The Christian is a man, and may err; an imperfect man, and may sin; but a renewed man, and shall have his fruit unto life eternal. The Christian is a warrior, and must fight; but he is a conqueror, and must prevail. The Christian sojourns on earth, but dwells in heaven; he is a pilgrim in the desert, but an enrolled denizen of the skies. The Christian is the impress of Christ, the reflection of the Father, and the temple of the Holy Ghost. Contrast him with the infidel in his faith; with the profligate in his life; with the merely moral man in his heart, and with the Pharisee in his spirit. His pedigree is from Jehovah, his nature from heaven, and his name from Antioch. O Christian! great is thy dignity, refulgent is thy glory, interminable thy blessed hope. All things are thine; thou are Christ's, and Christ is God's.

ARE YOU A CHRISTIAN?

IF so, you are clothed with humility; you have a deep and habitual sense of your sinfulness; you abhor yourself for your forgetfulness of God, ingratitude, pride of heart, unworthy indulgences of appetite and passion, and a thousand failures in duty, known only to God and yourself: "Behold, I am vile!" is the frequent language of your lips, and the pervading sentiment of your heart; though you dwell little on the infirmities and sins of which you are conscious, in conversation with others, they are constantly before your eyes, and constrain you to lie low, infinitely low before God, and heartily to acknowledge your desert of all the wrath denounced against the sinner, and that "on grace alone your hope relies."

If so, you forget the things that are behind; such as the convictions of sin, righteousness, and judgment you once felt; the appar ent change of moral feeling to which you attained; and the obedience you thought to render to the Divine command; and you look to the things that are before, and press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God: not that you never recall the day of your hopeful espousals, nor remember the lovingkindness of the Lord in the hours of darkness, nor speak of what he hath done for your soul, in praise of his mercy; for to all this you are invited and bound; but your oft-violated vows will rise before you, your daily repentings and sinnings, your strong resolutions and inexcusable failures, will upbraid you, and mock your aspirings for assured hope, unless they drive you to renewed actings of faith, and the fresh dedication of your all to God, in

sole dependence on that grace which saveth to the uttermost. Past experience will comfort you no further than it is sustained by present devotedness and earnest effort for perfect conformity to God.

If so, you are actively employed for Christ; you love his service; it is your meat and drink to do his will; to glorify and enjoy God is the highest end of your being; you have your own salvation in view, and work it out with fear and trembling; you have your eye open on the salvation of your family and your neighbors; you defend the truth of God when it is assailed, and vindicate his honor from the aspersions of his enemies; to do all this, you search the Scriptures, commune with God in your closet, exemplify religion in your daily conversation, attend diligently on the means of grace, and persuade others neither to neglect the Bible, nor contemn the ordinances of God, nor walk in the way of the ungodly, nor sit in the seat of the scornful; you neglect none of the ordinary duties of life, but provide conscientiously for your family, and promptly meet the claims of society, and in all things aim to keep a conscience void of offense.

If so, you love the prosperity of Zion and pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Christ's errand into the world was to save it; if you are Christ's you have the same mind that was in him, and not only rejoice in all the triumphs of the cross, but labor to multiply and extend them. Millions are in the way to perdition; they are still within the reach of prayer, and the arm that is mighty to save. God has commissioned you to be laborers together with him in saving them; and, if faithful in executing the commission, his grace will be found sufficient for you in life, in death, in eternity. If these things be so, the question is settled; you are a Christian.Congregationalist.

THE GOSPEL INVITATION.

"Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out."-JOHN 6:37.

In no wise! How broad is the door of welcome! "God," says a holy writer, "is like one on his knees, with tears in his eyes and extreme fervor in his soul, beseeching the sinner to be saved." He met the prodigal son half way. Ere the ungrateful wanderer could stammer forth, through penitential tears, the confession of his sins, the arms of mercy were around him. The prodigal thought of no more than the menial's place; the father had in

readiness the best robe and the fatted calf. "There is no such argument," says Bishop Reynolds, "for our turning to God, as his turning to us." He has the first word in the overtures of mercy. He refuses none, he welcomes all; the poor, the wretched, the blind, the naked, the burdened, the heavy-laden; the hardened sinner, the aged sinner, the daring sinner, the dying sinner-all are invited to the conference: "Come now, and let us reason together." The most parched tongue, that laps the streams from the smitten rock, has everlasting life. "When we forgive, it costs us an effort; when God forgives, it is his delight." From the battlements of heaven he is calling after us: "Turn ye! turn ye! Why will ye die ?" He seems to wonder if sinners have pleasure in their own death. He declares, "I have none."

My soul, hast thou yet closed with the gospel's free invitations? Have you gone, just as you are, with all the raggedness of nature's garments, standing in your own nothingness, feeling that you are insolvent, that you have "nothing to pay," already a bankrupt, and the debt always increasing? Have you taken hold of that blessed assurance, "He is able to save unto the uttermost?" Are you resting your eternal all on him who has done all and suffered all for you; leaving you, "without money and without price," a free, full, unconditional offer of a great salvation? Say not your sins are too many, the crimson dye too deep. It is because you are a great sinner, and have great sins, that you need a great Saviour. "Of whom I am chief," is a golden postscript to the "faithful saying."

