serpent, and had instant bodily health, so, says Christ -it is not my assumption, it is the speech of Christ himself he that looks and trusts on Jesus hath everlasting life. And you may depend upon it he who has this unction, who is thus saved, will begin to live holy as he will be sure to live happy all the days of his life hereafter.

I have thus shown you that these truths--these great truths, which the mere professor receives as cold dogmas, the person who has this unction of the Holy One receives as living, comforting, sanctifying, regulating truth. That is the whole difference. I cannot explain any more to you; but I will say this, that if at present you only receive this as a cold creed, you may receive it as a warm, heartfelt impression by asking what is given to you without money and without price -the unction or the teaching of the Holy One.

And in conclusion let me add, we thus see the reason why some persons persevere in the truth and in the Christian life, and why other persons leave it. If you will notice the verse before my text, you will see how this is. John says "They went out from us; but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us." That explains why some men, loud professors, now begin to desert the cause of Christ; and why other men, who seem to know the truth, begin to apostatize to deadly superstition. The reason is just this-that they had everything except this unction of the Holy One; and that which will enable us to persevere in the love of the Saviour, in allegiance to his name, in the possession of all the joys,

the hopes, and the blessings of Christianity, is just this divine unction.

We see, in the second place, the reason why one person goes away saying, "It is all true-it is true enough;" and why another goes away saying, "I feel that I am a sinner to-day as I never felt it before; I feel eternity to be to-day what I never saw it before; I see in Jesus just a Saviour that meets my case as I never saw him before." The reason is, that one has heard with the outer ear, and that the other has heard with the unction of the Holy One-the Holy Spirit has applied it to his heart-two have been grinding at the mill, the one has been taken, and the other left.

We see also in these words why so many poor and ignorant persons become true Christians, while highly educated minds often neglect and despise the Gospel. Were Christianity a difficult problem-were it like a theorem or a problem in mathematics-anything that required a powerful mind to unravel or to disentangle, or to elucidate, then only great minds would be great Christians; but we see often that God has chosen not many rich, not many noble; and you remember how Whitfield—with all his eccentricity a great and a devoted man-said that he heard the founder of the communion he belonged to-the Countess of Huntingdon-say that she blessed God for the letter " in "not many noble are called."

m,"

So we bless God, while we see that not many of the great of this world are called, we do see that many amongst the highest classes of society are brought to the knowledge of the Saviour, and become the brightest specimens of true and living religion. Now why is that? Just to show that it is not force of

intellect, it is not stores of wealth that can make a man a Christian, but the unction of the Holy One. And the explanation why that gifted philosopher goes away a stranger to the Gospel, and why that poor day-labourer embraces it, and goes out to his hard work with a merry heart, is that the Holy Spirit has been asked by the one, and therefore given; and that the other has trusted to his own intellect, and thought he could obtain by its light that which can only be inspired by the Holy Spirit of God.

We see, in the next place, why a Christian gives the greatest prominence to great and essential truths. You will notice that a man who is a mere professor, or who has not felt the Gospel at all, attaches immense importance to the robe that a priest wears, to the form of worship, and to the outward and ceremonial observances of religion; but you will find that a true Christianone who has felt the preciousness of these truths that I have spoken of, attaches very little importance to it indeed; these things become less and less in his estimate in the ratio in which grand truths dilate into greater and more overwhelming magnificence Before I knew what the Gospel was fully, I was very much attached to the Church-just as I see others who do not know the Gospel very violent partisans of Dissent; but now I see men, whether Churchmen or Dissenters, who receive into their hearts the unction of the Holy One; one lofty subject occupies their hearts, and it seems as if they had risen to the sunlit table-land, on which they can see Christ alone, and him to be all and in all. We see what is needed to allay all disputes of the different partisans and sects of religionnot more light, not more reading, not more acquain

tance with the Fathers, not deeper study of Patristic writings, but more of the unction of the Holy One. Then, my dear friends, let us pray that the Holy Spirit would teach ministers and people; let us pray that we may be anointed with the unction of that blessed Spirit; let us pray that he would accompany the word with power as it is addressed to the outward ear; and the problems of the world will become the axioms of the Christian; what puzzles and perplexes the one will seem clear and plain to the other; the cold conviction of the soul will become the fruitful and blessed impression of the heart; and you will see and know that the Gospel is no empty utterance, Christianity no dream, but the truth of God, and the joy of all believers. you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children"-I appeal to fathers in this assembly, Jesus says, "how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit unto them that ask him?"

"If

Blessed Spirit! give us that unction; be thou our Teacher and our Comforter, and great shall be the joy of thy children taught of thee.

Unto him be praise, and honour, and glory. Amen.

1.

CHAPTER III.

LOVE AND LAW.

We have learned the greatness and the sovereignty of that love which God hath shown to us, the chiefest of sinners, in translating us from the kingdom of darkness into sonship and participation of himself. Then says the apostle, "Now are we the sons of God." What a dignity is this! what a sublime and blessed relationship! We may be the sons of the poor and the obscure in this world; but if we be Christians we have a signature that the world cannot give and that the world never can erase; we are made the sons of God. If we be God's sons, then what should be our feeling towards him? absence of fear, of dread, of terror, of awe. Religion becomes corrupt in proportion as it becomes an atmosphere of gloom, depression, and terror. If we be not Christians, we have nothing to hope for; if we be Christians, we are the sons of a Father who has loved us with an everlasting love; and with him, therefore, we should walk not as the maniac walks with his keeper, not as the slave walks with his tyrant master, but as a child walks with his parent; perfect confidence in his love, his wisdom, his power to protect him, and the fulfilment of his promise to bless him evermore. "Now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear