which did also so strongly work, both in my heart and life, that I had but few equals, both for cursing, swearing, lying, and blaspheming the holy name of God." Suffice it, however, that by each of us open sins have been committed, which manifest that "we esteemed him not."

Could we have rebelled against our Father with so high a hand, if his son had been the object of our love? Should we have so perpetually trampled on the commands of a venerated Jesus? Could we have done such despite to his authority, if our hearts had been knit to his adorable person? Could we have sinned so terribly, if Calvary had been dear to us? Nay; surely our clouds of transgressions testify our former want of love to him. Had we esteemed the God-man, should we so entirely have neglected his claims? could we have wholly forgotten his loving words of command? Do men insult the persons they admire? Will they commit high treason against a king they love? Will they slight the person they esteem, or wantonly make sport of him they venerate? And yet we have done all this, and more; whereby the least word of flattery concerning any natural love to Christ is rendered to our now honest hearts as

hateful as the serpent's hiss. These iniquities might not so sternly prove us to have despised our Lord had they been accompanied by some little service to him. Even now, when we do love his

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name, we are oft unfaithful, but now our affection helps us to creep in service where we cannot go;" but before our acts were none of them seasoned with the salt of sincere affection, but wereall full of the gall of bitterness. O beloved, let us not seek to avoid the weight of this evidence, but let us own that our gracious Lord has much to lay to our charge, since we chose to obey Satan rather than the Captain of salvation, and preferred sin to holiness.

Let the self-conceited Pharisee boast that he was born free-we see on our wrists the red marks of the iron; let him glory that he was never blind— our eyes can yet remember the darkness of Egypt. in which we discerned not the morning star. Others may desire the honour of a merited salvation-we know that our highest ambition can only hope for pardon and acceptance by grace alone; and well we remember the hour when the only channel of that grace was despised or neglected by us.

The Book of Truth shall next witness against us. The time is not yet erased from memory when this sacred fount of living water was unopened by us, our evil hearts placed a stone over the mouth of the well, which even conscience could not remove. Bible dust once defiled our fingers; the blessed volume was the least sought after of all the books in the library.

Though now we can truly say that His word is

a matchless temple where we delight to be, to cotemplate the beauty, the symmetry, and the magnificence of the structure, to increase our awe, and excite our devotion to the Deity there preached and adored;"* yet at one sad period of our lives we refused to tread the jewelled floor of the temple, or when from custom's sake we entered it, we paced it with hurried tread, unmindful of its sanctity, heedless of its beauty, ignorant of its glories, and unsubdued by its majesty.

Now we can appreciate Herbert's rapturous affection expressed in his poem :

"Oh book! infinite sweetness! let my heart

Suck every letter, and a honey gain,

Precious for any grief in any part;

To clear the breast, to mollify all pain."

But then every ephemeral poem or trifling novel could move our hearts a thousand times more easily than this "book of stars," "this god of books." Ah! well doth this neglected Bible prove us to have esteemed Jesus but lightly. Verily, had we been full of affection to him, we should have sought him in his word. Here he doth unrobe himself, showing his inmost heart. Here each page is stained with drops of his blood, or emblazoned with rays of his glory. At every turn we see him, as

* Boyle.

divine and human, as dying and yet alive, as buried but now risen, as the victim and the priest, as the prince and saviour, and in all those various offices, relationships and conditions, each of which render him dear to his people and precious to his saints. Oh let us kneel before the Lord, and own that "we esteemed him not," or else we should have walked with him in the fields of Scripture, and held communion with him in the spice-beds of inspiration.

The Throne of Grace, so long unvisited by us, equally proclaims our former guilt. Seldom were our cries heard in heaven; our petitions were formal and lifeless, dying on the lip which carelessly pronounced them. Oh sad state of crime, when the holy offices of adoration were unfulfilled, the censer of praise smoked not with a savour acceptable unto the Lord, nor were the vials of prayer fragrant with precious odours!

Unwhitened by devotion, the days of the calendar were black with sin; unimpeded by our supplication, the angel of judgment speeded his way to our destruction. At the thought of those days of sinful silence, our minds are humbled in the dust; and never can we visit the mercy-seat without adoring the grace which affords despisers a ready welcome.

But why went not "our heart in pilgrimage?" Why sung we not that "tune which all things hear

and fear?" Why fed we not at "the Church's banquet," on this "exalted manna?" What answer can we give more full and complete than this

"We esteemed him not?" Our little regard of Jesus kept us from his throne: for true affection would have availed itself of the ready access which prayer affords to the secret chamber of Jesus, and would thereby have taken her fill of loves. Can we now forsake the throne? No; our happiest moments are spent upon our knees, for there Jesus manifests himself to us. We prize the society of this best of friends, for his divine countenance "giveth such an inward decking to the house where he lodgeth, that proudest palaces have cause to envy the gilding." We delight to frequent the shades of secrecy, for there our Saviour allows us to unbosom our joys and sorrows, and roll them alike on him.

O Lamb of God! our prayerlessness bids us confess that once we considered thee to have neither form nor comeliness.

Furthermore, our avoidance of the people of God confirms the humiliating truth. We who now stand in the "sacramental host of God's elect," glorying in the brotherhood of the righteous, were once "strangers and foreigners." The language of Canaan was to our ear either an unmeaning babble at which we scoffed, a harsh jargon which we sought not to imitate, or an "unknown tongue" above our