all furnish a perpetual and often most affecting commentary on what the scriptures teach respecting the human heart, and the moral condition of the world. In this way many of the great truths which we are concerned to understand and remember, are continually and forcibly exhibited before our eyes, and brought home to our bosoms. Nor is this all. He who made, governs, and sustains all things, and who is the great subject of the bible, and the only foundation of our hope, is alway present with those who would learn of him. By the suggestions of his Spirit, he teaches them how to find rest, when every thing about them is in disorder and agitation-where to confide when the world and its votaries prove deceitful—and how to possess his meekness and humility in a world that is filled with the revengeful, the passionate, and the proud.

5. This leads me to notice that peculiar advantage of those who learn of Christ, which is particularly referred to in the text. FOR I AM MEEK AND LOWLY IN ᎻᎬᎪᎡᎢ . It not seldom happens, that persons in other respects competent to impart instruction in human sciences, discourage and intimidate their pupils by their rash, impetuous, impatient or distant manners. They have not the requisite condescension and gentleness to engage the attention and affection of the timid and the volatile, or to soften and reclaim the stubborn and perverse. But he who bids us learn of him, has no such features of character to drive us away from him in discouragement and despondency. Nay, he urges us to become his disciples, from the consideration of his opposite traits of character. What those traits are, we may see from what they were, while in the flesh he tabernacled among men. He never became impatient or wearied by the perverseness or dulness of his disciples. He ever conversed among them with the utmost meekness. He always allowed them a gracious freedom of access to his person. He bore with their mistakes, reproved and corrected them with the greatest

mildness, and with kind accommodation to even their prejudices, he taught them as they were able to bear. And now that he is exalted upon his glorious throne, and invested with ineffable majesty, we are directed to think of him as the same meek and condescending Saviour. It was an absurd and excessive compliment, once addressed by a Roman orator to a Roman Emperor" that they who durst speak to him were ignorant of his greatness, and they who durst not, were equally ignorant of his goodness." But as applied to Immanuel, it is a just and literal truth. If we properly consider his greatness alone, it must seem almost presumption in us to think of uttering his holy name; but if we have a due sense of his unlimited benignity and grace, every difficulty vanishes, and we must feel a liberty in approaching him, though with reverence, yet with confidence. He will not frown upon us, when we would come to sit at his feet. But he is condescending as well as meek. Though he humbles himself to behold the things that are done in heaven, he condescends to teach those who desire to learn of him. As none can recommend themselves to him by their rank, wealth, or talents, so none are excluded from his regard by the want of the things which men naturally value and covet. Surely, all must see that they who are truly his disciples, have preeminent advantages and facilities for becoming wise to their everlasting benefit. He can give the capacity and the will to learn. He can teach lessons of all others the most important. He can sway the heart and life as well as inform the understanding. He is an ever present teacher, opening a constant and ever increasing field of knowledge. And he is so MEEK that he will never dishearten them by his austerity, and SO LOWLY that he will stoop to pour instruction into the meanest and most uninformed minds. Is it not reasonable that such a Master should be obeyed, and the lessons of such a Teacher carefully imbibed?

It must be apparent that the obedience to Christ, and

the readiness to learn of him enjoined in the text, cannot fail to secure the promised blessing-REST TO THE SOUL. To be obedient and docile to such a Lord and Master, is to be restored to a becoming state of dependence on God—a state of harmony and peace with him—a state of subjection of our wills to his will-and a state of freedom from guilty fears and terrors. Το learn of Christ, is so to behold the vanity of the world, as to extinguish our restless desires, and suspend our wearisome pursuit of things uncertain and unsatisfying. To sit as disciples at his feet, is to gain sublimer and purer hopes and pleasures than the present state of things can ever yield. To be thus obedient and teachable, gives the soul rest, by directly furnishing us with those aids, encouragements, and motives, which make duty desirable, practicable, and delightful.

Many of us are the professed disciples of Christ. We profess to have assumed his yoke, and to have sought and submitted to his instruction. And what have we actually learned? Some of us have long been in his school. Under the eminent advantages of his tuition, great attainments ought to have been made. Are we sure that we have truly been inclined to learn? Is there evidence, that our hearts have been influenced by the lessons he teaches? The proud, the haughty, the impetuous, the passionate, the voluptuous, and the worldly, familiar as they are with his name and frequently as they may have attended on his instructions, cannot as yet have truly sat at his feet, or imbibed his spirit. They have not yet learned the first lessons he teaches. They have not been taught to be MEEK AND LOWLY IN Heart. In vain are all other attainments without these. In vain is their accurate knowledge of his truths. In vain is their burning zeal in his cause. In vain are their high professions of attachment. Let all such disciples anticipate the time, when they must hear him declare to them, I never knew you-depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity. As they are now strangers to his rest,

they should bear it in mind, that unchanged, they can never enter into his rest.

This subject is full of encouragement to such as are truly weary and heavy laden. Burdened with a sense of sin and guilt, let them only TAKE HIS YOKE UPON THEM, and the cruel oppression will vanish. They feel dark and bewildered; let them cast themselves at his feet to be taught, and they shall be enlightened and guided. And who can hesitate to obey the meek and condescending Redeemer? Who can feel a reluctance to learn of such a Teacher? He is full of tenderness and love. His compassion and condescension are infinite. Many millions on earth have taken his yoke and learned of him, and had a blessed experience of the freedom and deliverance he gives. While heaven is thronged with those who are cheerfully, and eternally to bear the same yoke, and to be taught by the same exalted and lowly master and guide. Listen, then, all ye weary and heavy laden sinners, to his kindest calls. Hasten to him. Submit to his gentle and equal sway. Begin to learn the lessons of grace, of heaven, and of eternity. Are not your hearts ready to say-Behold, we come unto thee, for thou art the Lord our God.

12*

SERMON XI.

The convicted Sinner's anxious Inquiry.

ACTS II. 37.

NOW WHEN THEY HEARD THIS, THEY WERE PRICKED IN THEIR HEART, AND SAID UNTO PETER, AND TO THE REST OF THE APOSTLES-MEN AND BRETHREN, WHAT SHALL WE DO?

NEXT to the event of our Saviour's crucifixion, the effusion of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, was undoubtedly, the most important occurrence, the world ever witnessed. It was a signal fulfilment of the concluding series of prophecies respecting the advent of the Messiah, and the establishment of his kingdom on earth. It was that spiritual baptism, for which, in obedience to the command of their Master, his disciples were waiting at Jerusalem. Through its influence on the apostles, and on the multitude of Jews who were then collected out of the different provinces of the Roman empire, an impulse was given to the cause of Christ, which is yet felt, and which will be more and more felt, until a spiritual christianity shall pervade all the kindreds of the earth. Some of the events of that day, were entirely of a miraculous character, and such as have not since occurred. They belonged peculiarly to that point in the progress of the new dispensation, and then had an indispensable agency in that progress. But most of the incidents of that day, have ever since been connected with the simple and faithful preaching of the