God's righteousness? Surely, then, the soul, made the very righteousness of God in coming unto Jesus, has even the awful justice of Jehovah ranked upon its side. Astounding triumph of the grace of God! O, is not the very essence of the Almighty, the eternal seal of this most blessed truth, "Him that cometh to me I will in nowise cast out?"

Men and brethren, what say you to it? what think ye of Christ, whose word it is? "Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift," for the joyful sound, and for the text as one of the silver trumpets that proclaim the Gospel jubilee. Can you hear it, and your soul remain unmoved? During life it is divinest melody to the anxious heart; for, while the day of grace continues, it tells that space is given to come to Christ, and that there is certainty of acceptance in coming. At death, how cheering are its notes? It tells the believer that his foundation on Christ is sure; and though, like the godly James Durham of old, it may be "the only promise to which he can grip," he has in it an "anchor of the soul both sure and steadfast." Yea, let the dying blasphemer but hear and accept this faithful saying. Even then shall he find, like the thief upon the cross, that he shall not be cast out. And after death will the text be forgotten? Forgotten now by many, it will be forgotten then by none. Alas, one shrieking company shall, with gnashing teeth, eternally bewail-" We are cast out, but it is because we would not come;" but there are endless halleluias from a glorified throng" True are thy ways, thou King of saints!"

"Thy call we heard, thy word we find it true,
Draw nigh to me, I will draw nigh to you.

Why art thou fearful? wherefore didst thou doubt!

For him that cometh I will not cast out."

Have you put because Christ

Wherefore, dear brethren, in addition to all the verifications of the text which have been noticed, seek to verify it in your own experience. Point out a case, one single case, of any who ever came to Christ and was rejected by him. There is none; there can be none. the matter to this trial? If you are yet unsaved, is it refused to save you when you went to him for salvation? You dare not so accuse the Lord of glory. If not accepted, you have not come. Therefore, by the mercies of God we beseech you to come now. You may never have another opportunity. O delay not! "Behold I come quickly," is an awful word. Are you ready to answer, "Amen; even so, come Lord Jesus?" Not unless you have first come to him. O then, what need for instant coming! "To-day, if ye will hear his voice." Let me transpose the text, and read it thus-"Him that cometh not to me I will cast out." This also is true and certain as the oath of God. Ah! brethren, beware; for "Cast him into outer darkness," is No. 11.-SER. 10.

the true meaning of the latter clause when so transposed. If that sentence be once passed, it is an irrevocable decree. While it has not as yet been pronounced, hearken, I implore you, to the call, "Ho! every one that thirsteth, come." As though God did beseech you by us, we once more repeat it, "Whosoever will let him come," and take with you, as from Christ's own lips, the promise, "Him that cometh to me I will in nowise cast out." AMEN.

SERMON XI.

THE DISCIPLES WAITING AT JERUSALEM FOR THE PROMISE OF THE FATHER.

BY THE REV. WILLIAM COUSIN,

BOSTON CHURCH, DUNSE.

"And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me." -ACTS i. 4.

CONVERSION to the individual soul and revival to the Church, is God's great end in the dispensation of grace. The means whereby this is accomplished is the manifestation of Jesus Christ, through the outpouring of the Holy Ghost as his witness. The Word of Truth is thus the instrument, the Holy Spirit the living agent, in every conversion, in every revival. Hence the personal reception of the truth and the personal presence of the Spirit are alike essential. The truth derives its life from the Spirit; the Spirit communicates his power through the truth. Hence in every case, whether of individual conversion or of general revival, the first and most promising symptom is increased, and increasing thirst for the Word, with increased and increasing dependence on the Spirit of God. There is no true conversion, there is no genuine revival, where either is awanting. Where the Word of God, in its public and private ministrations, is set aside or undervalued-whatever else is substituted in its place, no matter how good in itself-where the unadulterated Word of God does not hold the supremacy, the barrenness and sterility of nature will remain-leanness will enter the soul; for the soul is quickened, is matured in spiritual life, is sanctified, all by the Word of Truth. Thence (instrumentally) results the new birth; as it is written, "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever:" thence proceeds growth in grace; as it is written, "As new born babes désire the sincere milk of the Word that ye may grow thereby:" thence progressive sanctification; as it is written, "Sanctify them through thy truth, thy Word is truth." And then, again, without prayerful and cherished dependence on the Spirit, there will be no depth or reality in spiritual exercises, whether in the individual soul, or in the community.

