subject? Shall we speak to the dead? Yes. Because in other respects the heart, and soul, and mind of the impenitent are alive. This is a death unto God. We may urge even the dead to exert themselves to secure their own salvation. They can see and comprehend their perilous condition; they can at least intellectually admit the justice of these claims of God; they can perceive the fitness and worth of the plan of redemption by Jesus Christ. This death may itself be illustrated by the condition of one oppressed with the dreadful incubus often connected with sleep and frightful dreams, but sometimes occurring in wakefulness-when the victim seems to be in the grasp of an unseen but powerful enemy, and cannot stir, while at the same time he is conscious that a single movement would bring relief. At length, after a painful struggle, a finger is moved, and then the whole arm, and the contest is over. The sinner has upon him the incubus of a depraved heart-the pressure of a world alluring and seductive-a weight of sin bearing him down to hell, and already are the chains of the great adversary of souls thrown around him. He is bound hand and foot, and just about to be cast into outer darkness. He can scarcely stir. But though he cannot lift hand or foot, perhaps the lip, the tongue may move in a prayer for help. Can you not, perishing sinner, call up at least so much interest in your own case as to affect your heart, and inspire the simple prayer, "God be merciful to me a sinner?" This may be the beginning of life. This first effort may be needed, in the arrangement of Divine Providence, to remove the weight of sin from your soul. One such movement, itself excited by the Holy Ghost, may bring light, and peace, and joy, and life in its result; and it may be said of you : "And you hath he quickened who was dead in trespasses and

sins."

2d. Is not this death an excusable condition? Is there any blame to be attached to it? It is not excusable. It is blameworthy. Because the sinner is a suicide; the guilt of self-murder is resting upon each one in this state. The connection of man with fallen Adam, and the providence of God in bringing us into being with depraved hearts, are charged with our guilt, but in vain. As it was said of old to the wandering people of God, "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself!" so now it must be said of all who love sin so well, who have committed sin enough, for which they are alone responsible, to bring upon them all the evils which threaten the ungodly, "O sinner, thou hast destroyed thyself!" It is death that locks up your heart against all the gracious offers and kind appeals of God; it is death that forbids you to hold the communion of a child with your heavenly Father; and, worst of all, it is death that you have brought upon yourself by your own sins.

Must you, then, perish inevitably, with the doom of a selfmurderer resting upon you? No; this is not necessary. God has provided a remedy even for this desperate condition. If you have seen the truth upon this subject-if your intellect only is alive to perceive your spiritual death, you will not marvel, but rather rejoice to hear the Great Teacher say, "Ye must be born again." It is life that the sinner needs. The change which must take place to restore the lost to the love and favor of God, is a change from death to life; and therefore the propriety of the language used to describe it is most evident. What should it be called but a new birth-regeneration-a change of heart-being made a new creature? The apostle, in the text, addressing the Ephesian Christians. says: "And you hath he quickened," i. e., to you hath he given life, "who were dead in trespasses and sins." This is the work of the Holy Ghost-the work of God in the soul. It is not required that new faculties and powers should be imparted, but only that life should be given to those already possessed, but lying dormant, dead unto God. A dead body, still complete in organization, would only need the infusion of life to be ready at once to use every organ and employ every limb. The impenitent sinner has what is necessary to be employed in loving and serving God, but life is wanting. This can be communicated to the soul only by the same Almighty Spirit that at first breathed into man the breath of life. Over each one restored to the favor of God and made a new creature in Christ Jesus, there is a jubilee in heaven. The angels rejoice over the repenting sinner, and the Father himself meets the prodigal with the warm embrace of infinite love, exclaiming, "This my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found."

3d. Finally. Does not this exhibit the real difference between the Christian and the sinner ?-the one is alive, the other is dead unto God. They may be just alike in other respects, having the same natural endowments of body and soul; having made the same attainments in science and in all matters of worldly advancement; just as the body of a living man may exactly resemble the body of another from which life has just departed. These may appear alike to the careless observer; but yet how great the difference! The one is alive, the other is dead. The Christian is alive, and the sinner is dead unto God. This difference may be made manifest in many ways. Speak in the presence of these two of God and heaven,-the one answers with glowing countenance; the face of the other is rigid, and his tongue still as in the silence of the grave. Propose an act that may glorify God,-the Christian runs with all the vigor of life to perform it; the sinner stands still as if bound with the fetters of death. Tell of the love of Christ, the one, with

streaming eyes, cries out, " He died for me;" the other is as devoid of emotion as if his very heart were frozen in the sepulchre. Call for a contribution to promote the cause of Christ, the one answers to the call as a faithful steward of God; the other heeds it no more than if he were as insensible as the gold he grasps so eagerly. It is indeed to be admitted that all who profess Christ are not thus alive at all times, and that some who are not Christians, under the influence of other motives than supreme love of God, do assist in the performance of many Christian duties; but yet the truth remains unshaken by these exceptions,-the Christian is alive, the sinner is dead unto God.

