two, just as "lukewarmness" partakes of the qualities both of cold and of heat.

Now, it may impress you, perhaps, as not a little remarkable, that our Saviour, while he declares his abhorrence of the spiritual and religious condition of the Laodiceans, should do so by expressing his wish that they were even altogether "cold," rather than "lukewarm;" in other words, that they were openly apostate than only moderately, or to a certain extent, so: "I would thou wert cold or hot!" But we cannot suppose, my friends, we must not, that our blessed Lord's intention is, by the peculiar and emphatic language which he employs, to make affirmation to us of his preference for the most aggravated wickedness and faulty short-comings as such, compared with negative goodness merely, and faint and far-between endeavours in his cause. His meaning is, that, were the Laodicean Church to assume at once an avowedly hostile attitude with respect to Christianity, she would thus be acting a more straitforward and intelligible—a more consistent and honest part, and be doing less injury and prejudice to the Redeemer's name, and to the interests of the truth, than by remaining in her present state of unworthy apathy and sinful unconcernedness; whereby the enemies of the faith were made to blaspheme every day. At the same time, too, there was this aggravation, Christ knew, belonging to the "lukewarm " professor of religion, which rendered him signally obnoxious to the mind of Heaven, that to all his other guilt and crimes, he superadded the sin of hypocrisy,

and of pride, and of daring presumption, and of selfflattery. And, besides, the repentance and conversion ultimately of such a character are much more improbable events, than the conviction and reformation of the reckless and unrestrained profligate himself; simply upon the principle, that the publicans and harlots of the Saviour's time were more accessible to the appeals of Divine Revelation, and received the Gospel more readily than the self-righteous Pharisees, or that even a shock of palsy, or the paroxysms of a raging epidemic, are often controlled and modified-overcome and completely removed-while another malady, milder in its onset and more impalpable in its progress, insinuates itself into the vital functions of the human frame -stealing its way there with consumptive effect, until, having reached the destined crisis, it undermine the entire system, and, in utter mockery of the physician's skill and the power of his medicines, issue at last in the wretched patient's dissolution!

The expression "lukewarm," is well calculated to convey to us an idea of the intense disapprobation entertained by the Lord our God, towards all professing Christians, like the Laodiceans of old. Scarcely can any beverage be conceived more nauseating, nay, more absolutely revolting, to the stomach of man than water, which is neither positively cold, nor yet altogether warm, but just "lukewarm." And, as the human stomach shrinks from such a draught-will, in many instances, be effectually mastered by it, and would even prefer it, were its temperature some degrees nearer to the boiling point, and as much so as might

be compatible with its being taken; so, in like manner, brethren, for "lukewarm" Christians, Jesus has no relish whatever, but cherishes greater predilections, in a sense, for sinners themselves of the intensest depravity; of the former he is sincerely sick-between them and him there is no community of feeling-all is revulsion, and there is no congenial taste-and such persons, consequently, thus grossly destitute of all "meetness" for the hallowed services and the holy joys of "the saints in light," he will repudiate utterly away from him on "the day when he numbers his jewels," and will "spue them out of his mouth," into the depths of everlasting woe. When they shall then " begin to say," in order to recommend them to his mercy, and escape his righteous indignation-"Lord, we have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets,"-his reply to them will be in those terrible terms" I tell you, I know you not, whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity!"

The Church, and also, as we have remarked already, the very city itself of Laodicea, has now lain overwhelmed in ruins for many hundred years; but the "lukewarm" spirit which entailed upon them that tremendous judgment, has still survived, and possesses too great a proportion of the acknowledged Christians amongst us at the present day. We shall now, then, consider the passage before us in direct application to our ownselves, and with a view to our religious improvement and eternal well-being.

I. We shall consider and illustrate the RELIGIOUS CHA

RACTER, described as "neither cold nor hot," but merely "lukewarm""—a character which, we fear, will be seen to attach even unto those who have hitherto passed current, not only in the world, but also with themselves, for true and zealous Christians, approved by God, and having a title already to the bliss of heaven.

To be "lukewarm," then, with respect to religion, is neither to be wholly unconcerned about it, nor yet deeply interested in it. It is to have some vague, general, and confused persuasion of its importance, but to want convictions to that effect, of a sufficiently strong, pervading, and influential nature. "Lukewarm" Christians, accordingly, are those who neither reject the solemn verities of Revelation, nor deny the general obligations of its ordinances. They believe, that without religion things would be far from being right with them, whether as to time or eternity, nay, that their immortal interests would be brought into fearful jeopardy: still do they rest satisfied in practice, with something essentially, woefully short of what they thus adhere to, in theory. They could not bear to be called or considered Jews or Mahometans, Pagans or infidels. They derive comfort from the very notion that they are Christians, in name at least; and yet are they, all the while, just as much of any, or even of all these, as they are real, faithful followers of Jesus. They give to the Sacred Scriptures a certain amount, no doubt, of their time and attention, but they refuse, notwithstanding, to exalt the Bible to the throne of their hearts and affections. They occasionally read God's Word on the Lord's day, which even the regulations

of society, in some measure, shut them up to, by preventing them from occupying their time with the public discharge of their worldly affairs; but it is not their "delight by day and night." And when they do enter the house of God on the Lord's own day, they leave it again without knowing anything of the high and holy communion with God, which flows into the pious soul through the channel of Gospel institutions and ordinances; nothing of the heavenly joy, springing up in the whole "inner man" from these; and nothing of David's yearning desire and impatient longing for their recurrence. Strangers to closet devotion, they wrestle not, as ancient Jacob, arduously and long with their Maker: nor have they any domestic altar raised, from which to cause the incense of their "morning and evening sacrifices" to come up, as a sweet smelling savour," before the Lord. Nay, we may go farther, and aver regarding an individual of the character under review, that his acquiescence in the requisitions of religion, even as respects its outward ceremonies, arises not from his deep-rooted sense of her intrinsic worth and beauty, or from personal experience of her blessed and transforming influences, or from the love he bears to the Lord, his Redeemer and Sanctifier, or from his utter and growing aversion to the pursuits and vanities of a world "lying in wickedness," or from his aspirations after a higher and holier state of existence, where all is blessedness, because sin and imperfection are for ever absent and unknown, and shall no longer retard the ransomed and glorified spirit in its onward progress in knowledge and purity, power and joy. No: all