life, and of the particular sins to which we are most inclined; with a prayer that God will keep us all day long, by His Spirit, from tempting ourselves. At night, again, we ought to review the day, and see in what we have fallen, praying His forgiveness. And this habit of watchfulness needs two great supports, the one, a daily recollection of the city of God, and the other, an habitual consciousness of God's presence. And these, again, run up into the true sources of all spiritual strength, which are frequent communion-as often as, if possible not less than, once a month-and persevering prayer. If we will watchfully and patiently walk by this path, then no matter where we be in the throng and turmoil of great cities, in the crowded ways of life, you may live as citizens of heaven. There need be no affected singularity of gait or speech, nothing outwardly unlike the busy world around you; though you be all estranged within. It is a blessed thought, that no lawful state is a bar to any aspiration, to any reward in the kingdom of God. Our desires may go up direct from the thickest entanglements of life, to the throne before which ascend the prayers of saints. In the midst of this evil world," the Lord knoweth them that are His." They are lifted up, as it were, out of time, and have their lot among those who are already partakers of eternity.

They go in and out of the heavenly gates, which are open evermore: for "the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day," and "there shall be no night there." Little as we often think it, there are at our side those who shall be high in the city of God. Many that are slighted and despised,—many that now seem afar off,—are ripening to be saints. At that day" many that are first shall be last, and the last first:" " they shall come from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south," from all lands, and from all ages, from all ways and paths of life," and shall sit down in the kingdom of God." Be this our prayer, our lot, our rest for ever.

1 St. Luke xiii. 29.

SERMON XI.

THE CROSS THE MEASURE OF SIN.

PHILIPPIANS iii. 18.

Many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ."

ST. PAUL is here speaking neither of Jews nor of heathens, but of Christians. These enemies of the Cross were not blasphemers or persecutors of the Lord of glory, but baptized sinners: men who bore the sign and name of Christ; but by their sins crucified the Son of God afresh unto themselves. They were partly false apostles, who began even then to divide the Church: men of unsound doctrine and of impure life; together with those who followed them: they were partly also the sinful members of the Philippian Church, who had fallen from their first faith, and lived in the lusts of the world and of the flesh, still professing Christianity. No doubt, St. Paul is speak

ing of gross sinners, but not of gross sinners only. He here lays down a principle, which applies to all sin, of every kind and of every measure, whether great or small. He says of such men, that “ they are enemies of the Cross of Christ." This is the special guilt of sin in Christians. Let us, therefore, see more fully what he means. He does not mean, that sinful Christians, openly and in words, deny or blaspheme the Gospel; nor that they use force to persecute the Church and body of Christ. For it often happens that Christians, as they go deeper in sin, all the more profess faith in the freeness of God's grace, the fulness of Christ's forgiveness, the perfection of His one sacrifice, the sufficiency of His atonement: that is, they become Antinomian; and all the more boast of faith in words, as they are enemies of the Christ in deed and in truth.

How is it, then, that every sin, even the very least, makes men enemies of the Cross of Christ? 1. First, because it was sin, that, so to speak, created the Cross; sin made a Redeemer necessary. It opened some deep breach in the order of life and in the unity of God's kingdom, which could be no way healed but by the atonement. By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men:"-a new dominion was set up, where, before, God reigned

alone. Out of the abyss of the eternal world arose up some awful power, some strong necessity-the antagonist of God. One act of one man, the disobedience of one will, called up a whole world of rebellion, and let in all the powers of death upon the works of God. When we speak of these things, we speak of what we cannot understand. The depth is too dark for us. The voice which issues out of the eternal throne has said, "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die;" "The wages of sin is death;" "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." This is all we can know until we are beyond the grave. Then, it may be, the powers of death will be revealed to those over whom it has no more dominion. For the present time, it is enough to know, that there could be no life in the world, when fallen, except by the atonement of the Son of God. And He, of His free choice and eternal love, gave Himself to die in our behalf. The Cross broke through these absolute and awful necessities, and henceforth "death and hell" are "cast into the lake of fire, which is the second death." Here we may see the enmity of sin. If there had been no sin in the world until now, the sin we have committed, each one of us, this day would have demanded the sacrifice of reconciliation. Such is the intensity of one offence;

1 Rev. xx. 15.