III. Others still grieve the Spirit by too sedulous cultivation of the emotions, till they evaporate in mere sentiment and feeling.

The universal complaint of men, when pressed with the duty of faith in Christ, is, that they do not feel enough. Even where the sad blunder is not committed of supposing this mental anguish to be in some sort expiatory and atoning for the past, the fatal delusion exists, that from this agony, as a preparatory discipline, it will be easier to pass into the peace which the Saviour gives. Instead, therefore, of turning at once to Him under the guidance and blessing of the Holy Spirit, they turn back upon themselves, and press the law with all its sharp points in upon the conscience, that they may bleed at every pore. To their utter dismay, they come by this process at last not to feel at all. Yet, no one acquainted with the laws of our nature, but could predict the result. By the very constitution of the human soul, these emotions are not to be produced by efforts expended directly upon the emotions themselves. They are in their nature so subtle as to escape in the very act of handling; like those volatile essences which preserve their life only when confined, these emotions evaporate as soon as they are drawn forth to be discussed and strengthened. What living man ever succeeded in producing the sentiment of the beautiful, or of the sublime, by putting himself through a logical process to show that he ought thus to feel? The argument shall be convincing; but the heart will remain as insensible as the iceberg under a polar moon. The Scriptures, with a far more accurate knowledge of man's nature, recognise the triple powers with which he is endowed, and address him as a being capable of thought, feeling, and action. They reveal God glorious in holiness, and man sunk in sin, that his thoughts may be stirred within him. Inasmuch as, by the relation subsisting between these faculties, thought tends to elicit feeling, the Holy Ghost deepens these reflections into conviction and mourning. But He does not now draw a charmed circle around the man, or throw the heart back upon itself, that it may be lashed into frenzy. The Bible nowhere presents a graduated scale of feeling, that the sinner may watch and wait until the mercury rises in the tube to the boiling point. It recognises, on the contrary, the great principle that feeling should at once take concrete form, and embody itself in corresponding action-and that emotion, which is not allowed thus to shape itself outwardly in the appropriate act, dies within itself. It comes therefore at once with its great com

mand to believe in that Saviour whom it reveals. He who wishes to feel more intensely the vileness of sin, must look out upon that holiness of God with which it is in dreadful contrast. He who wishes to feel greater contrition, and more tender sorrow, must look forth with a trustful faith upon that Saviour through whom alone he can be brought to genuine penitence. All these acts of the soul reflect back upon each other. If thought engenders feeling, it is in turn quickened by that very feeling which it produces. If feeling tends to shape itself in the outward act, it is reciprocally intensified by the very energy of its own development. It is precisely here the sinner's great error is committed. Contradicting all the known laws of our spiritual economy, he strives to deepen his emotions by a direct effort upon them, instead of yielding prompt obedience to the great practical command of the Gospel, which rouses him to immediate faith in Christ, and which the Holy Ghost now enforces upon the conscience. What though, within the magic circle in which he has bound his heart with a spell, he should, contrary to known experience, burn and blaze before God with all the ardor of a seraph! It is only that the heart may be consumed in the intensity of its emotions, to fall back at last into its own ashes, a charred and blackened ruin! And what is this but a mad attempt to find salvation within ourselves, to create a Saviour in our own emotions! What is it but to reject and grieve that Holy Spirit of God, who, in accordance with the very laws of our being, would lead us forth from our misery and guilt, to rest upon the bosom of our God in Christ!

IV. Finally, thousands grieve the Spirit by the postponement of present duty to a future day.

After a few fitful efforts, the sinner sinks down in sheer exhaustion, and hopes that what seems impossible to-day will be practicable and easy to-morrow. Is it necessary to show how this offends God and grieves the Holy Ghost? Is it nothing to trench upon God's prerogative, who alone has to-morrow in His gift? Put your finger upon your pulse, and remember that life is measured out to us in each single beat, that we may feel our dependence upon the supreme will of Him in whom we live and move. Is it nothing to trifle with God's command, which covers every inch of our time with its own immediate duty? Is it nothing to mock that august person who knocks at the sinner's heart, and make Him bend to our indolence or caprice?

"There's no prerogative in human hours.

In human hearts what bolder thought can rise,
Than man's presumption on to-morrow's dawn?
Where is to-morrow? In another world!

And yet on this, perhaps,

This peradventure, infamous for lies,

As on a rock of adamant, we build

Our mountain hopes, and spin eternal schemes,

As we the fatal sisters would outspin,

And, big with life's futurities, expire."

Every command of God's law binds the present moment, and every offer of the Gospel is made equally in the present. "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation!" He who uses up his morrow in fruitless resolutions of amendment, then, is like the spendthrift who anticipates his income, and overwhelms his fortune with the debts of the past.

"A man's life is a tower, with a staircase of many steps,

That, as he toileth upward, crumble successively behind him;

No going back, the past is an abyss; no stopping, for the present perisheth; But ever hasting on, precarious on the foothold of to-day.

Our cares are all to-day; our joys are all to-day;

And in one little word, our life, what is it but-to-day?"

Sinner! now be wise. Reflect, that as you cannot, without fraud, anticipate the future which is yet with God, so neither can you recall the past, that has gone beforehand to the judgment bar. On this isthmus of the present alone you stand, with the momentous interests of eternity crowded with you upon its narrow space. This Now, which is "ticking from the clock of time," is past, even as you have counted it, speeding along with its truthful testimony against your neglect and sin, if now you grieve the Holy Spirit of God.