every seventh day is sanctified. "God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it." Thus the tabernacle and temple, the priests and altars, and sacrifices, and all the sacred things of the Jewish dispensation were sanctified.

God speaks of sanctifying his name, which he does when by his judgments he rebukes the gainsayers, and stills their blasphemies. He thus convinces men that he is holy.

I could name many other uses of the term sanctification; but its principal use, and that intended in the text, is, in application to the work of rendering an unholy creature holy. Men are by nature unholy. They exercise forbidden affections, and do not put forth the affections that God requires. The prayer of Christ in the text was, that his followers, through the instrumentality of truth, might be made what God requires them to be; having the affections of the heart, and, of course, the deeds of the life, conformable to the divine law.

II. Another question may here very properly be,— When does this holiness begin? And the answer is obvious. It begins at the moment of regeneration. Till then, all the exercises are unholy; for "the carnal mind is enmity against God." Nor is there any degree of alarm, or any amount of conviction, that can generate one holy affection in the heart, previously to this period. Of course all the prayers offered, and all the exertions made, prior to this change, are unregenerate prayers and exertions. Nor can it be believed, consistently with correct Scripture views, that, anterior to this moment, there is any approximation toward correct feeling. No alarm, nor the most distinct conviction, can bring an unregenerate man to feel any more correctly toward God, or any

holy object, than he did in a state of carelessness and se curity. And although we would not pretend to say that the divine influence in the hour of awakening may not restrain the sinner, and hold him back from the blasphemous thoughts and affections which he might otherwise put forth, yet in all this there is no holiness.

And then it may be a question whether the sinner, under alarm, does not wax worse and worse, till the mo ment of passing from death unto life. If he has more light-if he sees more distinctly the objects of his implacable hatred, does he not obviously rise in his hatred, till it is changed into love? This point, however, it is not my object to press. We must concede that holiness be gins when the heart is changed.

III. Is it always small in its beginning? Does that text in which the kingdom of God is compared to a grain of mustard seed, and that other where it is compared to leaven, teach us that grace in the heart is thus small at the first? Or do they illustrate the primitive smallness of the Christian church, and its ultimate growth and enlargement? They may be meant to apply in both cases, but aside from these texts, we are taught unequivocally in the Scriptures, that the believer is, at the first, sanctified but in a small degree, and that he "grows in grace" till he arrives at the fulness of the stature of a perfect man in Christ Jesus. He is, at the first, a "babe, and has need of milk, and not of strong meat." Afterwards, he "forgets the things that are behind, and reaches forth to those things that are before, and presses toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." The light that has shined in upon him shines "brighter and brighter unto the perfect day." Hence, we gather, that though the work of regeneration

is from its very nature instantaneous, the work of sanctification is progressive, and is, at the first, comparatively small.

IV. But how will this comport with what believers have thought was their experience-that at the first they felt a glow of holy affection, which they termed their first love, which afterward they lost? And the Scriptures, they have supposed, favoured the idea. "Thus saith the Lord, I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou-wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown." But was that love of espousals, thus accredited to Israel, all holy love?-or was it not, in great part at least, merely that natural joy which might arise from the comfort, and pride, and novelty of their emancipation? It surely soon vanished, and they murmured, and made them gods, under whose guidance they purposed to return to Egypt. And that whole congregation, you know, died in the wilderness. They were, evidently, as a body, destitute of holiness; hence their love of espousals must be explained as something else than delight in God.

But why may not the same be said often of that joy with which the heart of the new-born seems to overflow? Can we be allowed to believe it is all holy love to God? There can be, as yet, but little knowledge of God, or of truth. Hence that strong affection can hardly be allowed to flow wholly from objects so dimly seen. Is there not often far greater probability, that it is the mere effusion of animal affection? Or, at least, that it has far more of nature in it than of grace. There may not seem, afterward, the same hilarity; but is there not more knowledge of truth and duty, and more stability

in the ways of God, more fixed principles of action, more humility, and more undeviating confidence in the Saviour?

In which position would the believer most readily go to the stake, and lay down his life for his Master? when, during the first month of his regeneracy, he fills the air with his song? or, when a few years afterward, he has learned the corruption of his heart, and at times, perhaps, hardly dare hope that he is born of God? May not the joy abate, and there be, at the same time, an increase of that principle of holiness that develops a heavenly mind? Surely it is the believer of continued experience, and not the man renewed but yesterday, that is rooted and grounded in the truth, and who cannot be driven about with every wind of doctrine. Whether this question is decided right, however, I wish each one to judge for himself.

V. Another question arising out of this subject isdoes the good man at all times advance in holiness? and are we so to understand that text, "The righteous shall hold on his way"? Here, perhaps, again, it is not easy to come at what we are sure is truth. I have believed that it is otherwise, and, that, while there are times when the good man progresses rapidly, there are other times when he makes no progress, and others, again, when the progress of holiness, if I may so speak, is backward. Thus Israel, sometimes, bent their track directly to the promised land, at other times did not move for many days, and at other times marched retrograde. So we have seen the plant spring up and grow as if life was in it, and then perhaps for weeks seem stationary, and then again withering under drought, and seemingly about to perish. Whether these analogies may teach

us truth or mislead us, still I have believed it thus with the child of God. And the only position contested, I believe, is, whether the Christian is ever in the way to do himself essential injury. That broad promise, "All things shall work together for good to them that love God," has been used as implying the negative. That the promise is true, and that the full import of it will be accomplished, there cannot be a doubt. But what is its import? Does God merely promise, in this precious text, that all the events of his providence shall conspire to bring his people to a higher seat in heaven? Or does he promise all this, and more too, that their very backsliding shall conspire to the same result? Wouldhe promise, that if they forsake him, and sin by going after their idols, this very sin shall tend to purify them! Would it be safe to trust a wandering believer with such a promise in his hand? Is it reasonable to believe that it will tend to the health and growth of the heavenly mind, to have it wounded, and polluted, and ensnared by transgression? Have we any assurance that Peter and David might not have reached a nobler Christian stature, if they had stood firm in the hour of temptation? I confess, I think there is no such assurance.

Do not facts warrant us to believe that Christian minds of the same powers and opportunities, have made different degrees of advance in the ways of God? The one is seen to climb the steeps of Zion, with brisk and steady step, and far outgo the other, while to us there appears no reason why the other might not have led in the enterprise. The professor who comes at length to the grave in old age, and, as we hope, a believer, but who can look back upon whole years of relapse and of wandering, has he those marks of maturity, and that animating hope, and that strong and conquering faith, seen