lusts. These, together with the Redeemer's intercessions and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, ever sustain their foreseen and appointed connection with the perseverance of the saints.

So the real tendency of this doctrine upon a mind rightly disposed is to prompt it to an undivided effort to realize the certainty foretold. As to the wicked and the self-deceived, they may abuse it to their injury and undoing, as they do even the long-suffering of God.

4. This doctrine claims that all true Christians have been given to Christ; that they were chosen to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of the truth; that they compose a redeemed fold, gathered from all nations, and kindreds, and tongues, freely following the Great Shepherd; and that none of them shall be finally lost.

But did not Christ say to the Father, some one may reply, "Those whom thou hast given me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition," implying that he had lost one who had been given him?

This passage is easily explained by a reference to similar ones, and to a prevalent principle of language: "Many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias," says Christ, "but to none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, to a woman that was a widow," That is, he was not sent to a widow in Israel, but to a widow in Sidon. And, "There were many lepers in Israel in the time of Eliseus, the prophet, but none of them were cleansed, save Naaman, the Syrian." That is, no Israelite was cleansed; but Naaman, the Syrian, was cleansed. So precisely in this passage: "None that thou gavest me is lost; but the son of perdition" is lost. The avaricious apostle, "a devil," the betrayer, chosen for wise reasons to be a witness to his works and his innocence, never a Christian-he is lost. He fell from the apostleship, that he "might go to his own place."

It is one of the principles of this doctrine, that the Church is sifted, at least in part, of her hypocrites, and unregenerated members, by the temptations, and trials, and heresies with which they are assailed. Not having root in themselves, as the Saviour teaches in the parable of the sower, they endure but for a while; the cares of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and tribulation or persecution arising, they fall. And "there must be also," the apostle says, heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest."

This doctrine teaches that the true Christian will be kept from fatal heresy as well as fatal crime; and, according to it, the belief of doctrine which subvert the gospel, as decisively reveals an enemy of the cross, as does the practice of iniquity a man unwashed from his sins.

5. The true doctrine of the perseverance of the saints has

a place in it for promises, warnings, and to exhortations to comtinuance in well doing. This should be ever held in remembrance by the religious teacher. It includes and demands the ministry and the ordinances of the Church. The Christian is to be trained up from a spiritual babe to a spiritual man. Every moment he carries with him ability to step aside and seal his ruin! Nay, if left to himself, he will certainly do it. In these instrumentalities and agencies, which are of God, is lodged a measure of the power by which he keeps his saints; and he sets them forth as ordained to the end. They tend to the Christian's preservation. The minister of Christ, having all confidence, in the piety of his church, may address them, after the example of Paul, as "holy brethren" and "partakers of the heavenly calling;" and then point them to the Hebrews who rebelled in the wilderness, and fell short of the promised land; and solemnly warn them against sin, and exhort them to watchfulness, lest they fall in the way and come short of the promised rest. No doctrine of the perseverance of the saints inconsistent with this is of God.

Finally, I remark-This doctrine makes perseverance in an increasing holiness an essential attribute of the Christian character. He, therefore, in whom it is not found, whatever may have been his past experience or his present standing, can have no certain ground of belief that he is a member of the family of Christ. The backslider can have no such ground until he returns to his God, and sees himself living in a new and increasing obedience.

On the other hand, my brethren, of this doctrine this is the consolation just so far as any one of you has the assurance that perseverance in an increasing holiness is an attribute of your character, just so far you may have the assurance of your own final salvation God has joined the two together. Weak as you are in yourselves, conscious as you may be of your own hearts instability, the subject of earth's and hell's machination, yet in God is your strength.. He knoweth how to deliver you. Though trembling and fearful you may make your way over the storm-field of earth, you shall not be tempted above what you are able to bear. You have already passed the line between death and life here you are safe; hereafter you shall triumph.

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SERMON DLXII.

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

THE DYING THIEF;

OR, MARKS OF AN ACCEPTED FAITH.

"Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom."-LUKE. XXIII 42.

How unexpected the sound, how impressive the utterance of these words, in the strange and exciting circumstances of the scene, as described by the Evangelists!

For two or three years Jerusalem had been filled with varying and contradictory rumours concerning the movements and the pretensions of one of obscure birth and mean condition; a person originally from Galilee, and who was known to have been long wandering up and down the country, having no fixed place of abode, but propagating every where his extravagant doctrines, and consorting, for the most part, with the dregs of the people. He had occasionally been seen in the capital city itself, and usually his footsteps had been followed by tumultuous crowds, whose vociferous acclamations had more than once proclaimed him a prophet, and hailed him even as the Son of David. Nay, some had been heard to assert, with great confidence, that this Galilean prophet had actually performed sundry miraculous cures on the sick, the impotent, the blind; and certain indistinct whisperings had penetrated even the highest circles in Jerusalem, about his having raised from the grave and restored to his afflicted relatives, somewhere about the suburbs of the holy city itself, a young man of respectable connections, who was known to have died, and to have lain buried for some time. But the populace are always credulous and superstitious both, and it is well known that rumour loses nothing by circulation..

