Him, and walk with Him. He will always remember, and will expect us to live as His people and His children.

The words of S. John shew something of what God has done for us in our Lord Jesus Christ, and of what He expects from us. "My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. And hereby we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He that saith I know Him, and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth His word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby we know that we are in Him. He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk even as He walked." k

I need not tell you now what is right and what is wrong. You all know something of it, though perhaps many of you are thoughtless and forget what they know. Many of you most likely too deceive yourselves in some things, and make excuses, and think you may do some things that you ought not

k 1 S. John ii. 1—6.

to do, and may leave undone some things that you ought to do. It is well worth while for each one, however dutiful he may imagine he is towards God, to think whether he does not do so himself.

But this I will call upon you to consider, whether it ought not to be your first concern, that you may know, and love, and obey Him, whose name you bear. Whether you are keeping your hearts with all diligence, as the temples of the Holy Ghost; whether you are living as if you saw God always before your face.

If any one were brought from far to see the children of God, and you were pointed out to him as the men who know and worship the true God, who have His Spirit working in you, to renew you in all holiness after His Image, what would he think?

He would be pleased, indeed, to see you all assembled here to worship God and to hear His Word. But in your own homes what would he see? Would he see you

doing as Christ bade those be taught who should be baptized "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you?" Would he think you believed His promise, "Lo I

am with you alway even to the end of the world." Would he see you merciful, as your Father in heaven is merciful? Would he see you bearing one another's burdens, as our Lord Jesus Christ bore the cross for us? Would he wonder, and say that "God is in you of a truth," or would he turn away in sorrow, saying, "How is the fine gold become dim!"m

Think how great a thing it is to be God's children, to know God the Father in His eternal Son, and to have the aid of His Holy Spirit ever with you, as you may, if you will but ask of Him.

Think of the terrible judgment of those who sin against the light, who grieve the Holy Spirit till He departs from them. And he not satisfied with yourselves till you can rejoice in the name of God, and be glad that He sees all that you do, or say, or think, conscious that all your works are wrought in Him. Be not satisfied until your lives, as well as your tongues, proclaim,

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.

11 Cor. xiv. 25.

Amen.

Lam. iv. 1.

SERMON XVI.

S. Luke xiv. 18.

"And they all, with one consent, began to make excuse."

Some persons, in reading the Holy Scripr tures, must needs put on every part an explanation directly applicable to ourselves; and very often, in this way of spiritualising, as it is sometimes called, they neglect the exact and proper meaning. And this is particularly apt to be the case with passages that relate in any way to the Jews, and their state of trial before the Gospel. Several of our Lord's parables have an interpretation of this kind, which is so obvious, and so clearly true, that we cannot do right in neglecting it. And if we attend to such interpretation, and reflect upon it, we shall find that we have lost nothing in adopting it, nay, that we have gained much toward the right application of the Divine lesson to ourselves.

For the chosen people of old were themselves a living parable, in which God shewed His ways to man, and marked the path that

leads to Him, and the dangers that surround, and the hindrances that cross it. As the wilderness was the way to the Promised Land, as conquest was the way to possession, as possession was the way to peaceful and regular observance of the law, as the law was a preparation for the Gospel, and as each of these had its discipline and its aids from above, so is the Heavenly Dispensation, in which we live, a way and a preparation for something infinitely more glorious, and so it has its own trials, its discipline, and its aids.

When therefore we read anything that illustrates God's dealing with them in any of these stages of their trial, we shall do well to think of it first as relating to them; and by doing so we may get our own case even more lively and clearly represented than by a direct application of the text to ourselves. Besides, we may see what circumstances belong to their peculiar case, as different from our own, and what farther points of likeness are added by taking in their case as we know it to have been, seeing that it is something nearer to our own case than those illustrations are, which only represent it.

But the chief benefit of thus taking the