In order, then, to enforce upon ourselves and one another the duty we are under to overcome this aversion to the Gospel, we must ascertain the spring from whence it flows, and the influences by which it is fed. It springs then, as we have already incidentally remarked, from our innate pride. Pride is a principle which invariably centres in self, and therefore, so long as it is indulged, it is impossible that such a system can be embraced which demands the entire surrender of ourselves, and the total relinquishment of all pretension to merit or desert. The religions which men in heathen or idolatrous lands have devised for themselves have always been such as required no real self-abasement, but were invested with a pomp and ostentation rather flattering than wounding to the vanity of the heart. Even that frightful rite of that religion which impels a husband to immolate himself upon his wife's funeral pyre, has something in it which humours the love of applause and the thirst for praise. There is a pageantry and circumstance connected with the hideous suicide that gives an ugly dignity to the strange transaction, and even the victim feels that there is a kind of martyr-glory in being surrounded by gazing dupes, and gabbling priests, while his charred bones split in the roaring flames. But not even this questionable distinction is secured by embracing the Gospel of Christ. False religions be embraced through pride, this Gospel cannot be embraced till pride is mortified. Once be convinced, then, that the Gospel of Christ is the only way of salvation, the first step to its espousal must be the relinquishment of pride. Now, in this place it is not likely that there is one who would not admit in the abstract, that no man can be saved but by receiving this Gospel; and yet there are doubtless not a few who have not embraced it, but who yet hope for salvation. They are not ashamed, in short, to look for the blessings which the Gospel secures, and yet they are ashamed to take the Gospel that secures them. We often hear men say they do not think that God, who is so full of pity and of love for sinners, will be severe to punish them, though they do still live in sin. Now, we have no wish to present God in a stern or forbidding aspect to any man; but we must say this, that He will not receive into His kingdom-where nothing that defileth comes; He will not receive as a child of His own, that man who has all

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his life been a servant of Satan, and a citizen of hell. Be not deceived; though God is slow to anger and of great mercy, He is not mocked. He will not have His Spirit grieved, and His mercy spurned, and yet not punish; and more than this, His love for His own family is such, that He will not have its harmony destroyed by the admission of those who were ashamed of it in its days of lowliness and trial. Those who all through life have cried, we will not have this man to reign over us," will be taken at their word, and banished from the kingdom they have despised, to the region and the service they chose for themselves. Let us beware how we profess to hope in God's mercy, while we refuse to accept it, lest when He has given us over to our idols, and we have filled up the measure of our sins, we find in the great trying hour, that He who would have saved us, only laughs at our calamity, and mocks when our fear cometh.

And it is not an uncommon thing to hear men say they dare not come to Christ; they have been such great sinners, that they are sure He will not receive them, or have compassion upon them. Now, contradictory as it may seem, much of this language of self-reproach springs from pride. Those who thus speak of themselves, would feel insulted if any one else were to attach such language to them, or apply the same names to them, by which they call themselves. And generally, the fact is, they do not mean what they say, and only parade, in melancholy phrase, the sins whose vileness they do not feel, to avoid the deeper and more genuine self-abasement required in seeking pardon at the cross. Yes, pride is the great barrier between man and Christ. If we could but follow Jesus amidst the praise of men; if we could but trip jauntily along in His footsteps, unharrassed by a thorny road, and carrying all our own inclinations with us, we should crowd after Him and besiege the very doors of His kingdom. But when it comes to taking up the cross, when we have to come in all our nakedness and sin, confessing that we are feeble, and helpless, and undone, then Pride comes in and shudders at the vulgar spectacle, and we turn away into the byepaths, and winding ways, which, as surely as they turn us back from Christ, will lead, if we follow them out, to the blackness of darkness for ever. Now, until this barrier be removed, we shall

never even see, much less come to Christ. Nothing but the mighty power of God's Holy Spirit can strike it down. This power may be obtained by earnest prayer. Let those, then, who have reason to hope that their pride has, in some degree, yielded to its force, be often at the mercy-seat, praying that it may be increasingly sustained and strengthened, that still brighter glimpses may be caught of the riches of the glory and the fulness of the love of Christ. And let those whose stubborn hearts have never melted at a feeling of ingratitude-who have been resorting to false excuses to conceal their pride from men, and so to gild it over with a mock humility as almost to hide it from themselves, listen to that warning voice you have been stifling all this time; that voice which so often makes your heart misgive you, and shows to you your true self so faithfully; listen to it, nor try to drown its accents in the clamour of self-deception, but believe it when it tells you that, however great you may think yourself, with whatever dignity your vanity may have clothed you in your own esteem, you must come a broken-hearted suppliant to the cross-you must come vile and leprous to the fountain set open for uncleanness, and amongst the other filthy elements, from which you there must purge yourself, must be the very dignity you thought belonged to you, and the pride which made you deem yourself illustrious.