Certain it was, however, that whatever the opinions of the vulgar might be the learned and the prominent men of the nation gave no credit to the pretensions of this would-be prophet.

On some charge connected with the claims involved in his assumed character, he had been arrested by order of the chief priests; he had been arrainged before the Sanhedrim, the great council of the nation; by them he had been handed over to the Roman governor, Pilate; after an open trial, he had been condemned to death; and at this very hour he was in the hands of the officers of justice, assigned to execution in company, as it was generally understood, with two other notorious criminals: nay, even now the execution was in progress.

Pass, then, at once to the busy, scene: it is but a short distance

from the city; and there, where the multitudes are congregated around that slight eminence, the well-known Calvary, you have the whole before you.

On the spot so fitly designated Golgotha, the place of skulls, you may see, high above the heads of the populace, three outstretched forms, each fast nailed to the horrible cross. The Roman centurion, with his guard of soldiery, is at hand. There, too, you may note the high priest, with his numerous attendants; there stand the Pharisees, scowling with undisguised hatred on him who hangs on the middle cross, the centre of interest to all for that is he whom the populace so lately hailed as the greatest of prophets, whom now they denounce as an impious impostor, unfit to live! Bitter taunts break from the ranks of the Jewish priests gazing near. "He saved others; let him save himself, if he be, as he pretended, God's chosen Messiah!" The soldiers, too, rough and unthinking, as is the wont of their class, throw out cruel jeers: " If thou be the King of the Jews, save thyself!"

Nay, the very thieves hanging at his side seem to catch the general spirit of mockery; for one of them railed on him, saying, "If thou be the Christ, save thyself and us!"

And is there no eye to pity, no heart to feel, no voice to utter tones of sympathy for one around whom, but a few hours ago, thousands were thronging with congratulation, with triumphant hallelujahs, and with songs of praise? None! The priests themselves mock him; the soldiery jeer him; the fickle populace wag their heads in derision, and shoot out the lip; and outlawry and crime itself affect to look down upon him as basest of the base! Who, in such a scene, would venture to brave this unequivocal indication of public sentiment, by treating with even a shadow of respect one thus openly proscribed and universally abhorred! Had you and I been there, our feelings would doubtless have fallen in with the popular current; our lips would have curled with equal scorn, and possibly our voices would have risen with biting mockery too.

But yet, amid this general torrent of insult, one voice, one solitary voice rises in another strain, and that too from a quarter whence it might perhaps be least expected. With the reckless hardihood of desperate villany, one of the suffering malefactors had thrown insult in the teeth of the crucified Galilean prophet; but the other culprit promptly and boldly reproved him: "Dost thou not fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? and we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this man hath done nothing amiss."

After this burst of honest indignation, he turned to the calumniated companion of their shame, and accosted him in the words of my text: "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom." Employed at such a time, and under such circumstances;

employed in addressing a person condemned and scorned; writhing though he was in nature's last agonies; taunted on all hands as a blasphemous imposter; spurned of men, and rejected, as it might seem, of Heaven itself; this one brief sentence not only evinces profound respect, but it is a monument unparalleled of faith; of true, genuine, saving faith in the Redeemer of mankind; of faith unsurpassed and unexampled. History presents nothing like it; earth has never seen its fellow. It was AN ACCEPTED FAITH: and, thief though he was, perishing though he was, even then, under the merited stroke of human justice, the dying Saviour, whom he was not ashamed to acknowledge as such, even beneath the heavy cloud of shame that then was obscuring his glory, pronounced the blessed assurance to him: "This day shalt thou be with me in paradise."

Here, then, we may discern the "marks of an acceptable faith ;” and on the possession or the want of such a faith, your destiny and mine for eternity must depend.

1st. True faith is self-condemnatory; it is rooted and grounded in sincere repentance.

In the Word of God, Christ is presented to us as a Saviour of the lost. He offers pardon to the guilty.

It was for sinners undone by their transgressions that the Redeemer undertook to procure pardon and justification before God, and for such only.

If I merit not condemnation, I need no pardon; and until I discern distinctly and fully that I am guilty, and righteously condemned, I cannot feel my need of pardon; and not feeling my need of it, I cannot desire it. The thief hanging at the Saviour's side did feel his guilt; he acknowledged to his companion in guilt the perfect equity of the punishment he was enduring, even at the hands of his fellow-men; and, by plain implication, much more did he deserve punishment at the hands of God. This, his language both to his fellow-culprit and to the Saviour clearly implies. He makes no attempt to conceal, to justify, or to palliate his guilt. He acknowledges it distinctly and fully. "We, indeed, justly." And thus, taking the entire blame on himself alone, he throws himself at once on the clemency of the suffering Messiah at his side. A similar heartfelt contrition, an unsparing selfcondemnation, is the uniform attendant on a saving faith. "He that humbleth himself shall be exalted." "If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins." But, "whoso covereth his sins shall not prosper."

Let it, then, be distinctly understood and carefully remembered, that without this sincere and unaffected condemnation of himself, as deserving the fearful curse of God's law, there is and there can be in no man an acceptable faith in the Saviour, who alone delivers from the curse of the law. It is only when filled with a touching