taken place in heaven before you, but by what now you feel and know to be within you. I do not ask what are your attainments; but I at least ask what are your purposes? Is it your desire to be conformed unto the image of Christ? Under the conscious load of imperfection that is upon you, are you weary of sin, and is it your heart's earnest longing to be translated into the element of sacredness? Have you resolved to give up all that you know to be evil; and breaking loose from the companionships of the world, is it your determination to come out from among them, and to touch not the unclean thing, but give yourselves singly to the invitation and service of that Master-who, without bar or hindrance, is willing to receive you all, and be a Father to you all. These are the plain questions, on which the step of your worthy communion is suspended; and be very sure, that, if fit for this act of fellowship with the saints on earth, you are fit and on full march, to the high joys and the holy exercises of the sanctuary that is above.

I conclude with an extract from the commentary of Archbishop Leighton on Peter, of which I know not whether to admire most-the exquisite skill, or the exquisite beauty, of his deliverance on this whole topic. But it will require your attention to follow it. It is one of his paragraphs on this verse, "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience, and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." Now," he says, "the connection of

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these we are for our profit to tak enotice of, that effectual calling is inseparably tied to this eternal foreknowledge or election on the one side, and salvation on the other. These two links of the chain are up in heaven in God's own hand; but this middle one is let down on earth into the hearts of His children, and they, laying hold on it, have sure hold on the other two-for no power can sever them; if therefore they can read the characters of God's image in their own souls, these are the counterparts of the golden characters of His love, in which their names are written in the book of life. Their believing writes their names under the promises of the revealed book of life, the Scriptures; and so ascertains them, that the same names are in the secret book of life that God hath by Himself from eternity. So finding the stream of grace in their hearts, though they see not the fountain whence it flows, nor the ocean into which it returns-yet they know that it hath its source, and shall return, to that ocean which ariseth from their eternal election, and shall empty itself into that eternity of happiness and salvation."

"Hence" he adds "much joy ariseth to the believer. This tie is indissoluble as the agents are, the Father the Son and the Spirit; so are election and vocation and sanctification and justification and glory. Therefore, in all conditions, believers may, from the sense of the working of the Spirit in them, look back to that election, and forward to that salvation. But they that remain un

holy and disobedient, have as yet no evidence of this love; and therefore cannot, without vain presumptions and self-delusions, judge thus of themselves, that they are within the peculiar love of God. But in this let the righteous be glad, and let them shout for joy all that are upright in heart.

"If election, effectual calling, and salvation be inseparably linked together—then by any one of them a man may hold upon all the rest, and may know that his hold is sure; and this is the way wherein we may attain, and ought to secure that comfortable assurance of the love of God." "Find then but within thee sanctification by the Spirit; and this argues necessarily both justification by the Son, and election by God the Father."

This Spirit will be given to your prayers, and to your endeavours. Here is your opening; and it lies with yourselves to enter it.

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LECTURE LXII.

ROMANS, viii, 31, 32.

"What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?"

VER. 31. What shall we say then to these things? If God be for us who can be against us?'

In this verse the apostle makes a special application of what he had said immediately before to himself and his disciples. 'What shall we say to these things?' What inference shall we draw for ourselves from this train of reasoning? He takes encouragement from it you will observe. It is both to him and to his followers a cheering contemplation, which it only could have been on the presumption that they had part and interest in that election of which he had spoken already, and to which he afterwards recurs in the course of his argument. If God be for us who can be against us?'-is a consideration that stands obvioosly allied in the mind of the apostle, with the question of Who shall lay an thing to the charge of God's elect? He must have believed then in his own election, and that of the converts whom he addresses; or, if he did not know it as a certainty, he at least grasps at it as he would at a strong and pretty confident pro

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bability. Now how is it that any man arrives at this conclusion? And while all have a warrant to rejoice in that offer of salvation which in fact is universal-while any of our world may look unto Him who is set forth, as a propitiation for the world's sins and be lightened thereby-while each and every of our species may respond unto the gift of eternal life, that is held out for the acceptance of as many as will; and may, without let or hindrance, draw nigh and touch that sceptre of forgiveness which now hath been made to stand forth in the sight of the whole human family—while thus it is, that all without exception are invited to take comfort in that redeeming love which prompted God to send His Son into the world, that whosoever receiveth Him might along with Him receive peace and pardon and reconciliation-Whence comes this peculiarity in the case of Paul and of his correspondents, that they here take comfort, not in the redeeming, but in the electing love-that they indulge in strains of gratitude not because of the part they have in that book of revelation which circulates at large among mankind and is addressed unto all, but because of the part they have in that book of life where the names of the blest have been enrolled from before the foundation of the world-not because they have been spoken to in that language of welcome, which under the economy of the gospel, hath gone forth among the sinners of all degrees and of every denomination; but because they have been singled out as the objects of a favoured and friendly