itself the forfeit of a want of reflection! How many bankrupts are there who might have been saved by timely thought; how many drunkards who might have been happy and useful by proper reflection; how many are there now useless to the world, who would have been ornaments to society if in early years they had reflected calmly on their privileges, and thoughtfully pursued the paths of learning or business! I counsel you, therefore, to cherish every serious thought that passes through your minds on the subject of religion, and to be willing to follow where sober thought would lead you.

(2.) I counsel you to avoid the scenes which would be likely to dissipate your serious reflections. You may be less ready to follow me in this than in the former, and yet this is essential if you would secure the salvation of the soul. But do not misunderstand me. I do not counsel you to immure yourself in a cloister. I advise not a useless and a gloomy asceticism. I ask you not to be morose, sour, dissocial, melancholy. All these I regard as infinitely far from religion, alike in its beginnings in the soul, and in its highest progress towards perfection.

But there are scenes which are unfavourable to serious reflection, and which tend to dissipate serious thought, and which one must consent to leave for ever if he would serve God and follow the Saviour. The theatre, the ball-room, the circles of gaiety, the places of revelry-how can they be made to be favourable to serious thought; how are they consistent with an earnest desire to be saved? Between those scenes and the calm and serene spirit of the gospel-between the spirit which reigns there, and that which reigned in the bosom of the Saviour, there is such a contrast that the one cannot live where the other does; and if you make up your mind to have the one, you must make up your mind not to have the other.

I am sensible that, even to a mind under the degree of thoughtfulness which I have now been endeavouring to describe, it is one of the most difficult things that I can exhort you to do, to follow the counsel which I am now giving. So fascinating is that gay and brilliant world; so many of your friends find pleasure there; so entirely may you seem to be shut out from all society if you withdraw from that; so many ties bind you to it by a network so interlaced and so strong; and so much would you dread to have it whispered around to "lover and friend" that you are becoming serious, that I do not wonder at the difficulty of breaking away.. Yet, there is no option. If you would be a Christian, if you would find the way of salvation, you must make up your mind, if need be, to bear the frowns, the sneers,

the ridicule of the world-for the path to heaven and to glory. lies not through scenes of vanity and of sin.

(3.) I counsel you to pray. For what is more appropriate than prayer in the state of mind which I have described? Where should one go who is asking what he shall do to be saved, if not to God? You are just beginning to grapple with great questions that are too much for the unaided human mind. You are beginning to think about themes on which the profoundest human intellects have been employed, and which are the subject of the contemplation of angels and seraphs. You are beginning to reflect on the past, and the future; the distant, the grand, the infinite, when every thought takes hold on eternity. You are commencing an inquiry which has never been continued long, and which has never been conducted to a happy issue without prayer. To your mind all is dark, and in this inquiry you need above all things the guidance of the Father of lights, and you will never find the path to heaven till "in his light you see light." What, then, can be more appropriate for a human being in these circumstances than prayer?

Are there any of you whose minds are in the condition described in this discourse-serious, thoughtful, pondering the question, What shall I do to be saved? Go to your closets. Pray. Alone with the God that made you-with the Father of lights-with him who hears prayer-ask him this great question, What must I do to be saved? If your Maker has never heard

the voice of prayer before come from your lips, this night, ere you slumber, let him hear the humble, fervent cry for knowledge, for mercy, for salvation.

SERMON XI.

CONVICTION OF SIN.

PSALM li. 4.-"Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight; that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest."

THE plan of salvation is designed for sinners. None are saved by that plan who are not regarded as such. The gospel has no significancy unless it be supposed that men are violators of the law of God. It has no peculiar adaptation to men except on that supposition. It seeks to excite the conviction that he is a sinner in the bosom of every man whom it addresses, and it is certain that no one will appreciate its provisions, or be saved by it, who does not feel and admit that truth in regard to himself. If there is, therefore, any one who is unwilling to admit, in the proper sense of the term, that he is a sinner, he should not entertain the hope of being saved by the gospel, and should not feel himself specially addressed in any of its communications. It is indispensable that a man, if he would be saved, should be convinced of sin. The two preceding discourses were, respectively, on the state of man as the gospel finds him, and on the condition of the mind when it begins to reflect on the subject of religion. We advance a step further in unfolding the way of salvation by considering the state of the mind when under conviction for sin. I shall explain what is meant by the term; consider the law of our nature in accordance with which conviction for sin is produced; and show what it is that the sinner is convinced of in that state, or what constitutes genuine conviction of sin.

