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going on as if this were possible? For if you will not fix a time to repent, and yet may die without a moment's warning, what real difference is there, between this, and saying openly that you hope to serve both GoD and Satan?

Your first care then must be, and do not let another night pass over you without letting it be your care,-your first care must be to get rid of these sins or this negligence of GOD, which ties you down to the kingdom of the Prince of dark

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And this you will not be able to do by saying, "I will resolve to sin no more, in your own strength, for in that confidence you will sin at the first temptation; but will be enabled to do it by prayer, and principally by prayer in the congregation, when we offer up prayers here in the sanctuary of GOD for you and all the Church; by prayer and by a solemn, humble, reverential, attendance at the Altar, to receive spiritually the Body and Blood which was given for you, and which is left by CHRIST Himself to pre

serve your bodies and souls unto everlasting life.

Nor are you to be discouraged by the difficulties which will lie in your way as they lie in the way of all; you are not to be terrified because you find temptations too strong for you, as you think; for with the temptation a way will be made by which you may escape. You are not to be cast down by troubles which seem to overwhelm you; for these are, as S. Paul says, but light afflictions which endure for a moment. The Grace of God will support you through temptations and trials too; and thus at length you too will have that boldness and access with confidence to your FATHER which is in Heaven, by the faith of HIM who is ascended there before you, to prepare man. sions for those who shall be like HIм and with HIM.

Let then all who have these gifts of GOD, this boldness and access with confidence, use them as choice treasures for which they will have to account. Above all let them be careful to allow no spot

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or taint of earthly dross to be upon them, but let them be pure as the Heaven they came from.

Recollect that the time cannot be far off from any of us, probably is not far off some of us, when you will be called on to exchange those feelings for others still better, better because more perfect. Recollect, that having made this progress on earth, you may indeed go on from strength to strength, gaining new vigour and alacrity in the cause of your Master. But you have the greatest gifts that HE will bestow here; the next gift which HE will bestow on those who continue faithful to the end, will be when He shall invite them to Heaven, and say, "Come ye blessed of my FATHER, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."

SERMON XVI.

NOVELTIES.

ACTS xvii. 21.

The Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing.

S. LUKE here confirms the other accounts we have of the Athenian character from their own writers. They were a giddy, fickle people, and were as ready to hear of a novelty in Religion as in anything else. To this propensity of hearing and telling new things, S. Luke tells us we must attribute the ready eagerness with which the preaching of S. Paul was received. We in our own day may learn something from their example.

Now, it seems quite essential to our nature that we should always desire to hear at least some new thing, or change

the occupation of our minds. I do not say that all men are always hearing new things and changing the occupations of their minds, for in some persons the original propensity of nature has been stifled by peculiar circumstances or by a blunted intellect; but that with such exceptions, all men have the propensity in a degree. It remains then to consider, how that which God has implanted in us, may be made subservient to His glory and to our eternal welfare.

It will not need many words to convince you, that those now who live pretty much as the Athenians did then, in the luxury of a wealthy country, and the idleness which wealth sometimes causes, are constantly in need of something new to pass their time and make life tolerable. Hence come our changes in fashions, and modes of speech, and even on many points, in our ways of thinking. They are produced by our Athenian brethren, by those who spend their time in nothing else, but either to hear or tell some new thing. Hence comes also that appetite for what

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