of religion, and all he has been taught of God come to bear directly on the mind, are the means of immediate spiritual influence. God comes in this way to act directly on the mind for its spiritual improvement, not by violating its laws and working a miracle, but in accordance with its laws, by operating through the understanding and the will, by being made the subject of thought, and communion, and affection. As he grows older, and his understanding is developed, he comes to read and understand the Scriptures himself, he listens to the instructions of the sanctuary and is profited by them. He forms a taste for religious reading and devotional engagements, and when his character is sufficiently matured and confirmed, he feels constrained, by his affectionate regard for the Saviour, to honour his memory by celebrating the ordinance of his institution. Thus he is trained up when he is young in the way he should go, and when he is older he will not depart from it. In this way, I believe more Christians are made than in any other, according to the confession of all religious teachers of every denomination. Even those who put their chief reliance on periodical excitements, are constrained to admit that most of the subjects of permanent impressions are from religious families, and if any are brought in from the ignorant and vicious, the probability of their steadfastness is in direct proportion to their previous religious knowledge and education, and in an inverse ratio to their ignorance and their vices.

So you perceive that according to our text, the great reliance is to be placed on teaching, on forming instead of changing, the character. "The grace of God" "hath appeared to all men, teaching us, that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly.” When the character is once formed and matured without Christian knowledge, without Christian principles, without Christian habits, the probability of its change is, I confess, but small under any circumstances. There is a difficulty then on the very threshold, to secure the requisite degree of attention to religious truth. "The cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts "of other things," if nothing worse, have come in and occupied the mind so exclusively, that divine things either are not attended to at all, or so hastily and superficially as to make no lasting impression. The chief hope then is from another source. teacher then to be relied on, is the course of Divinė Providence, and the experience of life. Affliction then may speak with a voice sufficiently impressive, to be heard to the inmost depths of the soul. The loss of friends may draw the heart to him, who came to comfort those who mourn. The arrow of misfortune may pierce so deeply, as to send the sufferer to the Great Physician of souls. The unsatisfactoriness of all earthly things may bring the inquirer for real good, to the fountain of living waters springing up into everlasting life. The natural retributions of sin, the nausea, sorrow

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and disgust, which must sooner or later overtake the deluded devotee of pleasure, may lead him to "abhor" himself, "and repent in dust and ashes." The mad outcast of profligacy and vice, may at last come to his right mind, and be found sitting at the feet of Jesus. Such, before they become true Christians, must become as little children. They must go over this same process of learning of our common Master, must form themselves to the practice of every duty they have hitherto neglected. They must acquire by study, endeavour and experience, Christian knowledge, Christian principles, Christian habits, and then they will be Christians indeed.

But it will be objected to this I know, by a certain class of religionists, that the process of becoming a Christian is the work of the Spirit of God. We answer, this is granted. So is the process by which the seed that is sown in the earth becomes a harvest, the work of God's Spirit. The Spirit of God is the power of God in action. The Spirit, agency, efficiency, energy of God, is the only power which connects any cause with its effect, and a moral as much as a physical cause with its effect. There is no power in the seed of itself to spring up and bear fruit, without the immediate agency of God. So there is no power in any idea or truth, when conveyed to the mind of man, to give him any knowledge or excite him to any good affection or holy action without the immediate agency of God. But the Spirit works through means in both

cases and not without them. And those means man, may use or not just as he chooses. Man must plant the seed in the earth and cultivate it, or God will give him no harvest. So God will not work in his mind if he leave it a mere blank, if he sow no seed and use no means through which and in which the Spirit may operate. He must read God's word, or pray, or hear religious discourse, or meditate on his works or providence, or there will be no operation of the Spirit in his mind, any more than there will be in the field where no seed is sown.

But such religionists will rejoin, there must be some distinguishing, special operations of God's Spirit or power, in all those cases where the means of religion are effectual. We answer that this assertion is a mere assumption entirely destitute of any proof or any evidence whatever. It is only a necessary part of a baseless, artificial system of divinity, dishonourable alike to God and man. Consequences follow immediately from it most derogatory from the moral character and government of God. It will follow from it that of two persons equally sincere and earnest in the use of means, and equally deserving the aid of the Spirit, which alone makes those means effectual, it is withheld from one and bestowed on the other by arbitrary will, caprice, partiality, favouritism; so one is lost, not through his own fault, for he did all he could, and the other is saved, not because he was any more meritorious. To evade this, is it said that though special, it is always bestowed on the sincere? Then

it is always bestowed according to a certain rule. It is always bestowed under certain circumstances; then it is no longer special and distinguishing. Every one is sure of receiving the effectual aid of the Spirit who is sincere; or in other words, the effectual aid of the Spirit always accompanies the means of religion when sincerely used.

But it will not do, it may be said, to tell people so. They will not feel sufficiently their dependence. They will form presumptuous ideas of the goodness of God, and his readiness to receive them at any time. They will trust too much to their own power of using the means of religion effectually at any hour, and so put it off. I answer, that I would tell the truth at any rate, and let consequences take care of themselves. I would honestly tell them the truth on this and every other subject, as I went along, and rely on one truth to correct what, to my short sighted vision, seemed calculated to produce an injurious effect in another. I would tell them that the probability that they would use the means of religion at all, is growing less and less every moment, as the time in which it must be done is growing shorter and bad habits are continually strengthening, and therefore the probability of sincerity, the grand requisite, is diminishing every day.

We cannot certainly be more dependent on God for the means of sustaining spiritual life, and their efficacy for that purpose, than we are for the means of sustaining animal life, and their efficacy for that