would determine what he was then; the terms of surrender now proposed, even if respite were given but a day, would furnish sufficient trial of what he was disposed to be.

Our life is very short. It is a vapour; a breath; a summer cloud; a morning mist. But it is long enough to answer all the purposes of probation for eternity. Let a proposal of surrender be sent to this rebellious baron, and if he pays no attention to it, it shows what he is. If sent again, and he is still sullen and indifferent; or if he coolly and with outward respect sends it back; or if he scourges the messenger and then sends him back; or if he hurls back defiance; or if he crucifies the messenger, and suspends him on the walls in the sight of him who sent him, can there be any doubt about his character? Would it be wrong to proceed to a sentence on the ground of this? To man-short-lived, and found in rebellion against Godan offer of mercy is sent. If he is indifferent; if he turns away; if he closes his ear; if he meets it with contempt, mockery, and reproaches; if he seizes the messenger and incarcerates him or crucifies him, is there any doubt about his character? Is it necessary to a fair and equal probation that our supposed baron should have an opportunity of doing this repeatedly? Would you say that equity required that his sovereign should patiently wait, rising up early" and sending his messengers to be despised, rejected, or crucified, until the moss of years should overspread the walls of that castle, and the keeper should become grey with age? I tell you, my friends, as you would say in that case, that this is not necessary; that if God makes you an offer of salvation so that you fairly understand it; if he sets life and death before you, and life be despised, there is a fair trial. Justice and judgment might then proceed apace; and though you be cut down at twenty years of age, the character is determined. Life even in such a case is long enough for this purpose, and the probation is a fair one.

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There are several other thoughts which might be suggested in order fully to illustrate my subject; but I may not trespass on your attention by dwelling on them. I have stated some views which seem to me important to give us just conceptions of what life is, and to reconcile us to our condition. There is one other thought, however, which cannot be omitted without leaving the subject incomplete. I can do little more than name it.

VI. It is this:—that there is just uncertainty enough about all the objects of life, and about its close, to make this a proper world of probation. All things are uncertain—life, health, property, friends, office, honour. When these things are gained,

they satisfy no one. The mind is uneasy, restless, discontented. The thoughts stretch onward still; nor, in our weary journey, do we all find a resting-place. A palace or a cottage, a city or a village, a feudal castle or an Arab's tent, are alike unfit to be the permanent abode of man. He wants another homeone more fixed, one more adapted to his nature-the "house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."

And amidst this general instability, the close of life itself is just so uncertain as to show that this is a proper world of probation. If human life were fixed uniformly at fifty years without the variation of a day, and if the manner of death were in all circumstances the same, it is not difficult to see what would be the effect in regard to a preparation for eternity. Who can be ignorant of the disposition in man to defer preparation for a future state as long as possible? And who can be ignorant how prone men are, even with all the uncertainty about the manner of death, still to defer preparation to the very hour of departure? What, then, in reference to a preparation for a future state, would be the condition of things if all men knew the day, the hour, the moment, the circumstances of death? God has ordered this better. You may live on yet many years, or this day's sun may be the last that you will ever behold. What is better fitted to lead man, if he would be wise, to think of another world, and to make a timely preparation for it, than this uncertainty when his probation will close? What could there be that would be more adapted to crown all the other arrangements of probation, and to bring the mind to make preparation for heaven? Probably in all other worlds there has been no arrangement better fitted to secure the end in view than this; and the fact-the sad and mournful fact-that a candidate for eternity remains unconcerned in these circumstances, shows the inexpressible wickedness and folly of man.

SERMON VII.

MAN ON PROBATION.

GAL. vi. 7, 8.-"Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting."

THE literal truth of what is here affirmed no one can doubt. He that sows wheat shall reap the same; he that sows rye, or barley, or cockle, or tares, shall reap the same. Wheat that is sown will not produce tares; nor will tares produce wheat. So in morals. He that sows to the flesh, or cultivates the depraved and corrupt appetites of his nature, will reap only what those depraved and corrupt appetites can produce-wretchedness, corruption, and woe. He that cultivates the affections produced by the Spirit of God, shall inherit life everlasting. God is not mocked. He is no more imposed upon by any art of man, so that happiness is the result of sin, than he is in respect to grain that is sown. Eternal life can no more be made the fruit of fleshly appetites than a harvest of wheat can be made to grow in a field sown only with tares.

The doctrine then is, that man is on trial or probation with reference to his future state; and that the destiny in the eternal world will depend on the character formed in this life. This truth I propose to explain and to defend.