There is a modern school of mystics, in which now-a-days numbers, especially of young men, are graduating, caught by its highsounding technicalities—which would place reason on the throne of Revelation-which would desecrate Jehovah's vessel with the turbid nostrums of an unmeaning lore, and would send a false and dwarfish philosophy, to minister with unhallowed hands at the mysterious and colossal shrines of the sanctuary of faith. To this school belong that class of men, who make a great parade of thinking for themselves; young men who see something chivalrous and daring in going against what good men think sacred and divine, in out-stripping the slow and orthodox generations of past times, and asserting the dignity of the human mind, by laughing at the Gospel and trampling on the cross. On such men as these rests much of the responsibility of that backward

and timidity in embracing and proclaiming truth which is

too common, even among those who have been trained up in its precepts-being ashamed of the Gospel themselves, they despise and sneer at its professors. But it must be something more formidable than the insane derision of idiots which is to dete us from proclaiming fully, freely, and plainly, the truth as it is in Jesus. For, while the responsibility falls heavily upon those who cast a stumbling-block in the way of the faint hearted, it also falls heavily upon those who suffer it to form a hindrance to them. Let those, then, who are in any way engaged in unfolding to men the glories of the Gospel of Christ, in whatever manner it may be, never be discouraged or intimidated by the pitiful contempt of those who choose to scoff at them. It is not much to bear for Him who bore our sins and carried our sorrows; so long as there are men to sneer at the Gospel, there are souls to be saved by that Gospel. Let ministers, then, ever tell the simple story, and whether men will hear or whether they will forbear, let them obey the mandate in spite of men or devils, and stand and preach in the temple, to the people, all the words of this life; let them tell those who are wise in their own conceits, and great in their own esteem, whether they like it or no, that they are wretched, lost, and ruined sinners, and that whatever their pretensions, nothing but sovereign grace and dying love can rescue them from hell. Let them tell the philosopher, whose boasted wisdom leads him to despise the Gospel, that he needs a brighter philosophy and a diviner love; let them tell the formalist, who trusts in outward rites, and makes clean the outside of the cup and the platter, that the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit and a contrite heart; let them point the dreaming moralist, who builds on shifting quicksands his ideal paradoxes, to the Lamb of God, and tell him that the grand morality is love of Christ; let them smite the rock before a dying world, and as the living streams gush forth beneath the magic wand of truth, cry mightily in the strength of the Most High, "Ho! every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters-and he that hath no money, come buy wine and milk without money and without price." And not only ministers, but all who love our Lord Jesus Christ, in sincerity, must not be ashamed to incur reproach for the sake of this Gospel. We have more or less influence over one another;

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let us never be afraid to use that influence for Christ, and if there are any of us who have hung back from avowing ourselves on the Lord's side, through the fear of man, let us niake up our minds now, that whatsoever others do, we will serve the Lord. O, it matters little what men say or think about us; but it does matter what God says and thinks of us. It matters little who is ashamed of us here below; but it matters something to us, whether or no Christ is ashamed of us "before His Father and His holy angels.” My dying fellow-sinner, be wise in time—look at your heart, that filthy and polluted thing, and ask if you can be ashamed to have it washed in atoning blood, and stamped with the likeness of your Saviour. You may have been pursuing the paths of learning with earnestness and vigour—your name may be written in many a profound volume; but are you sure it is written in the Lamb's Book of Life? O, if it is not there, you need yet to learn the alphabet of truth. Study, that while there is yet light to read it, read at the cross-and in the blessed Book, and there you shall learn that whatever men call learning, whatever the world calls knowledge-the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil, that is understanding. Turn, then, to th strongholds, ye prisoners of hope; the fountain is open, come while you may; the invitation is free, take it before it is too late. Christ is calling you-dying friends are calling you-conscience is calling you.-O, what is not calling you? You can't be still ashamed to come; you can't have seen a fairer vision than the man Christ Jesus; you can't be occupied with a nobler theme than the mystery of Godliness, God manifest in the flesh-you can't have caught more charming accents than the earnest overtures of dying love, for sweeter sounds were never heard than mercy utters from the cross.