And this is the very distinction that will exist forever in heaven and in hell. It is life to be where God, and Christ, and all the holy dwell. It is life to expand at once to the fullest capacity of our being, in knowledge, and holiness, and joy, and yet to grow continually wiser, and holier, and happier under the light of God's reconciled countenance. It is called eternal life! It is death, the second death, eternal death, to be banished from heaven, shut up in the pit of woe, dying, and yet never to reach the last despairing pain-sinking forever beneath the wrath of an angry God!

SERMON DXLV.

BY REV. J. N. GRANGER,

OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, PROVIDENCE, R. I.

THE JOY OF THE ANGELS.

"I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance."-LUKE 15: 7.

"There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth."-LUKE 15: 10.

Ir is well sometimes to turn our thoughts to the heavenly world; and this contemplation is most inviting when it is assisted by persons and facts with which we are familiar. In this delightful employment the doctrine of angels affords us more aid than we are ready at first to acknowledge.

Jesus Christ is, indeed, the grand link which holds our faith to the unseen world. Uniting in his person both the human aud the divine-neither God nor man alone, but both God and man in perfect union-we surrender our faith to him. He is our Great High Priest, who hath passed into the heavens. If we had no other aid to faith, we would trust alone in him. Although he is now "far above angels, and principalities, and powers," all whom are now "subject unto him," our faith would follow him to his highest throne. That ascension--that assumption of lawful authority by our Saviour, and Friend, and Brother-that glorified human nature which he carried up, far up, to the seat of the divinest glory, which Adam, and Enoch, and Moses, and David, and all the prophets have gazed upon there—it is this which makes heaven real to us, and near to hand.

Nevertheless, there are minor aids which we all need, but which, in contrast with this greater one, we are too apt to forget. Perhaps there are few points of faith upon which Christians of every age and of every sect have been more united than on this: the existence of a higher order of intelligences, beings of exalted wisdom and virtue, whom we call angels. Although we know little of the nature of their influence upon us, or how their agency is employed to promote our happiness, it is not difficult to understand how we are aided by knowing that they stand between us and the unapproachable grandeur of the One Being, whom saints and angels adore. Raised above us in power and

virtue, they are yet vastly inferior to the Infinite God. As compared with men, they are, indeed, greatly superior to us; so much so, that the apostle John, struck with admiration of the angel who showed to him the glories of the New Jerusalem, forgot, for a moment, that it was only his "fellow-servant" he would worship. But when, on the other hand, they are compared with God, they fall infinitely below him-they approach near to us, and man is then "but a little lower than the angels." The advantage to us of this knowledge is

I. That it gives distinctness to our thought of the unseen world. It peoples it. From the Scriptures we learn that angels, in their flights through the "void expanse," have sometimes touched and trod our earth. They have been here. Here they have walked and ministered. They have floated in this air. Their voices have been heard in music such as mortals never raise. They have spoken, have instructed, and have passed away. Paul speaks of "an innumerable company of angels;" Luke, of "a multitude of the heavenly host;" Christ, of "twelve legions of angels." And Daniel, in a vision of the Ancient of Days, and of the throne of his glory, beheld "thousand thousands who ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand who stood before him."

2. But it is more to my present purpose to notice another use which the doctrine of angels serves. It is one which is sometimes employed in the Holy Scriptures. The doctrine affords us a point of observation where we may look down to earth and upon ourselves.

Irresistibly we are led to ask how finite beings, who are wiser and holier than we are, regard us, and regard our choices. We take, in imagination, the position which they occupy, and we judge ourselves in their stead. Nor is there anything irreverent towards God in this. It is but the conduct of children, all dutiful, all affectionate, towards a parent, who sometimes take counsel of each other, the younger of the older, while all alike rejoice in a parent's smile, and own a parent's law.

It is for this purpose, as it seems to me, that our Saviour employs the touching words of the text. The Pharisees, who despised the penitent sinner, and who despised him the more because he was penitent, were referred to the different estimates which the angels of God put on such a character, and to the feelings with which they regard his conversion. "There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance." It is from this high point of observation, that we are invited to view the stupendous change which is effected in a sinner's return to God. We are thus guarded against any low views and mean opinions of a moral act like this. The in