In the explanation of the doctrine, I would observe, that I do not use the word probation as implying that man is not fallen, or that he is on trial in the same sense in which Adam was when created. Considerable exception has been taken to the use of that word, as if it implied that in all respects the condition of man now is the same as before the fall. But this idea is not necessarily conveyed by the use of the word. Nor is it meant that man does not come into the world with a strong and universal tendency to sin—a tendency uniform in its nature and effects, except when arrested by the grace of God.

The essential idea in the term is, that future happiness and reward are dependent on present conduct and character.

Adam

was in the strictest sense of the word on probation. He was created, indeed, holy. But it was important, for purposes which need not now be referred to, that his holiness should be tested. A single act would do that as well as many acts-just as a man's character now may be fully tried if placed in some extraordinary `circumstances of temptation. God, therefore, forbade a specific act on pain of death; with, it is commonly supposed, an implied promise that if he obeyed, he should be confirmed in obedience, and be rewarded with eternal life. He acted; fell; involved his posterity in ruin; and died. The probation was complete; the trial was passed. His virtue was not proof to the temptation. As the head and father of the race, he sinned and fell; as his children, we inherit the consequences of the unsuccessful probation.

Man is not now on probation in the same sense in which Adam was; nor will he ever be again. He is not in the same circumstances; he has not the same character; he does not begin life as he did. No man can now secure immortal temporal life, as Adam might have done, as the fruit of obedience; none can stretch out his hand and take hold of the crown of glory, as he might have done, as the reward of personal obedience. The affairs of the race are placed on a different footing; and this idea is never to be lost sight of when we speak of the probation of fallen men.

The following remarks will explain what is meant when we make use of this word:

(1.) The essential thing in all probation or trial is, that the happiness or misery of the future is determined by the conduct of the present. Man acts with reference to that which is to come; and his conduct draws on a train of consequences in that future period. His actions do not terminate in the immediate pleasure or pain in committing them, but they constitute that by which his happiness is to be determined hereafter.

(2.) The great thing contemplated always by probation is still set before the human family. The same heaven is to be secured, and the same hell avoided, as when man was made in the image of God. If man succeeds in reaching the rewards of heaven, they will be the same rewards which would have been obtained had Adam not sinned; if he sinks to hell, it will be the same hell to which he sunk for his sin, unless he repented and was pardoned.

3. The same character is demanded of man as that which would be required if man had never sinned. Heaven will be made up of holy beings-possessing holiness of the same kind

whether it be by those who never fell, or those who are recovered by redemption. There will not be two kinds of holiness in heaven; and it is as necessary now that man should be holy in order to enter it, as it was that Adam should be, or any one of the angels.

(4.) While the main thing before man now is the same, and the holiness required is of the same nature, the mode by which heaven is to be reached now is different, and the question now before man, and on which he is to be tried, is changed. Man is not now to obtain eternal life, as Adam might have done, by personal obedience and by unsullied holiness. That is now out of the question in a world where all are born prone to sin, and are certain to sin. The question now is, not whether you will obey perfectly a pure and holy law-for no man could be saved if that were the question-but whether you will repent of your sins, embrace the offer of pardon through a Redeemer, and submit to a process of sanctification under the Spirit of God, designed to fit you for heaven.. In regard to this, I would observe further, that it is as simple a question as can be submitted to man, or ever was. The question solemnly proposed to each successive mortal as he comes on to the stage of being, whether he will repent and believe in the name of the Saviour, is as intelligible, and as plain, as was the question proposed to Adam whether he would abstain from the forbidden fruit. It is a question adapted in all respects to his powers, and one the answer to which may as reasonably affect and determine his destiny hereafter. Bear in remembrance, therefore, that the question on which man is tried, and is to be tried; the question which is to be determined by your living on earth, and the only very material question is, whether you will embrace the Lord Jesus and depend on his atonement for salvation. It is not whether you are beautiful—for heaven cannot be made to depend on that; it is not whether you are rich, or learned, or accomplished-for it would obviously be absurd to make the bliss of a holy heaven depend on that; it is not whether you deserve to be praised, flattered, or caressed, or whether you can clothe yourself in fine linen and fare sumptuously every day; it is not whether you are externally moral, and a man of truth and honesty; it is, whether you comply with God's commands in embracing the gospel of his Son, and are willing to be pardoned and saved through him. "For he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned." If . you sow to the flesh, you show that you are not willing to be saved in that manner; if you sow to the Spirit, you show