as they profess, they would be more diligently studied, and in many instances treated with greater respect. The faith of many is undoubtedly very weak. If the laws of our country provided a plain way of escape from temporal death for the benefit of the condemned criminal, as plain and pointed as the great commission given to the apostles of Christ, would any condemned criminal hesitate to obey or treat the stipulations of law as men are constantly treating the precepts of the gospel of Christ? When a man believes the Bible contains the facts and truths which concern us infinitely more than all earthly matters, his care and diligence should be, to some extent, in harmony with his persuasion. At this point men seem to be most strangely careless and grossly negligent. How few people do, or will, understand that the terms of salvation are written as with the beams of the sun? Is the trouble a low degree of faith, approximating unbelief? The shadows are always the longest when the sun is lowest. Is the sun of righteousness low in your spiritual heavens? Or have you given him the uppermost seat in your affections? What think you of Christ? Whose son is he?

When I tell you that thousands received the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, even before the Holy Spirit was given, and were clean through the words spoken unto them, many are ready to cry out, "These are hard and strange sayings—who can hear them?" Yet, strange as it may seem, these facts have been upon record near nineteen hundred years. Jesus said, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature; he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned." In the record of St. Luke, chapter 24, the condition of the new covenant, to which remission of sins is promised, is expressed by the term repentance: "Thus it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem." The word repentance, when used in the law of Christ, is always equivalent to the use which the ancient martyrs made of it, viz: "Amend your lives." We have it beautifully expressed in these words: "If the wicked turn from all the sins which he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die."

Paul summed up the whole matter of his preaching in the sentence, "Repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ." In some of the best Latin translations this passage in Acts 20th is rendered, "Conversion to God;" also in Hebrews, 6th chapter, we read, "And conversion from dead works." Such is more clear and natural; but if we should read, according to modern theology, sorrow towards God, and sorrow from dead works, it would sound very unnatural, and almost ridiculous. This is a grand argument in favor of the reading of the Geneva text, which reads, "Amend your lives and turn, that your sins may be blotted out." But if heaven may be gained at an easier and cheaper rate, how is it that we are so frequently and so plainly assured that without actual newness of life, holiness and sanctification unto obedience, there is no hope, no possibility of salvation? John the Baptist, preaching repentance, said: "Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire." It is not the leaves, simply, of a profession, nor the blossoms of good purposes and intentions, but the fruit, the fruit only, that will save us from the fire. "Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire."

Our Savior said, "Not every one that saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doth the will of my father who is in heaven." After he had delivered all the beautiful precepts found in the lesson given upon the mount he closed up all by saying, "He that heareth these sayings of mine and doth them not I will liken him to a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand, and when the rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house, it fell, and great was the fall of it." They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts. If they have not done this, and so attained fitness of character to dwell with God, it matters not what their sorrow has been, nor their intentions, they will not enter the kingdom of God.

Paul says, "The works of the flesh are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditious, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, of which I forewarn you, as I have told you in time past, that they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." He does not say they who have done such things shall not be saved, but just the contrary, for he adds: "Such were some of you, but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified;" but he teaches the doctrine that those who do such things and do not amend their lives shall not be excused by any pretense of sorrow and good purposes; they "shall not inherit the kingdom of God." "In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature"—a creature living by a faith, which worketh by love. It is not simply wishing you were a new creature; not simply wishing for a working faith; nor sorrowing because you are not a Christian; but "keeping the commandments of God," that will permit you to enter heaven.

In the final closing of the New Testament writings it is said: "Blessed are they who do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life and enter in through the gates into the city."

Paul says, "Follow peace with all men and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord." And Peter says, "Add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity"—and finally says, if ye do these things ye shall never fall, for so an abundant entrance shall be ministered unto you into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And John says, speaking of the Christian's hope, "Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he is pure;" then the impure may flatter themselves, and presume upon the favor of God without "purifying their souls in obeying the truth," but they are without hope in the world. And again he says, "Little children let no man deceive you, he that doth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous."

So all the writers and teachers of the New Testament, with one consent, proclaim the necessity of obeying the commandments of the gospel. What a vain whim it is to think that sorrow and mere intention without reformation of life will admit you into heaven. This golden dream of heaven has sent thousands out of this world unpardoned and unsaved.

A great many persons satisfy themselves with a mere confession and acknowledgement of their sins. They seem to think they have done enough, if to confession of sins they add some sorrow for it. They think all is well if, when their fit of sinning is past and they are returned to themselves, the sting remains, breeding some remorse of conscience, some complaints against their wickedness and folly for having done so, and some intentions to forsake it, though never carried into effect. There are many persons in the churches of our country who seem to think the church is a stage, whereon they must play their parts, who make a profession every day of confessing their sins with humble hearts, and yet, after having spent twenty, thirty or forty years in this manner,