Thirdly, I prove that the unregenerate have no holiness from the Bible. What is the language in which they are then addressed? Is it under the endearing names of children-friends-favorites? No; they have not so much as a promise, or a consolation, from one lid to the other, except on condition of breaking off from their sins. They are called the enemies of God-the heirs of perditionlovers of themselves the degenerate plants of a strange vine-the children of disobedience the men of this world. Open the oracles of Jehovah, my hearers, and judge for yourselves: "The carnal mind is enmity against God." Whose carnal mind? "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." Whose heart? "And God saw that every imagination of the thoughts of man was only evil continually." What is meant by man? "Therefore, they that are in the flesh cannot please God, for to be carnally minded is death." What is the import of this? "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit, for they are foolishness unto him-neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." Can we torture language like this into any softened or qualified meaning? Brethren, I will not tire your patience, nor impeach your candor, by pressing the evidence of the Bible further. The whole volume might be brought to bear upon the same point; but enough has been said-we may sleep on in composed and unsuspicious impenitence-we may cling with the grasp of the second death to the world, but sure I am, that if we believe at all in Revelation, the judgment and the conscience must be convinced.

Fourthly, and finally, I prove that the unregenerate have no holiness from the experience of our own hearts. It is a very singular and alarming fact, that no man who appears to have had his heart changed, is disposed to deny the doctrine; but aside from the testimony of Christians, I wish to appeal to the unregenerate themselves. Let me ask them to stand up at the bar of their consciences for a moment, and surrounded by the solemnities of the presence of God, reply each and every one of them to questions such as these : Are not my affections engrossed decidedly more by some other object, than by the service of my Maker? Have I any thing of that warm and earnest attachment to God, which I have sometimes felt towards an earthly friend? Have I even for a single hour of my life, found more enjoyment in secret religion, than in some favorite worldly scheme ? Am I not really ashamed to take up my cross and follow my Saviour to the sacramental table, and to the self-denials and mortifications of a Christian life? And if I were convinced that my salvation was sure without experimental religion, would not my heart, of its own accord, be satisfied with mere morality, without longing at all for spiritual godliness? My hearers, how you may answer these inquiries, it is not for me to conjecture. If the honest verdict of conscience should be against you, do not put up the visionary pretension of love to God. Do not hunt over the tedious and constrained duties of self-righteousness, which you may have performed for a title to Heaven. Rest assured, that in His eye, who looks into the deepest and darkest workings of the heart, nothing but that heart itself, in all the sincerity of its penitence, and all the cordiality of its love, and all the entireness of its self-surrender, will be received as the evidence of that holiness, "without which no man can see the Lord." Thus have I attempted to exhibit and enforce the true import of the text. I am aware, that some of you may plead a sort of offset to it, by say. ing, that you do many things, and willingly too, which the law of God requires of you. But this, my hearers, is no

preof of genuine love to God. You may do them, not because He requires it, but because it suits your interest, or your humor, or, perhaps, because you are anxious for some such evidence of personal religion. But, suppose your motive be a direct desire to do that which is pleasing to God. Here neither do we find any proof of genuine love. It may be very convenient for me to please the man, whom, in the honest feeling of my heart, I look upon with dislike. The hand may perform a thousand acts of compliance with his will, while the heart, all the time, may regret the necessity to which it is driven. But further still: You may say that you have had within you the consciousness of a sensible love to God. And what sort of Being was He? A God of mere natural perfection-unconnected with the blood of the Cross, and unarmed with the attributes of holiness, and of hatred towards sin? Still, then, your confidence is built upon the sand. The God whom sinners are to love is God in Christ-the Being who bids us sanctify Him in our hearts-who receives us only on our knees, and in the dust -who calls to us from the Throne of His holiness, " Come out from the world, and be separate, and I will be unto you a Father, and ye shall be unto me for sons and for daughters." If we have done so, well-if not, no plea, and no apology we can urge, will shield us from the sweeping imputation of having a carnal mind, which is enmity against Him.

There are those, undoubtedly, who will feel a sensible recoil from so severe and humiliating a doctrine, and all I can say to palliate the representation, is, that it comes from the pages of the Bible. It is a doctrine, which lies at the base of Christianity. It is one of those doctrines which the apostles spent their lives in preaching-which clung to the witnesses of the truth in the vallies of Piedmont and Savoy -which attended Huss, and Jerome, and Hamilton, to the stake-which cheered Hooper, Ridley, Cranmer, and Latimer, in the fires of martyrdom-and which are now moving on, self-impelled, to fill and enrapture the universe with the mercy, and glory, and love of God. Upon ourselves, too, it seems to me, that the sentiment we have been discussing applies with a most solemn emphasis. It is easy, indeed, to look around among acquaintances and friends, and while the dignity of their visible accomplishments meets the eye, to forget that any thing more is required of them. But O, when the Bible comes along with its disclosureswhen it tears aside the guise of all our external decencies and virtues, and reveals the mountain of sin that lies beneath them-when it proclaims in a voice of ten thousand thunders, that the carnal mind is enmity against God, and that we may get very near to the kingdom of Heaven, and yet never step over the threshold then it is, that we find the overwhelming importance of spiritual religion-then we realize at once, what must have been the feelings of Jesus Christ, when he cried with tears of solicitude, over Jerusalem, "O that thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong to thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes."

After all, however, there is one consolation which enli. vens the most oppressive view of the subject, and that is, the fountain of mercy is still open. Still may the sinner approach-still is the voice of invitation resounding through the ranks of wretchedness and guilt. And are there none here who will listen-who will believe, that to-day is the accepted time? My hearers, how you may feel, I cannot tell, but I confess, there is upon my mind, I know not what inpression, that we are not always to remain so completely unmelted and unmoved. There must be a time coming, at least, I hope in God there may be, when we shall start up from our lethargy-when the inquiry shall pass from one to the other of us, What shall I do to be saved?-and when absorbed in the visions of eternity, many a poor unpardoned sinner within these walls, shall cause the angels of Heaven to rejoice that he has repented. "Why will ye die, O house of Israel?"