-that heaven is like a great city with walls-that you are outside, and the storm of wrath about to fall on you; has God also convinced you that Christ is the only gate into the city-the strait gate, and yet wide enough to admit any sinner in all the world? Ah! then I know you will strive to enter in-you will agonize-you will not rest day nor night: "As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God." If there is any of you convinced that sin is a mortal disease-that all other physicians are vain-that Christ is passing through the midst of us full of virtue to heal-I know you will press forward, whatever others do: "If I may but touch the hem of his garment I shall be healed"-" As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God."

I would now invite panting souls to close with Christ. It is a sad truth, that most of Christians in our day are rather coming to Christ than come to Christ. Most of you are like the manslayer running toward the city of refuge, rather than when he sits down within the gates. O if you feel condemned in yourself, and that God has provided a free Surety for sinners, why will you not rest your soul upon his finished work?-why will you go round and round the city of refuge, and not enter in? This holy ordinance is intended to teach you appropriating faith-no more to waver, but to put out the hand of faith and close with Jesus. You do not come to look at bread and wine, but to take it. Take, eat, O panting souls! May God give you light at the same moment to venture on Christ, and say: "This God is my God for ever and ever."

II. Desire of holiness makes the soul pant after God. 1. Unconverted persons have no desire for holiness, and therefore they do not pant after God and Christ. Indeed this is the chief reason why poor sinners do not come to Christ. They know that if they came to Christ they would get a new heart-they would bid an eternal farewell to their old companions and pleasures; but most people would rather go to hell than this. When a few Greenlanders were brought into this country, they saw no beauty in the rich corn fields, and woods, and plains; they asked for their fields of snow, and the mountains of ice glancing in the sun. When they came into our houses, they could not endure the cleanness of them; they greatly preferred their own smoky, filthy cabins. So it is with those of you who are

you see

unconverted. You have grown up.with hearts frozen to God, and to divine things; and when you come to see the heart of a Christian like a garden, with the river of life flowing through it, and beautiful flowers of meekness, love, and holiness growing in it, you cannot bear the sight-you love your own frozen heart better. When the clean heart of a child of God, you say: I had rather have my own filthy one. Ah! this is the way with most. You do not long to be made holy-you have no panting after a new birth. It needs grace to desire grace. You do not desire to be made a new creature-you had rather remain in the image of the devil than be changed into the image of God. You are like Jerusalem: "Woe unto thee, O Jerusalem! Wilt thou not be made clean? when shall it once be?"

2. But all saved souls pant after holiness: "As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God." (1.) When a soul comes to close with Christ he is not made perfectly holy all at once: "The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day." Just as you have seen the day struggling with the darkness, then with clouds, till the sun bursts forth in meridian splendour; so is it with the holiness of a Christian. Just as in the richest lands, after the deepest ploughing, weeds will still grow up among the corn; so, many roots of bitterness remain in the believer's heart. Paul thanked God for the grace that was given to the Corinthians-that they came behind in no gift; and yet he says they had strife, and envy, and divisions, so that he could not call them spiritual, but carnal. So is it with every Christian heart. Weeds grow up in the best cultivated gardens. There is enough in Christ to supply all our need. It is our own fault that we are not holy as God is holy. It is not in Christ, but in ourselves, that we are straitened. The shower of grace is plentiful enough, and more than enough; but we do not open our mouth wide. (2.) But every soul in Christ hates sin-pants after holiness. Nothing makes him pant more after God than corruption striving within. Paul never prayed more earnestly than when he had the thorn in his flesh. The thorn in the flesh makes us pant after God. When a vessel is left by the tide lying dry upon the sand, it cannot be moved-it is a helpless log. The mariners may try to draw it with ropes, but it only sinks deeper in the sand. They can do nothing but long for the tide, that it may again be lifted upon

the waves, and sail into the harbour. So is it with a Christian. You are often like a vessel on the sand. You can

not move. You attempt duties, but it is heavy work. Without Christ you can do nothing. You wait and pant for Christ, for the full tide of the Spirit, to lift your soul above the waves, and carry you prosperously on toward the heavenly harbour.

