of mankind; after all this evidence you say, that if a few inconsistent professors of your own acquaintance would live as they ought, you would condescend to consider the claims of your Saviour, your Creator, your God.

Similar are all the reasons for neglecting religion, founded on its mysteries. One says he will not accept Christ because he does not understand the doctrine of election; another because he cannot explain all the mysteries of the Trinity; and yet another declares that he cannot understand why sin and evil exist in the world at all. Forgetting how many dark things revelation has made plain, forgetting especially that it has made the path of duty so plain "that he may run that readeth it," such a man will not obey the plain requirements of the gospel, he will not take a step to save his own soul from hell, till all mysteries are explained, all objections removed, and all the questions of idle curiosity answered. You may see, in another aspect, the unreasonableness of all these demands by contrasting your conduct in spiritual things with your conduct in temporal. When you began the business in which you are now engaged, did you suppose that every person engaged in it so completely understood and so perfectly applied its principles as to secure a fortune, or even to save himself from ruin? Did you suppose every one engaged in it was perfectly honest? Did you stop and say, I will have nothing to do with this business till I know there are no bunglers nor knaves engaged in it? When you commenced your business, did you perfectly understand it? Were there no questions which you could not answer? And were there no serious objections and difficulties in the way? Were you sure of success? Do you not know that in worldly affairs, men never wait for certainty, but act on probability ?that they never wait for the removal of objections, but act in spite of them? If men never engaged in worldly business till all who are engaged in it managed it wisely, honestly, and successfully; if they never acted except on certainty-never acted till everything dark was cleared up, and every objection removed, they would never act at all. How unreasonable in your spiritual concerns to adopt principles of action, which, should they be adopted in temporal affairs, would bring all the business of the world to a dead stand!

IV. It is unreasonable to demand more, when God has already done so much in your behalf; especially when you have not made improvement of what he has done.

The Jews might have known from the ancient prophecies, that Christ was to suffer an ignominious death. The whole history of Jesus had coincided with what had been predicted of him. His stupendous miracles, his divine teachings, his holy life, his very position on the cross were proofs that he was the Messiah. It was unreasonable-it was mockery and cruelty, to ask him in the hour of his agony to work another miracle for the satisfaction of his murderers.

The sacrifice of atonement is now completed. Christ has passed through his humiliation, he has tasted death, he has ascended to heaven, he ever liveth to make intercession for us. Now from the mercy-seat comes the assurance, "All things are ready; whosoever will let him come." After all that God has done, the only reasonable course for every sinner is, to come to Christ, to yield to him and be saved. Every reason for delay, every demand for something more, is an implied charge that God has not done enough for your redemption. It is gazing on the manger at Bethlehem, on the tempted sufferer in the wilderness, on the agony of Gethsemane and the dying anguish of the cross, and then demanding that the Son of God sink to a deeper humiliation, suffer a severer anguish. It is denying God's declaration," All things are ready." It is denying the Savior's dying words, "It is finished." It is declaring that the work of redemption is not complete, the Saviour not worthy to be trusted. My hearers, what could be done for your salvation, which God has not done? What motives could be produced mightier to make you in earnest to win God's favor, to melt your heart in contrition, to kindle love, to rouse you to a life of holiness? What way of salvation more excellent, more complete? What invitations more free and full? What terms of salvation more simple and easy of acceptance? What Saviour more able, more accessible, more lovely? God himself looks at the subject in this light; he sees the unreasonableness of your demands; as if grieved by the implied charge which you bring against him, he condescends to expostulate with you in tones of tenderness, "What more could have been done to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?"

And your unreasonableness appears not only in the fact that God has done so much, but also in the fact that, while demanding more, you have made no improvement of what God has already done. You complain, for example, that you have no time to serve God. But, aside from the fact that the greater part of serving God consists in doing the daily business of life with a supreme desire to please him-and it takes no more time to do business to please God, than to do it to please yourself-aside from all this, God gives you fifty-two Sabbaths every year, to be set apart solely to religious uses. What use have you made of these Sabbaths? You complain that the way of salvation is dark. But God has given you the Bible. Have you anxiously studied it, to learn what you must do to be saved? Are you thus studying it every day? You are surrounded by religious books, like Dodridge's Rise and Progress of Religion, designed to guide inquirers in the way of life. Do you ever read such books? You have a pastor-do you ever come to him with the inquiry, "Sir, what must I do to be saved?" God has promised to enlighten and guide those who pray to him. Do you pray to God for wisdom?

Do you yield yourself to God for his guidance? You complain that divine influences do not descend on your heart with power sufficient to arouse it from its sluggishness. But God has drawn you by his Spirit? Did you yield to his drawings? Have you not rather grieved him away? Behold the effrontery of your demands, since God has done so much, and you have made no good use of what he has already done.

V. Your demands are unreasonable, because God has proved it by testing them. You have made similar demands before; God has condescended to comply with them, and yet you did not, even then, keep the promises which you had made.

