ner reap what the sinner has sown; and there is a harvest of anguish forever to be gathered. Who discerns not that punishment may thus be sinfulness, and, therefore, the principle of our text may hold to the very letter in a scene of retribution? A man "sows to the flesh;" this is the apostle's description of sinfulness. He is "of the flesh to reap corruption;" this is his description of punishment. He "sows to the flesh" by pampering the lusts of the flesh, and he "reaps of the flesh" when these pampered lusts fall on him with fresh cravings, and demand of him fresh gratifications. But suppose this reaping continued in the next life, and is not the man mowing down a harvest of agony? Let all those passions and desires which have been the man's business upon earth, hunger and thirst for gratification hereafter, and will ye seek elsewhere for the parched tongue beseeching fruitlessly one drop of water? Let the envious man keep his envy, and the jealous man his jealousy, and the revengeful man his revengefulness; and each has a worm which shall eat out everlastingly the very core of his soul. Let the miser have still his thoughts upon gold, and the drunkard his upon the wine-cup, and the sensualist his upon voluptuousness; and a fire-sheet is round each which shall never be extinguished. We know not whether it be possible to conjure up a more terrible image of a lost man, than by supposing him everlastingly preyed upon by the master-lust which has here held him in bondage. We think that you have before you the spectacle of a being, hunted, as it were, by a never-wearying fiend, when you imagine that there rages in the licentious and profligate only wrought into a fury which has no parallel upon earth-that very passion which it was the concern of a life-time to indulge, but which it must now be the employment of an eternity to deny. We are persuaded that you reach the summit of all that is tremendous in conception, when you suppose a man consigned to the tyranny of a lust which can not be conquered, and which can not be gratified. It is literally surrendering him to a worm which dieth not, to a fire which is not quenched. And while the lust does the part of a ceaseless tormentor, the man, unable longer to indulge in it, will writhe in remorse at having endowed it with sovereignty: and thus there will go on (though not in our power to conceive, and, O God, grant it may never be our lot to experience), the cravings of passion with the self-reproachings of the soul; and the torn and tossed creature shall forever long to gratify lust, and forever bewail his madness in gratifying it.

Now you must perceive that in thus sketching the possible nature of future retribution, we only show that "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." We prove that sinfulness may be punishment, so that the things reaped shall be identical with the things sown according to the word of the prophet Hosea, "they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind" (Hosea, viii. 7). We reckon that the principle of our text, when rigidly applied, requires us to suppose the retribution

of the ungodly the natural produce of their actions. It shall not, perhaps, be that God will interpose with an apparatus of judgments, any more than he now interposes with an apparatus for hardening, or confirming in impenitence. Indifference, if let alone, will produce obduracy; and obduracy, if let alone, will produce torments. Obduracy is indifference multiplied; and thus it is the harvest from the grain. Torment is obduracy perpetuated and bemoaned; and this again is harvest-the grain reproduced, but thorns around the ear. Thus, from first to last, "whatsoever a man soweth, that also does he reap." We should be disposed to plead for the sound divinity, as well as the fine poetry of words, which Milton puts into the mouth of Satan when approaching to the survey of paradise: "Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell." "Myself am hell!" It is the very idea which we have extracted from our text; the idea of a lost creature being his own tormentor, his own place of torment. There shall be needed no retinue of wrath to heap on the fuel, or tighten the rack, or sharpen the goad. He can not escape from himself, and himself is hell.

We would add that our text is not the only scriptural passage which intimates that sinfulness shall spring up into punishment, exactly as the seed sown produces the harvest.

In the first chapter of the Book of Proverbs, the eternal wisdom marks out in terrible language the doom of the scorners: "I also will laugh at your calamity, and mock when your fear cometh." (Prov., i. 26.) And then, when he would describe their exact punishment, he says, 'They shall eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices." (Prov., i. 31.) They reap, you see, what they sow; their torments are "their own devices." We have a similar expression in the Book of Job: "Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity and sow wickedness reap the same." (Job, i. 8.) Thus again in the Book of Proverbs: "The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways." (Prov., xiv. 14.) We may add that solemn verse in the last chapter of the Book of Revelation, which seems to us exactly to the point. It is spoken in the prospect of Christ's immediate appearance: "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still; and he that is holy, let him be holy still." (Rev., xxii. 11.)

The master-property is here represented as remaining the masterproperty. The unjust continues forever the unjust, the filthy forever the filthy. So that the indulged principle keeps fast its ascendancy, as though, according to the foregoing supposition, it is to become the tormenting principle. The distinguishing characteristic never departs. When it can no longer be served and gratified by its slave, it wreaks its disappointment tremendously on its victim.

There is thus a precise agreement between our text, as now expounded, and other portions of the Bible which refer to the same topic.