Do not dishonor God by casting doubts on his ability or willingness. If your sins are beinous, you will be all the greater monument of grace. You may be the weakest and unworthiest of vessels; but remember there was a niche in the temple for great and for small, for "vessels of cups" as well as for "vessels of flagons." Ay, and the smallest vessel glorifies Christ.

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Arise, then, and call upon thy God! We cannot say with the king of Ninevah, "Who can tell if God will turn ?" He is "turning" now; importunately pleading, and averring, on his own immutable word, that he "will in no wise cast out." Though ye have lain among the pots, ye shall be as doves, whose wings are covered with silver, and their feathers with yellow gold." Close without delay with these precious invitations, that so, looking up to a reconciled God and Father in heaven, you may even this night say, "I will both lay me down in peace and sleep, for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety."

NATIONAL PREACHER.

No. 7. VOL. XXV.]

JULY, 1851.

[WHOLE NO. 295.

SERMON DL.

BY. REV. WM. T. HAMILTON, D. D.,

PASTOR OF THE GOVERNMENT STREET CHURCH, MOBILE, Ala.

RETRIBUTION PROVIDED FOR IN THE LAWS OF NATURE. "There is nothing hid that shall not be manifested."-MARK 4 : 22. Compare with this, LUKE 12: 8. "Whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light."

As might be expected in a revelation from God, the Bible contains matters that are striking; some that are obscure and mysterious, and some that are strange, startling, and at the first glance seemingly incredible. While yet reflection, patient examination, and sometimes the lapse of time itself, may serve to dissipate that obscurity, and to render plain and intelligible what once appeared incomprehensible. Many prophetic passages, once dark and unfathomable, have been thus elucidated. Other passages also, such as the text, "There is nothing hid that shall not be manifested;" and again, "Whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light;" and again, such as this, "For every idle word that men speak, they shall give account thereof," mere hyperbole though we might perhaps, on a first hearing, deem them, may yet, on a little patient examination, be found to be literally, strictly, and severely true. Such patient examination I invite you with me to give to the subject of retribution; to the position warranted by my text, that, In all we do, we are responsible; and the consequences of our doings, without one exception, we must meet!

That man is thus responsible, as a moral agent, a great many plain and weighty considerations combine to show; as, e. g,:

1st. His structure implies it. Man, like all other created beings, is dependent for continued existence, and for the supply of his ever-recurring wants, on the God that made him. But there

is a wide, a marked distinction between man and all other of earth's living occupants. Like the beasts that roam around him, man has sprung from the ground he treads on, and he is nourished on the supplies yielded by earth in her increase. Like them, too, man is subject to infirmity, disease, suffering, and

death. But, unlike the other denizens of the earth, man has a spiritual as well as a mere animal nature; he has an inteligent mind, no less than a material body. An immaterial spirit forms the essence of the living man; exhibiting powers, capacities, and susceptibilities, which appear to be entirely wanting in the brute creation. Now, it is a universally admitted axiom among thinking men, that God has made nothing in vain; and that all the several parts of things, the various objects in nature, are adapted the one to the other, and to the whole. E. g.: The root, the trunk, the branch, the sap-vessels, and the leaves in plants; the gills, the fins, and the air-bladder in fishes; the structure and position of the eye, the ear, the stomach, &c., and the form and structure of the teeth in land animals, and of the wings and feathers in birds,-each and all show clearly the ends they were designed to serve, and the element or medium in which they were intended to be used. So invariable are the rules applicable in such cases, that from the skeleton, ay, from the mere fragment of a bone, scientific skill will determine with precision the position, the size, the power, and the use of the muscles, that bone was designed to sustain in the living animal,-the food on which that animal was nourished, the instincts by which it was moved, the element in which it lived, and the habits of its daily life.

Nor are the laws established and operating in the world of intellect and emotion, the world of spiritual life, less definite or less stable than are those stamped on physical nature.

There is, in every human breast, inherent and deep-seated, a feeling that a right and a wrong there is. To distinguish between right and wrong, in most instances, there is the capacity; and invariably there is a feeling of obligation to adhere to the right and to shun the wrong. When this inward monitor urging adherence to the right is disregarded, and inclination to the wrong is yielded to in defiance of conviction, there speedily follows a feeling of uneasiness, a self-condemnation, and in many instances a dread of coming evil, consequent on that wrong doing. Now, this capacity to judge of the right, this conviction of obligation to adhere to the right, this self-condemnation, and this uneasy, though indefinite apprehension, the result of disregarding conscience when wrong is done, are all peculiar to man; we see no indication of anything like them in the brute creation. They distinguish man above all other tennants of our globe; they prove him a moral agent,-so made, as that he acts ever under the weight of responsibility for his doings; and they do therefore furnish a strong probability that, evidently capable of responsibility, responsible he is for his doings, and that he will be held and treated as such by his Maker. Otherwise, all these large capaci ties and distinctive susceptibilities have been given to him in