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you of it? You cannot rest. You cannot remain as you are. Every thing in your heart, in the world, and in the truth of God too, until you obey it, is swelling the dreadful force which bears you downward. One thing only can save you. It is faith in Christ. Believe, and the hurrying impulse shall cease. Believe, and with steps steady and safe, you shall go on your way rejoicing towards the paradise of God!

ERMON XIX.

Objects and Effects of the Christian Hope.

1 JOHN III. 3.

AND EVERY MAN THAT HATH THIS HOPE IN HIM, PURIFIETH HIMSELF, EVEN AS HE IS PURE.

NOTWITHSTANDING all the descriptions and living examples of saving religion with which men have been favored, its real nature and influence are but little understood in the world. The notions formed of it, are too commonly derived from materially defective, or imperfect representations of it. We seem to prefer almost every other means of learning what it is, to those by which alone we can ever reasonably expect to gain sufficiently exalted views of its unearthly character. The great reason is, we are afraid to subject our own piety to the requisite test, and, therefore, are willing to call those, the marks and fruits of religion, which God has never called such. Rather than disturb the foundation of our own hopes, we consent to be so charitable as to trust, that many are true christians in whom scarcely a single genuine feature of piety appears. In such cases we are willing to exercise that charity which hopeth all things, because we are anxious to cherish a hope, that we ourselves are in a state of safety. It is obviously much more easy to expose the ruinous fallacy of such a method of acquiring and confirming our hopes, than to induce any one who has long adopted it, to come to the scriptures alone for tests of a safe condition. Persons adhere to this mode of sustaining their hopes of heaven, with a pertinacity which is almost peculiar to such cases. Expectations of temporal good resting on so slight a basis, if ever cherished, are readily abandoned. The hopes which prompt the untiring enterprises of worldly men in the pursuit of their objects, will rarely be found to proceed merely from a perception that they are imitating others who have like hopes. They derive their hopes from remoter views, from deeper investigation of the case, and from more thorough comparison of the means employed with the end desired. Nor are they, where temporal interests are concerned, easily seduced into the fancy, that others will certainly succeed in the same class of pursuits, in order that by this means they may gain hopes of success also. They deem even their objects, a reality of too much value to be trifled with; and the expectation of attaining them, a matter of too much consequence to be made to depend on a fleeting fancy of the mind.

Now if we would not fall into mistakes fatally disastrous in a concern of such moment as that of our spiritual interests, by taking up with the notions current among its reputed subjects, as to what constitutes saving religion; if we would not at last find ourselves the victims of a miserable delusion, by indulging hopes of safety, because others with no better grounds indulge similar hopes, let us form our views of that religion which will carry us safely through life, through death, through the scenes of the final judgment, and through eternity, from the representations of the book of God. We can scarcely open that book without meeting with representations of it sufficiently marked and definite. On almost every page are presented delineations of some of its great, distinctive features. The mistakes in regard to it, are corrected and guarded against, wherever we read. It pictures religion as no earthly,

sensual and selfish thing, but as a child of heaven sojourning awhile on earth, with eyes and heart ever turned to its native home, and constantly deriving, by means of such an intercourse, supporting and purifying energies from that high world, where its toils and its conflicts will end, and its triumphs and consolations be endless. Such a picture of it is given by the apostle in connexion with the text. He begins the chapter with a burst of adoring admiration of the love and condescension of God, in adopting them into his spiritual family... Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God. The character of such as are thus made the children of God, he goes on to say, is misunderstood by worldly minds, just as God's character is misapprehended by them. Therefore, the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Nor does he hesitate to declare, that the prospects which open upon them in the coming world, included a sum of blessedness which surpassed their present powers of comprehension; though of its general nature and character they had a sufficiently full and satisfactory knowledge. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know, that when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. But does he say, that those who have such prospects in view, indolently resign themselves to the joy which the sure and blessed hope creates? No. He adds-AND EVERY ONE THAT HATH THIS HOPE IN HIM, PURIFIETH HIMSELF AS HE IS PURE. Here we have a full and beautiful portrait of our holy religion-a religion which is intended not merely to inform and instruct the mind, but to influence the heart and life-a religion which is a child of heaven struggling on through this dark and distant world, with an eye beaming with brightening hopes, and a hold nerved with the glowing energies of faith, fixed on the unseen realities of eternity-a religion whose glorious excellency consists in the indissoluble connexion, and mutual influence between its speculative views and practical aims. To illustrate and present more clearly this delightful peculiarity of the religion of the gospel, will be the object of the present discourse, in some cursory observations on the objects and effects of the hope spoken of in the text.

I. The objects of that hope. EVERY ONE THAT HATH THIS HOPE IN HIM. No doubt the objects of the hope here mentioned are essentially the same, as are respected by christian hope in general. They include future and eternal spiritual good. From the connexion of this passage, however, it appears that the apostle had in view two or three things which may be regarded as the specific objects of the hope of which he speaks.

1. The final appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ to judge the world. We know that when he shall appear. To none but those whose assurance of endless life is founded on the divine promise, can the appearing of the great God our Saviour, on this fearfully glorious errand, be properly an object of hope. All others must anticipate it with appalling fears, rather than with any confident persuasion of its being to them the occasion of good. It can never be otherwise than evil to men unreconciled to God, to be called to witness the decisions of the final day. The appearing of Christ will be also the revelation of their sins and of their unalterable doom. He will appear to execute on them the sentence of condemnation, and to add perfection to their misery, by making them see and feel that it is to know no cessation or abatement forever. But the children of God can joyfully hope for the Saviour's appearing. Even the distant views, which at times they are enabled to gain of him by the eye of faith, are exclusively grateful to them. It does them good to witness his image in his followers. It is to them a blessing to behold him in the triumphs of his gospel. If at his last appearing to judgment, no new features of loveliness and glory

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