The saint loves his enemies. The things commanded in the gospel are really true of the saints. They are not only required of all men, but they are facts in the life and experience of the saints. The saints really love their enemies, bless them that curse them, do good to those that hate them and pray for them that despitefully use and persecute them.

20. The impenitent, whether professors of religion or not, are censorious in their judgments and slanderous in their conversation. They are selfish and of course have ambitious projects and envious feelings, and these petty interests and projects are continually interfered with by the interests and projects of others around them. They judge others by themselves. They know themselves to be hypocritical in their professions, selfish in their aims, false in their pretences, ambitious in their schemes, envious in their spirit; and in short they are conscious of so much that is wrong that they naturally interpret the motives and character of others by their own. They do not realize that their censorious speeches and rash and uncharitable judgments are but a result and a revelation of their hypocrisy. But their own oath that they are hypocrites could not add to the weight of evidence afforded by their manifest want of charity as revealed in their taking up a suspicion, a rumor, and giving it publicity to the dishonor and injury of their neighbor. I have learned never to confide in a censorious man or woman. "O my soul come not thou into their secret! unto their assembly, mine honor be not thou united." They are false and will betray Christ to justify self.

21. Christians or truly regenerate souls, experience great and present blessedness in their religion. They do not seek their own happiness as the supreme good, but find it in their disinterested efforts to promote the well-being of others. Their state of mind is itself the harmony of the soul. Happiness is both a natural result of virtue and also its governmental reward. Christians enjoy religion just for the reason that they are disinterested in it, that is, precisely for the reason that their own enjoyment is not the end which they seek. And selfish professors do not enjoy their religion just for the reason that their own enjoyment is the end at which they aim. IfI seek the good of being as an end, I am happy for three rea

sons:

(1.) It results from the approbation of my own conscience. (2.) From the smile of God upon my soul and the conscious communion and fellowship I have with him; and,

(3.) I gain my end upon which my heart is set, and this is a sweet gratification. Thus I am triply blessed. But if I seek my own happiness as an end I fail to obtain it for three

reasons:

(1.) My conscience instead of approving, upbraids me.

(2.) God instead of smiling either withholds his face altogether from or frowns upon me. He withdraws communion and fellowship from me.

(3.) I do not secure my end, and therefore I am not gratified but disappointed. Suppose I seek the conversion of a sinner, not from disinterested love to his soul, but from a desire to promote my own happiness. Now if he is converted, I am not made happy thereby, for three reasons,

(1.) My conscience is not satisfied with my motives. (2.) God is not; therefore he does not smile upon me. (3.) His conversion was not the end I sought, and therefore in his conversion I am not gratified, that is, I have not attained my end, which was not the salvation of that soul, but my own happiness. But if I seek his salvation disinterestedly I am doubly blessed if he is not converted, and triply blessed if he is:

(1.) Whether he is saved or not, my conscience approves my intentions and efforts, and smiles upon my soul.

(2.) God accepts the will for the deed and blesses me as if I had succeeded. Thus I am doubly blessed.

(3.) But if he is saved, I have gained my end, and thus am gratified. So I am triply blessed. A saint is and must be happy in his religion. He has his temptations but the Lord delivers him and makes him blessed.

22. The selfish professor,

(1.) Has not true peace of conscience.

(2.) He has not the smile, communion and fellowship of God.

(3.) He is not disinterested and cannot rejoice in the glory of God and the advancement of his kingdom for its own sake, and therefore his soul is not filled with peace and joy in believing. His religion is rather his task than his life and his joy. He is rather religious because he must be than because he may be. He prays because he must rather than because he may. With him, religion is rather what it will not do to neglect than what he delights in for its own sake. His enjoyment such as it is, is only a self-righteous enjoyment. It is not the soul's harmony with itself, with God, and with all the holy, and with the eternal laws of order. He knows that his

religion is not soul-satisfying, but sees so many professors around him manifesting the same state of mind in which he knows himself to be, that he thinks that all Christians find religion in this world rather a task and a burden than a delight, and therefore he is not disposed to relinquish his hope. He anticipates happiness in future, but at present he knows he is not happy.

23. True saints rejoice to see souls converted and God glorified by any instrumentality. But hypocrites do not rejoice in this for its own sake, and are apt to be envious and jealous unless they or their friends or denomination are the instruments.

24. Christians would do all they could for God's glory and the world's conversion, whether it was ever known or rewarded or not. But sinners would do little or nothing except out of respect to applause and reward.

25. Christians have the Spirit of Christ.

(1.) Their bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?"-1 Cor. 6: 19. "But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead, shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you."-Ro. 8: 9-11.

(2.) Their bodies are the temple of Christ. "But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righte ousness.-Ro. 8: 9-10. "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you except ye be reprobates."-2 Cor. 13: 5. "To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.". Col. 1: 27. "Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him."-John 14: 23. "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life

which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."-Gal. 2: 20. "That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love."-Eph. 3: 17.

26. Christians have the Spirit of adoption. "For ye have not received the Spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father."-Ro. 8: 15. "And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father."-Gal. 4: 6.

27. They have the fruits of the Spirit. "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts."-Gal. 5: 22-24.

28. Christians are led by the Spirit. "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.-Ro. 8: 14. "But if ye be led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”—Gal. 5: 18, 25.

"Likewise the Spir

29. They have the Spirit of prayer. it also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which can not be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints; according to the will of God."-Ro. 8: 26, 27.

30. They have the law written in their hearts. "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake although I was a husband unto them, saith the Lord: but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more."-Jer. 31: 31-34. This passage the Apostle quotes in Heb. 8: 8 -12, and applies to Christians under the new dispensation.

The law that was written upon the tables of stone is written by the Holy Spirit in the hearts of Christians. That is, the spirit or love demanded by the law is begotten in their hearts. In other words, they are truly regenerated, and love God with all their hearts and their neighbor as themselves.

I might notice many other particulars in which saints and sinners differ but perhaps I have said enough for this course of study. If you return to the attributes of selfishness and benevolence you will there find a fuller development of this subject. Of course the manifestation of the attributes of benevolence is conclusive proof of a regenerate state, for all those attributes are only so many modifications of true religion and their manifestation is proof of its existence.

So on the other hand the attributes of selfishness are only so many modifications of sin, and their manifestation is proof positive of an unholy and unregenerate state of mind.

There are many other things that might be said, indeed volumes might be written upon this subject in addition to what has appeared. But one thing is worthy of special remark. Mistaken notions in regard to the nature of regeneration have led to false methods of estimating the evidences of regeneration. Most persons and most writers seem to appeal almost exclusively, or at least in a great measure, to the feelings or states of the sensibility for evidence of regeneration. Nothing can be more dangerous and deceptive than this. They, regarding regeneration as a change in or of the sensibility, look thither of course for the evidences of the change. The bible appeals to the life instead of the feelings for evidence of regeneration. It assumes the true philosophy of regeneration, that it belongs to the will and that it must of course and of necessity appear directly and uniformly in the life. So many circumstances influence the feelings that they can not be depended on. They will effervesce or be calm as circumstances change. But the outward life must by a law of necessity always obey the will. Therefore the appeal can more safely be made to it than to any thing else that lies open to the inspection of human eyes.

The subject of regeneration may know, and if honest, he must know for what end he lives. There is perhaps nothing of which he may be more certain than of his regenerate or unregenerate state; and if he will keep in mind what regeneration is, it would seem that he can hardly mistake his own character so far as to imagine himself to be regenerate, when he is not. The great difficulty that has been in the way of