Let me invite weary souls to come to Christ this day. Some of you are feeling the thorn in the flesh, and you are praying that it may depart from you. Some of you feel like the criminal who was chained to a dead body. You feel your loathsome body of sin-you cry: "O wretched man!" Some of you are like the deer that has been wounded by the lion, and trembles at its roaring. You have been wounded by Satan, and you tremble to hear his roar. Come you to Jesus. He will give you rest, O panting soul. Close with Christ-feed upon Christ. Without him you can do nothing. Through Christ strengthening you, you may do all things. This ordinance is intended to teach you to feed on Jesus. You do not only look on the bread, or handle it— you eat you drink. So come into personal union with Christ, O longing soul, and he will be your strength: "God is our refuge and our strength."

III. Desolateness makes the soul pant after God.

1. Believers never should be desolate. It is contrary to the promise: "None of them that trust in him shall be desolate." Christ is always the same. His righteousness is as perfect one day as another. If you are clothed in that righteousness, your peace should be like a river. It is very dishonouring to Christ for believers to be going bowed down all the day long: "Rejoice in the Lord alway; and again I say, Rejoice."

2. Still I fear some of you can bear witness that the believer is sometimes very desolate. The moon does not always shine in a cloudless sky. The ships do not always sail on a waveless sea. The believer does not always walk in the smile of his Father. (1.) Outward providences sometimes cause it, when they come unexpectedly upon us-when we cannot see God's meaning in them—when we suspect his love, and fall into darkness. So Job: "Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, A man-child is conceived." (2.) Sin admitted into the heart is the most common cause. God

is a jealous God. So Israel: "She said, I will go after my lovers that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink."

3. The desolate soul pants after God. So it was with Job: "O that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his seat." So it was with the bride: “I will rise now and go about the city, in the streets and in the broad ways." So David: "As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God." When a child that has been tenderly brought up, that has been warmly clad and comfortably fed, and cared for by a gentle mother's hand, when that child is turned out on the cold world, O it is bitter indeed!-O for my father's roof! O for my mother's smile! So it is with a child of light walking in darkness.

Invite desolate souls to come to God, the living God. Some of you may be feeling like a ship tossed on a stormy sea. Deep calls unto deep, at the noise of God's waterspouts; all the waves and billows are breaking over you. Be persuaded to close with Christ, freely offered to you. Put away entirely the question as to whether you ever believed before. Believe now. This ordinance is peculiarly fitted for you. You say you cannot realize a Saviour; well, here he is set forth plainly in bread and wine: "This is my body, broken for you." You say: But how shall I know he is a Saviour to me? See, here the bread is freely offered: "Whosoever will let him take the water of life freely." You say: But how do I know he is still offered to me? I answer, "Yet there is room." Here is bread enough and to spare. You say: But may I really close with him? I answer, "Take, eat. O panting soul, come under his wings. "The Spirit and the Bride say, Come."

Dundee, Nov. 4, 1838.—(Action Sermon.)

SERMON LIX.

THE FIGHT OF FAITH.

"I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing."2 TIM. iv. 7, 8.

How blessed it is to stand by the death-bed of God's children! How different from that of the wicked! The wicked sometimes die in anguish. Some have been known to cry out: "Lost, lost, lost! O eternity! O for half an hour, to pray!" Some die in blasphemy-cursing God for their pains and their sores. The greater number die like a beast, without any thought or care, except for the body: "They have no bands in their death, but their strength is firm. They are laid in their graves like sheep, and the upright have dominion over them in the morning."

How sweet, compared with these, is the departure of God's children! They fall asleep in Jesus: "I am ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand." Paul here compares it-1. To the pouring out of a drinkoffering: "Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all."—Phil. ii. 17. He felt so entirely dedicated and given away to God, that his death was like the pouring out of the wineoffering, which already belonged to God. 2. To the departure of a ship: "The hour of my departure is at hand.” The things of time were like the cables that bound him to this world; but soon his bark was to be loosed from the shore, to sail forward to the shore of glory, to be moored for

evermore.

In these words we have the secret of a joyful death-bed. 1. He looks back upon the life of pain. 2. He looks forward to the crown of glory.

I. He looks back. Threefold view.

He does not look back to his life before conversion at all. He often did so, but it was to condemn it: "I was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious; but