born soul stooped" to take pleasure in the unsatisfying things of a world lying in wickedness!

Ah! 'tis the world enthrals

The heaven-betrothed breast;
The traitor sense recals

The soaring soul from rest.'

We have offended against thy holy laws.

The first feeling of a convert to genuine religion is usually terror, because of the holiness of God, and the righteousness of his law: but by degrees he is enabled to "rejoice at the remembrance of His holiness," and to love the law because it is so righteous.

St. James says, "Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." In the exhausted receiver of an air pump, all bodies fall with the same rapidity -a feather drops as quickly as a guinea: so the grossest sinner, and the most punctilious moralist, in the sight of God are equally condemned; it is the atmosphere of a fallen world which alone causes the apparent difference. Hence, though Christ is sufficient for the vilest transgressor, nothing less than Christ is available for any human being. In the law concerning

the offerings for atonement, it was commanded, that neither rich nor poor should give either more or less than half a shekel; pointing most strikingly, to the "full, perfect, and sufficient oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world." This truth established, as it must be, in the breast of every saved sinner, both by revelation and experience, how feelingly will he join with heart and voice in the above confession! for although it may well make the unconverted man tremble and despair of entering the fold by any other way than the one appointed "door," which is Christ Jesus: yet to those who have been led in by the sovereign grace of God, it presents no terror, but serves to bring to their grateful remembrance, Him who is " the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth;" Him who so magnified the law, that the believer, endued as it were with a new optical power, can see and admire a thousand minutiæ which the naked mind's eye could never have discovered. And each commandment, when it effectually takes root in the soil of the human heart, produces its thousands and tens of thousands of new duties and corresponding responsibilities.

We have left undone those things which we ought to have done.

Men are too apt to suppose sins of omission to be of less magnitude than sins of commission; but there is no scriptural ground for this supposition; on the contrary, not to mention many others, one of the most awful insights we have into the judgment of the last day, as contained in the parable of the talents, presents the slothful servant, guilty, and condemned, not for any actual sin, but for supinely neglecting the means vouchsafed him. The true Christian will ever grieve for omitting any opportunity, either through indolence or cowardice, of glorifying his Lord: he does indeed feel that could he do all, he would be but an "unprofitable servant," how much more when his daily shortcomings prove how imperfect is his sanctification, how cold his warmest love! he can truly say in the words of our Christian poet

'My prayers and alms, imperfect and defiled,
Are but the feeble efforts of a child;

I cast them at Thy feet, my only plea
Is what it was, dependence upon Thee.

And we have done those things which we ought not to have done.

:

It is indeed promised to the believer that "sin shall not have dominion" over him, and he feels that it no longer "reigns" within him it may be compared to an usurper who had once acquired the sovereign authority, but is now dethroned; but who still wanders over every corner of that "kingdom of God" which is "within” him; is ever trying to excite insurrection, and proves by no means a contemptible enemy. O what a day of Jubilee will that be, when this mischievous and indefatigable opponent shall be everlastingly expelled the realm; and every inch of ground will manifestly belong to the rightful Sovereign! But in the mean time, the warfare is not without its attendant blessing; it lays the believer low in humiliation, making him to feel by bitter experience that sin in all its forms is native to his heart; just as in the vegetable world some leaves have the latent germs of roots in them, and some roots the latent germs of leaves; requiring only favourable circumstances for their developement. This melancholy truth does indeed strike to the ground the presumptuous notion

of man's possessing one particle of inherent righteousness and the conviction of it makes the believer long for the day, when he shall see all things, his own sins included, put under the feet of Him, who though he has long time holden his peace, yet has appointed a day, in which he will "break forth" upon his enemies. In that awful hour the Lord will "spend" his "arrows" upon his enemies: He who aforetime laid bare His holy bosom to receive those arrows "winged in heaven" against sin, and of which He cried in anguish to His Father that they "stuck fast in Him;"-the same Lord shall arise to "plead" His "own cause," and then who shall be able to stand but those who, being part of His very self, cannot be among the hated ones;-those whose "Advocate" He has been during this dispensation, pleading their cause continually before the throne of God: "O Lord, thou hast pleaded the cause of my soul, Thou hast redeemed my life," will. each of these be able to say in that day. Hence the Lord is by the prophet Micah represented as, first, the injured party, secondly, the advocate, and thirdly the Judge: and let it be again and again repeated, for the present encouragement of every tempted believer, that though