once, yet gradually, most surely, your spiritual eyes shall be opened, you shall see GOD, you shall love CHRIST, you shall perceive the motions of the Holy Spirit. The invisible world shall be unveiled, and shall be found to contain all the beauties, all the horrors, and to hold out all the hopes and fears, to be as real, as near, as sure to be ours, for weal or woe, according as we are, or are not, Christians, as the preacher or the Bible, of which he is the expounder, asserts. Thenceforth you will not complain of spiritual teaching that it is parabolic, of strong assertions of the obligation of Christian graces, that they are immoderate, too exacting, too severe. No! heart and mind will testify, and life will approve, “Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no proverb.” Yes; and knowing somewhat of GOD, and your relation to Him, and desiring to know more, whenever in your private reading of the Bible a difficulty meets you, or whenever the preacher discourses, as it seems, in parables, you will give the most earnest and interested heed, to see if you cannot divine the mystery; and failing that, instead of remaining in willing ignorance, you will use all the means placed within your reach, the comparing of parallel places, your commentaries, and the private instructions of your clergyman, pleading all the while with CHRIST, and urgently beseeching of Him, “LORD, thou knowest all things, declare unto me this parable.” Thus doing, you will soon find that to you it is given to know the mysteries of religion; and the knowledge, sanctified by the Spirit, will assuredly work in you a greater love of GOD, a more consistent and more successful pursuit of holiness, a growing taste and eagerness for that better state, whence ignorance, in all its degrees, shall be banished for ever, and where we shall know even as now we are known. SERMON XVII. LIVING AND DYING UNTO GOD. II. CORINTHIANS, V., 8, 9. _We are confident and willing rather to be absent from the body_, _and to be present with the_ LORD. _Wherefore we labour_, _that_, _whether present or absent_, _we may be accepted of Him_.