have, though you have but little comfortable sense of it, and little other evidence of piety: it may be you dare trust your soul to your Saviour without reserve, and feel a strong persuasion towards his mercy, because you know him to be gracious and yourself a miserable sinner, though you

have but little evidence as to other christian exercises, and generally fear that you are a stranger to regeneration.

:

We certainly think, then, you ought to be encouraged; your faith may be real, though very weak and real faith is certainly connected with regeneration. How is it in the first birth? The infant that only breathes, has, as really, the principles of life as the full grown man; but he needs more nursing, and so it is with the weak believer. How unreasonable then, if you are so weak, to refuse to be strengthened? What a great mistake to lie still and wait for more strength in the neglect of means, when those means are the very food you need to give the strength in question!

Finally: what a solemn and pressing necessity urges those who have not been made partakers of regeneration! Suppose it were now announced from heaven, my friends, that not one of you should ever see a mo

ment's cessation from pain, nor go from this house with life, except you should, within a given time, procure a pass from some authorized individual-suppose this, and yet that many of you should not stir, but calmly

suffer the time to pass and remain as you are; what would be the conclusion as to your state of intellect or your feelings! We have reason to think, however, that such is the case of many, in relation to the great concern of regeneration: It has been announced to be indispensably necessary to procure it in life, or to perish forever! Worlds are suspended on this condition, and yet multitudes do not stir, nor seem anxious. What can be the reason? Do you not yet believe it necessary? or is it mere stupidity? Either conclusion is dreadful. That must be a fearful depth of depravity which can induce security under the admission of these truthsand as to calling them in question-oh! friends, it must not be done. We beg you to think again of the proofs; we beg of you to look around and sum up all the observations you have ever made on this subject, and say, if you can doubt, that there is a reality in regeneration and a necessity for it! Has not God said it is necessary? Has not every soul yet

found it so ? Is it not then necessary for

Then why this awful neglect in irreligion? Why this strange indifference in danger? Do not tell us you can do nothing for your new birth, and therefore you are excusable-that even to-day it has been declared, it must be of God. If it be so, that does not remove your danger: If it be so, your guilt remains; and equally strange is it still, that you should be unconcerned. But as the present is not the place for entering into this subject, do let us be careful not to loose sight of the main point: you must be born again, sinner, and dreadful is your danger-awful and imminent is your cause of alarm, if you be not!

Look back and reflect! have you not really reason to fear that some, whom you once knew, have gone, or are now rapidly going down to hell, in consequence of neglecting just such truths as these? They heard-they admitted perhaps; but they did not feel, and now they are gone far from righteousness, or already beyond the reach of mercy; and shall it be so with you? Can you bear to look forward a few more fleeting days, and

see yourselves in the same condition ?-dy

ing without hope, or standing before God's

bar, and not one poor excuse to offer that you did not attain to religion! Oh! my friends, these are awful subjects the Lord enable you to feel them!

and may

Amen.

LECTURE X.

FAITH AND REPENTANCE.

ACTS xx. 21.

Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ.

It would be wrong, in a course of Theological Lectures, to pass over the great subjects of faith and repentance. It might be imagined perhaps, that themes on which we so frequently dwell, scarce needed a formal discussion. But you may recollect, my young friends, that John wrote to his disciples, not "because they knew not the truth; but because they knew it." (1 John, ii. 2.) And it will be well to consider too, that the reason why these truths are so often brought before you, is their immeasurable importance in the christian system.

It would be well then, not only to be familiar with the terms faith and repentance, but to understand their import, and to be able to