The Word of God itself is quick and powerful, only when used as the sword of the Spirit; it is living and life-giving, only as the Spirit of Life is in it; it is incorruptible only by the presence and power of the same Spirit who did not suffer God's Holy One to see corruption. Even in grace, viewed as a possession of man, there is nothing abiding; it derives all its perpetuity from the continued ministrations of the Spirit, out of the fulness that is in Christ. There may be abundance of stir, and excitement, and bustling activity about the things of God-there may be high thoughts, proud imaginations, mighty doings-there may be tongue confessions, lip conversions, the melting of the eye when there is no contrition of the heart-but, apart from the Holy Ghost, recognised in power and personal presence, there will be no real conversion-no genuine revival. You may have Herod, hearing gladly and doing many things, but retaining his besetting sin-Simon Magus, asking in his terrors an apostle's prayers, but persisting in the way to heresy and perdition-Felix, trembling on his throne, but stifling conviction and bidding it away till a more convenient season, to be troubled no more till he feels it at his soul in the piercing torture of the worm that never dies. This, all this, nature may put forth, and man accomplish; but the bowing down of the inner spirit before God-the new birth, whereby Christ is formed in the soul-the new creation, over which, with louder anthems than of old, the morning stars sing for joy and the angels hold jubilee-that mighty transformation in which old things pass away and all things become new-that stupendous work which outlives the shock of dissolution and reaches into eternity, co-extensive with the soul in its immortality--Oh, depend upon it, none less than the living Spirit of the Eternal himself can accomplish that. fore a single soul can be born again, the Almighty God must be at work in power and personal presence. Whosoever, therefore, would ever seek the conversion of a brother, or desire to be himself converted, must have direct and immediate dealings with God-must utter no word-must take no step but in solemn, reverential awe, in prayerful recognition of the Holy Ghost. And the Church that would be revived herself-that would seek the awakening of the dead around-must be content, first of all, to lie down in the dust, in the consciousness of helpless, hopeless insufficiency-emptied, humbled, self-abased-content to wait without wearying-alone with God-"waiting for the promise of the Father."

Be

To this, then, as the peculiar duty to which, in the present eventful crisis, we seem especially called, we propose, in dependence on the Spirit's promised aid, to direct our attention. Taking, with a view to this, the first outpouring of the Holy Spirit, as recorded in the second chapter, let us, as an example for ourselves, consider the preceding and

preparatory state of the early Church. Now, in looking at the account of the disciples between the ascension of our Lord and the day of Pentecost, we shall find they were waiting in devout expectancy-in earnest desire-in united prayer-in seclusion from the world-in fellowship with one another.

But they had learned,
They had been com-

I. They were waiting in devout expectancy. They had been commanded to wait at Jerusalem for the "promise of the Father;" and expectation is essential to a patient waiting upon God. In many cases it is far easier to do much than to wait long. So the disciples must have felt it. Their hearts must have burned within them to go out upon the world with unhesitating confidence in the miraculous powers with which their Lord had promised to invest them, and in the strength of the marvellous message that they had to tell. amid recent events, a lesson of self-distrust. manded to wait at Jerusalem, and so, day after day, they waited on in silence, though charged with a message fitted, as they might suppose, to convert the world. Till they could speak in the spirit, they would not speak at all. They waited patiently-doing nothing at their own hand, because they waited expectingly. 'He that believeth shall not make haste." He will judge nothing-he will do nothing before the time. Till in the Spirit himself, he will not attempt to force the Spirit's work. Such a state of expectancy is essential to a patient continuance in welldoing. Men will cease to wait in spirit upon God, except their expectation is from him. In every spiritual gift the Lord would have us

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to meet his faithfulness with our faith. Thus we honour his Wordthus, like himself, we "magnify his word above all his name." It is unbelief, and not humility, to distrust the promise of the Father-to wait without expectancy for the coming of the Spirit. Without expectation there will be no truth-no reality-no fervency-no prevailing power in prayer. Prayer is not the mere instinctive utterance of desire, it is the utterance of desire for things known to be agreeable to God, and therefore expected. Through nature's mere instinctive dread of suffering a man may wish salvation, but looking on it, in his unbelief, merely as a thing desirable for himself, and not as a thing agreeable to God, his wish is but a wish and nothing more. It is not prayer-it has no body—it has no point-it pierces not the heavy vapours of the overcharged heart-it has no buoyancy-no fervour-no prevailing power -it all evaporates in words, and dies away and leaves no blessing on the soul. Thus it is, that because men have ceased to expect the outpouring of the Spirit, the heavens have become as brass and the earth as iron. Because they see no cloud above their head, they will not