I. What is meant by the term conviction of sin. The short and perhaps the sufficient explanation of this is, being convinced of sin so as to feel and acknowledge that we are sinners. The term has, however, somewhat of a technical and theological signification which makes it necessary to explain it somewhat further; and unfortunately, also, it is so associated in the minds of many with what they would be pleased to regard as cant or fanaticism—with Calvinism, or Methodism, or Evangelism-that it seems necessary, if I can, to do something to remove this

impression, and to show you that it is possible that sensible men may, without compromising their own dignity, become convinced that they are sinners. I would, then, submit to you the following remarks:

(a) There is a state of mind, very common, which results from being convinced by argument. A course of reasoning may be so conclusive that there can be no doubt on the subject. A mathematical proposition may be so demonstrated; an historical fact may be so established; a truth in morals may be so clearly proved; a jury may be so satisfied; a point in theology may be so defended, that no one can have any doubt on the truth of the point under consideration. And thus a man may be so thoroughly convinced that our race is fallen, and that he, as one of the race, has come into the world with a corrupt nature, that his mind may be as fully satisfied on this subject as he is of the truth of a mathematical proposition. Yet it is clear that, though thus convinced, this latter truth may be held in such a manner as to make no more impression on his conscience and his heart than the mathematical demonstration had done. Though pertaining to itself, yet the mind has the power of looking at it as a mere abstraction; and nothing is more common than for a man to be able to prove that he is himself a sinner, or to listen to an argument clearly demonstrating it, without emotion.

(b) Again, a man may not only look at this as an abstract argument, but he may have a very distinct recollection of wrong doing, and yet have no compunction, no remorse. By knowing or supposing that the fact is concealed; or by a cultivated habit of severe mental discipline; or by the hardening effect of many acts of guilt on his own soul; or by some perverted views of mental philosophy, morals, or theology, he may have succeeded in keeping his mind calm and undisturbed, though he is conscious that he has done wrong. The mind may be in such a state as to contemplate its own past acts of depravity as calmly as it does the depravity of others, and with as little compunction. This is the state of mind which men commonly seek; and in this they are frequently, for a time at least, eminently successful. (c) Again, there is a kind of conviction of guilt from the testimony of others, which may produce as little impression on the soul There is a difference, in this respect, between the use of the word in theology and in the courts. A man is convicted, or found guilty, by a jury, and is so regarded and treated by the court. But he may or may not be convinced of the crime himself, or be sensible of guilt in the matter. He may be a hardened wretch, so steeped in crime as to be apparently beyond

the possibility of feeling; or he may be perfectly innocent of the crime, though he has been adjudged to be guilty by the jury, and is so held up to the public by the sentence of the court. But, in either case, the verdict of the jury and the sentence of the court have done nothing to convince him that he is guilty. He is convicted-not convinced. The verdict of the jury and the judgment of the court may or may not tend to convince him that he is guilty. That is a private, personal matter, with which the jury and the court have nothing to do. Even if guilty, the process in the court-room may have made no practical impression of his own criminality on his mind. He may have watched the evidence that has been adduced against him with the utmost attention, and may have no doubt when the verdict of the jury finding him guilty is rendered, that it is according to the testimony, and according to truth, and yet neither the evidence nor the verdict may have made any practical impression of guilt on his own mind.

(d) Again, there is a state of mind in which one who has been guilty of crime may, in the proper sense of the term, be convinced of it,-convinced neither as an abstract proposition, nor by the finding of a jury, nor by the judgment of a court, but as a personal matter and in the proper sense of the term, so as to produce a sense of wrong doing-distress in view of the past, and apprehension in view of what is to come. This is conviction of sin.

This, if not sufficiently plain already, can be made plain by a reference to the case already adverted to. A man on trial for his life has been convicted by a jury. We will suppose it to be a case where he before knew that he had committed the crime, but he was a hardened offender. For the crime when committed, or subsequently before the trial, or during the trial, he had had no compunction. He had so disciplined his moral and his physical frame as to obliterate all the natural expressions of criminality, and even so as to suppress all feeling of guilt. He went through the whole process of the trial with an unperturbed spirit, scarcely feeling any emotion, and betraying none. His was such an intellectual, and, to a great degree, such an abstract employment in watching the progress of the trial-in estimating the weight of the testimony-and in contemplating the skill of the counsel, that, in union with his former hardened character, and with the hope of escape, he may scarcely have had during the trial a single compunctious visitation of remorse. When the trial is over, however, and he is remanded to his lonely prison, and the darkness of the night in his cell draws