repinings and murmurings,-to permit no occurrence to make him swerve from his obedience ;-this was casting his care upon God, and showing, by the evidence of his life and conversation, his belief that God did truly care for him.

You, brethren, who have humbled yourselves before God, and are living a life of obedience, casting all your care on HIM, consider how great your privilege is, and how far you are blessed above all that the world can do. It is not indeed for your sakes that this needs to be said, namely, that you are blessed above all that the world can do; for I am sure the comparison between what you are, and what you might be, in the enjoyment of the world, never presents itself to your minds butas a fertile subject of the deepest thankfulness but it should be said to remind you to tell your belief to your neighbours who may not be so walking. Tell them that you are on the side of Religion, that you are satisfied there is no peace even here, worthy the name, except the peace of God, and that you could not dare to

think of facing death were you not armed with the faith of CHRIST JESUS. And in addition to your words of friendly unau. thoritative counsel, give to your Master's Cause all the weight of a consistent practice of religious and social duty, of reverent duty to GOD, and of good will to men. I say give the weight of it; let it be known that such is the tenor of your life; let it be seen that of that Cross which you have taken up you are not ashamed. You will not, of course, act ostentatiously, as by thrusting forward accounts of your good deeds, or of your religious emotions; nothing is more unlike the true self-denial of Christian life than such conduct. But you will speak by your actions; and where occasion offers, and only then, with your tongue.

We would not have any to be overalarmed, nor any to be over-joyful; but we know not what alarm can be too great for the person who is still unhumbled before God; nor do we know what joy can be too great over the certainty which the LORD gives us, that His faithful servants

shall rise to life immortal with HIM. Both alarm and joy will be swallowed up by certainty in death: alarm must then become despair; the joy of hope must then be matured into the joy of perfect rest and peace. There can be no other thought so full of persuasion to leave sin as this, for all others are of things intermediate, this is of the one thing final. Persons are often desired to forsake ill courses for the sake of their friends, their health, their fortunes, their character: to all these topics they may find answers, foolish enough of course, but sufficient to put off their wellwishers, and drown the stings of their own outraged consciences. But if they are to be taught in this their day, the things that belong to their peace, it must be by their feeling, through God's Sovereign Grace, the most intense, piercing, awe-stricken alarm for what they must meet when the thin veil of Death is lifted from them, and they stand in Eternity.

So, too, no other thought can be so potent in its influence, to cheer, sustain, and refresh the persons who know them

selves to be pilgrims to a better city. They have here their triumphs over sin and its author Satan, they have the comfort of the HOLY GHOST, they are not subdued by the world, but it is overcome by them. But they know that all their peace here is but a glimpse and foretaste of what awaits them, and that every day puts them so much nearer to the fulness of their joy.

SERMON X.

TEMPTATION.

HEBREWS ii. 18.

For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted.

THIS is a chapter full of mysterious allusion to the state of Angels, of which we only know enough to excite and keep up our curiosity and awe. To have taken on HIM their state, would not have satisfied the purposes of the love of the REDEEMER, forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood: "Wherefore," says the Apostle, "in all things it behoved HIM to be made like unto His brethren; that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to GOD, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people."