in former times, or how you are feeling now? No; it is by thinking of your friend; by recollecting in your own mind, and recounting to others, his various excellencies-every thing in him and about him, that is fitted to attract, and fix, and strengthen attachment. So should it be in regard to your heavenly friend. It is not by brooding over the state of your own minds and hearts, that your love to Him is to be confirmed and animated-it is by "looking unto Jesus"-by thinking of him, reading of him, speaking of him, praising him; by dwelling on his love to you, rather than on yours to him; and above all, let me say, by actively serving him, in all the duties of life. Your great error lies in making happy frames and feelings too much your object or aim. But "I am well persuaded, that, speaking generally, they will be found to enjoy such frames most habitually, who think least about them. The true way to the possession of them is, not setting them up before us as the object to which our en deavours are to be directed, but living a life of operative faith upon the Son of God, resting with firmness and simplicity on his finished work. and

under the influence of humble gratitude and love to his name, constantly and diligently doing his will, and promoting his glory?" Follow this course, and the joy of the Lord will be your strength.' If you court assurance, and follow after comfortable frames, as the object of direct pursuit, doing what you can to produce them in your minds, you are not likely to find them. But look unto Jesus" not in the way of mere indolent contemplation, but as the ground of your hopes, the source of your happiness, your motive to active duty, and your example in the performance of it; and they will come spontaneously.

Fourthly: All our self-inquiry, if conducted on right principles, will lead us to Jesus. When you bring yourselves to the test of God's law, and perceive and feel that, when tried by that standard, there is nothing for you but despair, what should be the effect, but to "shut you up" the more to Him, as your only refuge, and your only hope ?— And when you try yourselves by the Bible description of the Christian character, and are still conscious (as who is not?) of sad and multiplied deficiencies; let this operate in two ways:-let it deepen still farther your humble impression of your need of his propitiatory blood and abounding mercy; convincing you that even the character of the renewed nature, in any stage of its advancement, will never do for you to stand in before God:-and let it impart to your minds a still livelier sense of the value of his name, as your plea at the throne of grace, for that divine influence which is needful, to enlighten what is dark, to supply what is wanting, to correct what is erroneous, to purify what is corrupt, to spiritualize what is earthly, to elevate what is depressed, to invigorate what is weak, to confirm what is unstable, to keep you from temptation, and to deliver you from evil. And as to your experience

what is the use you should make of it? Are you to trust in it? No; but only to draw from it encouragement to return to the source from which it was derived. If it was legitimate and scriptural, that source was Christ. The Holy Spirit makes CHRIST the spring of all that he acknowledges as Christian experience; and then, keeping the believing soul still to one point, makes that experience the attraction back to Christ.

3. There may be some, who, prompted by curiosity, or by various other motives, may read these pages, that are careless about their own interest in the important matters discussed in them. I call them important. Who will dispute it? Their importance is unutterable. Yet, while every sound judgment assents to this; alas! with what listlessness they are generally regarded! Men hear, and sometimes read, discussions about eternal life, as if it were a matter in which they had no personal concern-a mere theme for disputatious theologians, and Sunday declaimers. What is said about it is often listened to with incomparably less interest than is discovered respecting any of the trivial every-day concerns of this world's accommodation. But let me beseech you, my careless reader, with affectionate solicitude, not officially, but as a friend, to recollect the solemn fact, a fact which you can neither gainsay nor alter, that you are in possession of an existence that is never to end; and that the present life is the time for settling the question, whether this eternal existence is to be to you an eternity of happiness or of wo! The very possiq bility of this alternative depending on your present transitory and precarious life, should make you serious, and in earnest. Yet, are you not attending to, and settling, every day, questions of this world's personal, domestic, commercial, and political economy, while you are leaving uninvestigated and unde

cided inquiries relative to that never-ending state on which every instant you know not but you may enter? To-morrow itself, on which you are reckoning as a part of your present life, may to you be a part, not of time, but of eternity-a fixed and immutable eternity! Are you, then, acting wisely?

are you acting consistently with that reason, which is your boasted distinction from the brute creation?-Yet, while living thus, you may be professing to believe the Bible to be God's word. Surely you cannot be in earnest. It must be profession only. If you really believed it to be from God, you never could trifle as you do with its contents. To profess this belief, and thus to trifle, is, you must be sensible, the most open and flagrant insult to its divine Author; an insult, such as you yourselves would not bear from a fellow creature. And if you really knew and believed the contents of this divine record, you could not remain as you are, careless about the eternal results which it brings before you, and of which it assures you with such equal fidelity of denunciation and promise. The question, who have, and who have not eternal life, is a question decided in this book with the most unwavering explicitness. There is no dubiety left hanging over it" He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." "The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand: he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; he that believeth not the Son, shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him :" Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdoin of God." These declarations stand on record in this book. You cannot be wise in treating them with lightness, till you have carefully examined, and deliberately set aside, as proved to be futile, all the evidence of its divine original. They are interest