We have indeed, as you will observe, dealt chiefly with the sowing and reaping of the wicked, and but just alluded to those of the righteous. It would not, however, be difficult to prove to you, that, inasmuch as holiness is happiness, godliness shall be reward, even as sinfulness shall be punishment. And it is clear that the apostle designed to include both cases under his statement: for he subjoins as its illustration, "He that soweth to the flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." We can not indeed plead, in the second case, for as rigid an application of the principle as in the first. We can not argue, that is, for what we call the natural process of vegetation. There must be constant interferences on the part of deity. God himself, rather than man, is the sower; and unless God were continually busy with the seed, it could never germinate and send up a harvest of glory. We think that this distinction between the cases is intimated by St. Paul: the one man sows "to the flesh;" himself the husbandman, himself the territory; the other man SOWS to the Spirit, to the Holy Ghost." And here there is a superinduced soil which differs altogether from the natural; but if there be not, in each case, precisely the same, there is sufficient vigor of application to bear out the assertion of our text. We remember that it was 66 a crown of righteousness" (2 Tim., iv. 8) which sparkled before Paul; and we may, therefore, believe that the righteousness which God's grace has nourished in the heart will grow into recompense, just as the wickedness, in which the transgressor has indulged, will shoot into torment. So that, although it were easy to speak at greater length on the case of true believers, we may lay it down as a demonstrated truth, whether respect be had to the godly or the disobedient of the earth, that "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”

And now, what mean ye to reap on that grand harvest-day, the day of judgment? Every one of you is sowing either to the flesh or to the Spirit; and every one of you must, hereafter, take the sickle in his hand, and mow down the produce of his husbandry.

We have said enough

We will speak no longer on things of terror. to alarm the indifferent; and we pray God that the careless among you may find these words of the prophet ringing in their ears, when they lie down to rest this night: "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." (Jer., iii. 20.) But, ere we conclude, we would address a word to the men of God, and animate them to the toils of tillage by the hopes of reaping. We know that it is with much opposition from indwelling corruption, with many thwartings from Satan and your evil hearts, that ye prosecute the work of breaking up your fallow ground, and sowing to yourselves in righteousness. Ye have to deal with a stubborn soil. The prophet Amos asks, "Shall horses run upon the rock; will one plow there with oxen ?" (Amos, vi. 12.) Yet, this is precisely what you have to do. It is the rock, "the heart of

stone," which you must bring into cultivation. Yet, be ye not dismayed. Above all things, pause not, as though doubtful whether to prosecute a labor which seems to grow as it is performed.

"No man having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of heaven." (Luke, ix. 62.) Rather comfort yourselves with that beautiful declaration of the Psalmist: "They that sow in tears shall reap in joy." (Psalm cxxvi. 5.) Rather call to mind the saying of the apostle: "Ye are God's husbandry." (2 Cor., iii. 9.) It is God, who by his Spirit, plows the ground, and sows the seed, and imparts the influences of sun and shower. "My Father," said Jesus, "is the husbandman" (John, xv. 1); and can ye not feel assured that he will give the increase. Look ye on to the harvest-time. What though the winter be dreary and long, and there seem no shooting of the fig-tree to tell you that summer is nigh, Christ shall yet speak to his Church in that loveliest of poetry: "Lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in the land." (Cant., ii. 11, 12.) Then shall be the harvest. We can not tell you the glory of the things which ye shall reap. We can not show you the wavings of the golden corn. But this we know, "that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us" (Rom., viii. 18); and therefore, brethren, beloved in the Lord, "be ye not weary in well-doing, for in due season ye shall reap, if ye faint not." (Gal., vi. 9.)

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DISCOURSE XXXVII.

JOHN ANGEL JAMES.

No minister in England is better known, and more beloved this side of the Atlantic, than the venerable James. He is now advanced in life beyond his threescore and ten, having been born in Blandford, England, June the 6th, 1785, the son of Joseph James, a linen-draper and pious dissenter. He became a subject of renewing grace in the year 1800; and having completed his preliminary studies, mainly at Gosport, he was ordained in 1806 to the charge of the Congregational Church in Birmingham; which pastorate he has ever since held-a period of 51 years. Notwithstanding several colonies have gone out into the suburbs of the town, the Church now numbers about 1000 members, and is one of the most influential in Great Britain. With the help of a colleague recently chosen, the aged man of God still ministers to a happy and united flock.

As a preacher, Mr. James has long held a high place among the most able and popular ministers of the day. After the manner of most of the English dissenters, he generally speaks from a well-digested plan, leaving the language to be supplied chiefly by his thoughts and feelings, at the moment of utterance. His appearance in the pulpit is said to be imposing and dignified, and his manner is at once persuasive and commanding, tender and energetic, exhibiting a soul deeply impressed with its own bold and lofty thoughts, and forgetful of every thing else but the great end which the preaching of the gospel is designed to accomplish. His discourses are generally framed with much skill, and are adapted not less to arouse and quicken, than to guide and edify; not less to seize hold of the conscience, than to warm and elevate the feelings; not less to impress the careless sinner with a sense of his ruin, than to search the heart of the hypocrite, and build up the true Christian in the most holy faith.

Mr. James is a voluminous author-most of his works being of a particular class— not learned or critical, but practical in the highest sense of the term, and designed, either to guide in Christian duty, or awaken the ungodly. Some of his principal works are "The Church-Member's Guide," "The Christian Father's Present to his Children," "Christian Charity," "The Family Monitor," "The Anxious Inquirer," "Christian Duty," "The Church in Earnest," "An Earnest Ministry," and "The Course of Faith."

It is remarkable that one who writes so much should write so well. The productions of Mr. James are models of their kind. The style is so simple as to be transparent to the mind of a child, yet so beautiful as to attract the man of cultivated taste; moreover, they always breathe a heavenly spirit, are deeply imbued with the evangelical sentiment, and an evident earnestness to do good.