to rise above the influence of sin, as it vitiates the heart, or pollutes the lips, or misleads the man in his daily deportment. But, if this be its nature, it is plainly impossible to carry it forward in the heart of any man, who has the use of his understanding, except in as far as it gains the concurrent exercise of his own mental faculties. It is the work of the man himself, as the intelligent, responsible, moral agent, through whose instrumentality the grace of God puts forth its gradually renewing efficacy; and, as a proof that it is so, the language of Scripture, enjoining it, is uniformly addressed, in the form of precept, to the consciences of those who are supposed to be converted. "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." "Follow holiness, without which no man can see the Lord."

But, if the agency of the man himself be thus indispensable to sanctification, it is easy to see, that a clear and accurate knowledge of himself is no less indispensable to the success of that agency. The case, indeed, is such that he can apply himself to the work only in so far as his self-knowledge enables him to do so; and in whatsoever department the facts of his moral condition are hid from him, or mistaken by him, there he is sure, not only to commit error, or to come short in the exercises which minister to sanctification, but this shortcoming is just as sure to retard the growth of his regenerated nature in every one of its parts. The case of an individual may illustrate this: "I sincerely desire to be sanctified," it has often be said, "but, such is my situation, that

We

I can neither make progress in holiness, nor make up my mind to relinquish the pursuit of it. I know, by education, and, perhaps, by belief, that the doctrines, promises, precepts, and institutions of the gospel, are Heaven's accredited means of holiness, and that these means are made efficient, by the effectual working of the Holy Ghost; but, although somewhat attentive to the use of them, I have scarcely any experience of their efficiency in my particular case. An arrest, if not a retrograde, is imposed upon all my efforts to work out my sanctification; and, after a lapse of years of very considerable assiduity, I find I have gained nothing, but a vast accumulation of disappointment and sorrow." are aware that such a statement as this may sometimes be founded in mistake; for important advances in holiness are frequently made, while circumstances prevent them from being discernible. But we are also aware, that the case of many a reputable Christian is substantially such as this statement represents it; and we would say to such a Christian, Although, perhaps, you have no thought of it, yet, in all likelihood, the cause of the evil of which you complain, is a culpable ignorance of yourself, in one or more important particulars. You are sound enough in all essential points of evangelical belief; you cling, with something like desperation, to the grand regenerating principle, that the blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, cleanses from all sin and without reserve, it may be, you lay open your heart, so far as you know it, to the cleansing efficacy of that blood. But, what if there be something in your heart, which you have never thus laid open, just because you have never detected

it, or, if you have detected-have seen it only in disguise, but have never dreamed of half the extent. to which it sinfully prevails within you? What if there does lurk within you a particular moral bias undiscovered, and therefore unresisted, which, in less, or more, is your characteristic, and so inclines you indirectly to some particular sin, or class of sins, as to make them easily besetting, or peculiarly apt to entice you into trains of thought, or scenes of intercourse, where the temptation to commit them operates with peculiar force? Suppose, for instance, that this bias is covetousness-and it may be any one of twenty things as well as this-that it never rises to such a height, as to drive you to deeds of flagrant dishonesty, but hides itself under the mask of a laudable frugality, and finds scope for its operations, within the limits which the easy Christianity of this world has prescribed to respectability-suppose this to be your case, and at once you have found out, if not the real cause, at least a very likely one, for all your want of success in the prosecution of holiness. This one passion, which, although restrained, is not subdued, exerts all the influence of a ruling passion within you, debasing your whole habit of mind, by its gross and grovelling affinities, subduing your other evil propensities, which interfere with its gratification: in this way, leading you to ascribe to religion, that in which religion has no part, and insidiously laying your every faculty under contribution to its interests. Nor need you wonder that so base a passion should work so extensively without your knowledge, for you are its satisfied victim, and of all men on earth

the least likely to find it out. The picture may be yours, as certainly as your countenance is the likeness of man; and yet, at this moment, while you read these lines, you may be found indignantly to disown it. It is your fondling among the vices entwined around your heart, and scarcely separable from your consciousness of existence. It has scarcely ever appeared to you, since first it gained the ascendency, except in the form of a virtue, and often have you thought yourself a pattern of economy, when doing sacrifice to its net, and burning incense to its drag.

But, think of the influence of this one sin, in retarding your sanctification. It misleads your view of your other sins, especially those which are opposed to it, by inducing you to load them with aggravations they do not possess, or which you, at least, would not have ascribed to them apart from its dictation, and training you to a hatred of expensive vices, not purely because they are vices, but because they interfere with its sordid cravings. It restrains the exercise of your Christian benevolence, by teaching you to undervalue the most amiable social virtues. Judas preached economy, and frowned on a fine expression of love; not because he loved economy, but because he was a thief and had the bag: and the heart of many a Christian is chargeable with the same offence, although his hands were never stained with a deed of dishonesty. It vitiates your estimate of holiness. Viewing holiness in mere idea, or as it exists in heaven, or as it imbues the Bible, your conception of it may be just; but, viewing it as`a practical thing, to be cherished in your own heart,

and exemplified in your own life, it is lowered and made gross, by your covetous dispositions. It wofully misguides your prayers and exertions, by engaging your attention with minor impurities, while the spring of its own pestiferous influence, the teeming source of your foulest pollution, continues unexplored. These are some of its direct bearings against the process of purification, and to all this extent it is sure to frustrate the transformation of your mind and character. But all this would be of little account, were you aware of its existence, and prepared to bring it fairly into contact with the means of its mortification; for the blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, cleanses from all sin: and when you see the evil of this one, and are brought to afflict yourself because of it, with weeping and supplication, at the foot of the cross, your deliverance is at hand. But it is your ignorance of its magnitude, or your deeply infatuated tolerance of its subtle operations, which renders it só very formidable; for, with Christianity at all in your bosom, you cannot see it as it really is, or be truly conscious of its disastrous tendency, without feeling all the energies of your renewed nature, your faith and prayer, and religious assiduity, excited to counteract it, as the one thing which presses your spirit down to the dust, and baffles all your anxious efforts to eradicate evil propensity. Think not that a man can grow holy, while any positively sinful affection is concealed in his bosom, and maintains a hidden ascendency over him; for, although sinful affections may disagree when out in quest of their separate indulgences, they are congenial in nature, and where any one of them bears rule, the rest are sure to re