Time and again had the Pharisees asked Jesus to give them a sign, that they might see and believe. Signs he had given them, the most stupendous and convincing: yet they were not more ready to receive him than before. At last, when they were clamoring as usual for a sign, he told them that no more signs should be given them excepting only the sign of Jonah, the prophet; by which he meant that last proof of his Messiahship, his own death and resurrection. And when on the cross he was giving them this last proof, they again clamored for a sign, and promised to believe him if he would come down from the cross. And even after that, when he rose from the dead, they still rejected him. I doubt not that like this has been the history of some of you. You are thinking, perhaps, that, should there be a revival of religion, you would come to Christ. You had thought so before; yet in the last revival were you more disposed to accept Christ as a disciple than you are to-day? You say that if your companions should experience religion, you would go with them to Christ. But what were your feelings when your wife, your child began to hope in the Saviour's mercy? How was it when those neighbors, those intimate friends united with the church? You were young once; then you said, "When the gayety of youth is past, I will begin a religious life." You are older now; gray hairs, perhaps, are on you. But are you more disposed to prayer, to penitence and faith than in the rosy years of youth? Ah, sirs, God has complied with these very demands; but you have not been ready to keep your promises. You are as far from the kingdom of heaven as ever.

VI. Your demands are unreasonable, because, in the very act of making them you admit what justifies your condemnation. The Pharisees said, "He saved others." They admitted that he had wrought miracles. And although during the earliest periods of the Christian era, there were enemies of Christianity, who spoke and wrote against it with all the ingenuity and learning of the times, yet it is a remarkable fact that not one was found during the life of Christ, or in the period immediately following, who ventured to deny that Christ wrought miracles. So

the Pharisees, in the very act of crucifying him, admitted the reality of his miracles. "He saved others; himself he cannot save." Thus, by the very justification which they attempted, they condemned themselves.

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So is it with you. Whatever reason you may give for lecting religion, you admit its divine authority, its reality, and importance. Were I to charge you with being infidels, you would be indignant at the aspersion. Were I to say you do not respect religion, you would repel the charge as slander. In the very act of giving your reasons for neglecting religion, you are careful to avow your respect for it, and your belief in its importance. And do you not thus condemn yourself? If religion is a reality, it is a reality infinitely momentous. If it is important, it is infinitely important. What is wealth, what is human honor, compared with the favor of God? What all earthly interests compared with the salvation of the soul? What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? What shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Oh, sirs, if religion is important, it is so important that no reason can justify the neglect of it; no reason can justify any conduct respecting it, but that which puts it before all earthly interests, which impels to seek God's favor with uncontrollable and imperishable earnestness; which forbids any rest, till you rest in a good hope through grace of everlasting life. Therefore, in your attempt to justify, you condemn yourselves. Therefore, the all-seeing Judge will pronounce to you those fearful words, "Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant. Thou knewest that religion was important,-why then didst thou not seek my favor with an earnestness corresponding to its importance? Thou wert surrounded with difficulties,-why then didst thou not toil to overcome them with an earnestness and perseverance corresponding to the worth of thy soul? "Out of thine mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant."

VII. Your demands and apologies are unreasonable, because they lay the blame of your continued impenitence on God.

After nailing Jesus, by their own malice, to the cross, the Pharisees called on him to come down, and then by his neglect to do it, justified themselves in putting him to death as a self-convicted impostor. Thus, they laid the blame on him. So, if you examine your apologies for neglecting religion, you may find that they involve the same daring impiety; they lay the blame of your continued impenitence on God. You plead that you continue in sin, because the circumstances in which God has placed you are unfavorable to a religious life, or because God has not made the way of salvation sufficiently plain, or because God has not given you enough of his Spirit. The cause is always in God, never in yourself. Like the Jews, who blasphemously charged the blame of their own crime on the suffering Saviour, you charge all the

criminality of your impenitence and disobedience on God. You ascribe it to what God has done or neglected to do, not to yourselves.

But the criminality of your impenitence and disobedience rests on you alone. The real cause why you continue impenitent lies in your own hearty opposition to God, and your aversion to the duties and experience of a spiritual life. No reason, which you can urge, covers this fact from the sight of God, or abates the constant criminality of your impenitence, or your immediate and constant obligation to give your heart to him, to trust in Jesus for mercy, and to devote yourself to his service. When the sinner comes to Jesus, he sees that all the blame of his whole life of impenitence rests on his own head, that God has always been blameless and lovely in all his requirements, and all his dealings, and that he himself stands before God a sinner, whose sins are unveiled, and absolutely without apology or extenuation, deserving the wrath of God. May you thus discover your inexcusable guilt, that you may seek mercy before it is too late. But if not now, at least when you stand before God's judgment seat, you will discover it. The apologies and demands by which you now appease your own consciences, and which you so confidently utter to your fellow-men, you will not then utter to God. Nay, you will not utter them in the secresy of your own soul. The refuge of lies, which now covers you, will vanish, and you will find yourself standing revealed before God an inexcusable transgressor; revealed to your own inmost consciousness, an inexcusable transgressor. You will be speechless before your Judge. You will see that your life-long neglect of God had no justification or apology; that it was wholly unreasonable and unjustifiable; that you have no plea to break the force of the condemnation which falls on you, or even in the depth of your own consciousness to sustain you with the conviction that it is undeserved. "Every mouth will be stopped, and all the world be guilty before God."