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1. Beware of mistaking mere external works for true holiness. Holiness is seated in the heart; every act receives its goodness from the principle from which it flows, and the end to which it is directed. The external works of the generally esteemed devout, decent and charitable, are usually as far from being acts of real holiness as any of the works of the openly children of disobedi ence they proceed from as unrenewed hearts, from as unchristian tempers, and are directed to as unsanctified ends.

You may attend your church twice on a Sunday. You may go on week-days too. You may frequent the sacrament. You may say prayers in your house and alone. You may read the psalms and lessons for the day. You may be be "no extortioner or unjust." You may be in many things unlike other men; neither given to swear, nor drink, nor lewdness, nor extravagance. You may be a tender parent, a careful master, and what the world calls an honest man: yea, you may withal be very liberal to the poor; be regarded in the world as a pattern of piety and charity, and respected as one of the best sort of people in it; and yet, with all this, be the very character which, ". though highly esteemed among men, is an abomination in the sight of God." (Luke xvi. 15.)

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For if you have never seen your "desperately wicked heart," been united to Christ by faith, and received from him newness of life; if you know not experimentally what is meant by "fellowship with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ;' if your devotion hath not been inspired "by faith which worketh by love;" if your worship hath not been "in spirit and in truth;" from a real sense of your wants, and an earnest desire and expectation of receiving from him “in whom

all fulness dwells :" if this hath not been your case, your devotions have been unmeaning ceremony; your book not your heart hath spoken; and the tinkling cymbal of sound, not the fervent effectual desire of prayer, hath come from your lips. "Bring no more vain oblations." (Isa. i. 13.) Though you should thus read and kneel, and pray all the days of your life, you will never have offered one spiritual service. These your very attendances on forms and ordinances are your delusion and condemnation.

Your decent conduct proceeds not from a šense of "the love of God which is in Jesus Christ our Lord." You have never felt any thing of its constraining influence; nor have you a heart really hating iniquity as such. But open vices may be inconvenient to you, may blast your reputation, affect your business, or hurt your pride, (for pride is at the bottom of all self-made holiness) and therefore you abstain from them. While these two things you do, you love this present world, desire its esteem, its gain or its gratifications; and you hate the image of God in the children of his grace. You dislike their selfdenied conduct: you cannot bear the light of their holy lives; you are provoked when they would unsettle you from your false bottom of formality. You think you are good enough already. You seem to fear being over-righteous more than the "blasphemy against the Holy Ghost." And if this be so, believe it, you are an utter stranger to vital godliness. Your heart is unhumbled and unholy; and all your ornamental shew is but gilding the coffin of a corpse, or whiting your sepulchre. "You must be born again," (John iii. 7.) if you would "bring forth fruit unto God."

Nor think that you are charitable, if the love

of Jesus and his brethren be not purely the motive of your gifts. A naturally generous heart, a tenderness of constitution, a desire of being thought well of, or rather the fear of being thought niggardly, may draw from you a pittance of your store, or some more considerable benefaction in your life; or at your death may be dispensed as you hope "to cover the multitude of sins."* But is this charity? Alas! you might not only give your superfluities, but bestow all your goods to feed the poor,' you might even give your body to be burned for them;' and yet be utterly destitute of charity. (1 Cor. xiii. 3.) If self-seeking, self-pleasing, or selfends guide you, (and guide you they must, until the love of God be by the Holy Ghost shed abroad in your heart.')-(Rom. v. 5,) Though you had defrauded others of the money you have given, you had not more effectually transgressed against the law of love.

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Let every soul look well within. It is easy to be deceived; thousands are so. The form of godliness' many hold; the power of it' few. Be ye of those few.

2. As far removed from real holiness are they who have only learnt right notions of religion, but whose hearts have not yet been influenced by them. It is a very common case this. By education we may have had true principles instilled into our understandings: or afterwards by our connections, acquaintance and attachment to those who profess godliness, we may have learnt their mode of speaking, and adopted their sentiments; and this too from a speculative conviction of the truth. Hence we may run to hear the gospel, contend for the ministers of it, know how duties should be performed, discover the vanity

* See the note in the fifth Sermon.

of formality, be ready to rebuke the Pharisee, yea have a zeal for the truth, even to suffer for it persecution and loss. And all this may be accompanied with the appearance of spirituality, with fervors of devotion, a readiness to pray with others, and various gifts of knowledge and utterance. Withal, the conduct may be reformed, outwardly irreproachable; and yet the heart be neither truly for nor with God. Yea, farther, it is certainly more than possible even to have been the means of saving others souls and to lose our own and after all, to be only near the kingdom of God and never enter into it; almost but not altogether christians.'

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We may not have hated sin as sin, and because God hates it; nor loved holiness as holiness, and because God delights in it: our views may have been merely to our own advantage, to avoid hell or to gain heaven; (views right enough in their proper place) whilst at the bottom of our hearts we have not been actuated by a desire of God's glory; influenced by virtue derived from the living head; nor been constrained in the beginning, continuance and end of our conduct, by the real experience of our Saviour's love.

Self-deceit is deeply rooted in our hearts. We cannot be too jealous over them. The most holy will be the most inquisitive; most careful to fix their eye on Jesus the author and finisher of his salvation' in them; and then to be bringing forth those works of faith and labours of love' which He will remember in the day of his appearance and glory.

SERMON XI.

THE FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT.

EPHESIANS V. 9.

FOR THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT, IS IN ALL GOODNESS AND RIGHTEOUSNESS.

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HEN we were infants, we were by baptism admitted into the family of God; we were received into the bosom of the church, and were regarded as disciples of the religion of Jesus. We then partook of the seals of the covenant, and engaged by the mouths of our sponsors, as soon as we came to years of 'discretion, to walk worthy of our high vocation and calling.' It was prayed for us, that all carnal affections might die in us; and that all things belonging to the spirit might live and grow in us.' (Baptismal Service.) The continued assistance of the Holy Ghost was implored to enable us to be faithful to the vows. we had made; and we were solemnly admonished to remember our promise and profession, which was to follow the example of our Saviour Christ, and to be made like unto him.' (Baptismal exhortation.) As we come to years of discretion, it becomes us seriously to examine, whether we are walking according to these engagements; since it is on this depends the final accomplishment of the promises then on God's part made to us. Else if we break our VOWS, 'our circumcision becomes uncircumcision; our baptism can profit us nothing, we

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