one of these all. There is a hope here which ought to arise, on the instant of belief arising in the mind; and, so far is this from superseding the hope of experience, that it will in fact bring the very feelings and raise the very fruits upon the character of the believer, that will cause the hope of experience to come surely and in succession to the hope of faith. Our best advice for brightening the second hope to the uttermost, is that you keep alive the first hope to the uttermost. Your experience will be bright just in proportion as your faith is bright; and it is just if ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and if ye be not moved away from the hope of the gospel which ye have heard, that you will at length be presented holy and unblamable and unreprovable in the sight of God.

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LECTURE XIX.

ROMANS, v, 5.

"And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us."

You are already, we trust, enough familiarized to the distinction that has been offered between the hope of faith and the hope of experience. God promises to all who trust in Him, that He will give them an inheritance on the other side of death; and that He will also give them, in the shape of certain personal graces and endowments, an earnest of the inheritance on this side of it. On the very first moment that you hear these promises, if you believe in the honesty of both, you will hope for the fulfilment of both; and this is the hope of faith. Should the promise that is of earlier fulfilment come to pass at its proper time, this will be to you a satisfactory confirmation of your first belief, and of the hope that comes out of it; and you will look forward with surer anticipation than ever, to the latter of the two fulfilments. This is the hope of experience—a hope that brightens with the growth of grace on the person of the believer; and with every new finding within himself of the working of that Spirit of holiness, by which he is made meet for the everlasting abodes of holiness. In this way, there is formed a distinct and subsequent ground of hope, additional to the original one. The original ground was your faith

in the honesty of the promiser, that He would fulfil all His engagements. The additional ground is your actual experience of His punctuality, in having liquidated those of His engagements which had become due. It operates like a first instalment, which, when paid with perfect readiness and sufficiency, certainly brightens all the hope of a thorough fulfilment of the various articles of agreement, which you had when it was first entered upon. And thus it is that, though there is a hope in the second verse that is appended immediately to your faith in God-there is also a hope in the fourth verse, that has been wrought in you by experience.

You must also be sensible what the effect would have been, had there been a failure instead of a fulfilment of that promise, which falls to be accomplished first. It would have darkened and overthrown, not merely your hope of the near, but also your hope of all the ulterior good things that you had been led to depend upon. There is nothing which brings the feeling of shame more directly into the mind, than the failure of some confident or too fondly indulged expectation. They shall be greatly ashamed that trust in graven images." They shall not be ashamed that wait for me." "And lest," says the apostle, "we should be ashamed in this same confident boasting."

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'Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.' The love of God may signify either our love to God, as in the passage-"this is the love of God that ye keep his commandments;" or it may sig

nify God's love to us, as in the passage—“ In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him." In the verse under consideration, we apprehend that the love of God must be taken according to the latter signification. It is thus that, speaking strictly and literally, one being when kind to another, sheds upon him the fruits of that kindness, rather than the kindness itself. But the use of language has been so far extended, as to admit of the latter expression. It is quite according to established usage to say, 'I have received much kindness from another,' though I have properly received nothing but his money or his attentions or his patronage. And in like manner, do I receive love from God when I receive the Holy Ghost. And as a beneficent proprietor is said to shed abroad of his liberality among the habitations of the poor, when he causes food or raiment or fuel to enter into their houses so does God shed abroad of His love in our hearts, when He sends the Holy Ghost to take up His residence, and there to rule by His influences.

It is through the Spirit of God, that the spirit of man is borne up in the midst of adversities. It is He who upholds the perseverance of a disciple, when all that is around him lowrs and looks dismal. It is He who causes a luminousness to rest on those eternal prospects, which are seen afar, through the dark vista of a pilgrimage which is lined on the right hand and on the left, with sorrows innumerable. It is when a bitterness comes

upon man which is only known to his own heart, that a secret balm is often infused along with it, with the joy of which a stranger does not intermeddle. There is a history of the soul that is unseen by every eye, but intimately known and felt by its conscious proprietor; and often can he testify of a tribulation that would have overwhelmed him to the death, had not a powerful influence from on high supported him under it. And when the season of it at length passes over his agitated spirit, and leaves the fruit of a solid peace, and an augmented righteousness behind it—you perceive, how in him the process is exemplified, of tribulation working in him a more strenuous perseverance in all the habits and principles of Christianity; and of perseverance working in him such an experience of himself, as argues his state of discipline and preparation for another world; and of this experience working in him the hope that He who thus fulfils upon him, the guidance in time that He has promised, will finally bestow upon him the glory He has promised in eternity.

He, says the apostle, who hath wrought us for immortality is God, who hath also given to us the earnest of the Spirit, and therefore we are confident.

It is very true, that an early fulfilment is often the satisfying token of some later fulfilment; and that grace imparted to us on this side of death, is a pledge of glory being conferred upon us on the other side of death; and, in particular, that the Holy Ghost, bestowed upon us so as to work a meetness for the inheritance, is symptomatic of our