Never, then, let this necessity of personal experience of the inward life be overlooked, lest we deceive ourselves with unwarrantable hopes of a salvation, the very seeds of which have never yet been manifested in our heart or conduct. Much is said, I know, about a modest and a secret Piety,-about avoiding ostentation and hypocrisy, and keeping the awful subject of Religion between our conscience and our God, and disclaiming pretensions to enthusiastic movements of the mind. But as much must be said upon the other hand about life being know-able only by its actings, and principles and feelings only by their manifestations. However secret the causes, yet, surely the effects, to be actual,—that is, to be effects at all,-must come out into the consciousness and conduct. We should give little credit to that asserted patience which produced no actual calm of mind; or to that professed affection which left the heart unmoved by any ripple of emotion; or to that declared devotion to our interests, of which no trace betrayed itself by acts of zeal and service. We do not, indeed, wish a friend to boast incessantly of the attachment that he feels for us; but still we should not quite expect the secret of it to be so marvellously well preserved that neither to ourselves, nor any one besides, should any glimmer of it struggle into view. Nor does the man of taste, perhaps, attempt to analyze his feelings very meta

physically, or pore over them with morbid sensibility; yet, most certainly a man of taste he could not be unless he had those feelings, — if all objects

and all subjects were to him alike indifferent if his eye never glistened at some splendid scene of nature, and his heart never leaped up within him at some noble act of heroism, and his spirit never quivered like a well-strung instrument when the breath of Eloquence swept over it, or the strains of music lingered on its chords. O why will men think of banishing emotion from Religion when they feel that on every subject of interest and of grandeur and of beauty, to be without emotion is to be without the characteristics of humanity! Why will they give to the flesh and to the world their very soul, and reserve for Him who made that soul the dregs alone, the flat residuum which may be left when all its life has been drawn off and all its nobler workings have subsided! Let no man fancy that he loves God, if he be not conscious that he loves God; let no man flatter himself that he is serving God, if the seeming good that he can point to in his conduct has not sprung from pious motive, intelligent self-dedication, affectionate communion with his heavenly Father. He who is "a godly person," according to our Seventeenth Article, " must feel in himself the workings of the Spirit of Christ, mortifying the works of the flesh and his earthly

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members, and drawing up his mind to high and heavenly things." And he who has "the very sure and lively Christian faith," according to our Fourth Homily, "this Faith doth not lie dead in the heart, but is lively and fruitful in bringing forth good works." For, "as the light cannot be hid but will show forth itself at one place or another; so a true faith cannot be secret, but when occasion is offered it will break out and show itself by good works. And as the living body of a man ever exerciseth such things as belong to a natural and living body for nourishment and preservation of the same as it hath need, opportunity, and occasion; even so the soul that hath a lively faith in it will be doing alway some good work which shall declare that it is living, and will not be unoccupied."—" This is the true, lively, and unfeigned Christian faith, and is not in the mouth and outward profession only but it liveth and stirreth inwardly in the heart." "The wind," says our blessed Lord, "bloweth where it listeth, and no man knoweth whence it cometh and whither it goeth, but thou hearest the sound thereof:"-the source of personal Religion may be inscrutable, but the fact itself, the thing,—the actual elevation of the mind and spiritualizing of the affections, and renewing of the purposes, and sanctifying of the tastes, and habits, and pursuits, this will be as plain and palpable in him who is truly

new born, as the contrary condition of impenitence and fleshliness is plain and palpable. By their fruits, the two distinctive principles — the old man and the new man-must be known. "A good tree cannot bring forth corrupt fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things, even as an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth evil things; for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” Reader, where are your evidences of personal piety? Where are your fruits,—of inward love and outward holiness? We cannot do without these. We must not, indeed, search for them in unessential or deceptive marks. But we must search for them. We must not derive them from merely temporary frames and feelings, or supposed illapses of the Spirit. We must not delude ourselves upon the one hand, or torment ourselves upon the other, by placing dependance on casual experiences which may, after all, (both the good and the evil,) be only bodily sensations, or, at most, excited states of mind; - but at the same time, evidences we must And those evidences we must seek and find in the general pulse of the soul-not in its variations, which may often unnecessarily raise or depress us, but in its existence; not in the degrees of love to God, and prayerfulness, and energy, and zeal, but

have.

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in the fact that we have such love, and prayerful

ness, and energy, and zeal, at all.

Surely a man

may know whether he have love for his father or his mother his wife or children - his brother or his

friend! And just by the same general evidence of permanent consciousness may he know whether he have love to God, and be his child in spirit and in truth; in a word, whether he possess the Inward life of Christianity. "Hereby we know that God abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given

It remains now to consider, in the Second Place, that as the Developement of the Spiritual Life must be more or less manifest to the consciousness of the Individual, so the Process of this Manifestation will be, for the most part, similar in all religious minds.

For, the natural condition of all men is the same, whatever the varieties of form in which it may be manifested. The corruption of man's heart is as general a fact as the existence of man's nature. In

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every man, naturally engendered of the offspring of Adam," sinfulness is now a characteristic of humanity. It is as true now as it was in the days of Noah that "the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth." It is as undeniable now as it was in the days of Jeremiah, that the heart of man is * 1 John iii. 24.