A man may talk, therefore, as long or as learnedly as he pleases about the depravity of human nature-he may show the particular points on which temptation is strong, and man, by his very constitution weak to resist-but will he have advanced one step towards establishing an excuse for defeat?--Surely not, because he has not yet spoken of the power by whom the battle is to be fought. Such excuses might be very admissible, if Christ had not died for us -if the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, had not come unto us. But what does it now matter, whether human nature be weak or strong, if it is not man but God who worketh? if man has died unto sin with Christ, and with Christ been raised again unto righteousness?-How can he talk any longer of weakness, whose privilege it is to exclaim, "I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me'."

Do we find temptation strong then, my brethren?-Let this remind us, not

1 Phil. iv. 13.

that our nature, but that our faith is weak. In some way or other, we have fallen away from him, who hath overcome the world, and by abiding in whom we also should have had strength to have victory. Our vigilance has been remitted our diligence been allowed to slacken. We have been neglecting some of the means of grace, and in consequence, the wonted supplies of grace have been withheld. For the Father himself loveth us, and had we continued to ask him, all things necessary to our continuance and growth in godliness, would have been imparted.-Not that in any case, however, we must expect to advance so far as to be altogether proof against temptation. Could we accomplish this, our existence upon earth would no longer be a state of probation. It would be a perfect, not an imperfect-a mature, not an infant condition. But the nearer we approach to maturity, the more intimate our communion with Jesus-the less perilous, and the less frequent will be the attacks of the Tempter.

In like manner, the sorrows and afflictions of life may be used as tests of our religious condition. These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation-but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."-There can be no question but that every word of this passage is strictly true. But how much of it, do we feel to be so? How many among us can say, with truth, that whatever tribulation the world may bring, even in the very midst of it they can find rest and peace in the Gospel ?-Very different is the language of the generality of men. Their description of human existence includes every phrase and figure, which can express misery, and suffering, and woe. And neither rest or peace, is anywhere to be found in it. Yet Christ has explicitly and repeatedly promised both, to all who truly turn to him. What must we conclude therefore ?-" Let God be true and every man a liar 1."-We must

conclude that all do not truly turn to him we must conclude that all have not that firm unwavering faith in him, that full and unhesitating reliance upon his power and his promises, which would enable them with him to overcome the world. "Cure sin," it has been said with great propriety, "and you cure sorrow." The two are inseparably connected-the one the cause-the other the effect. There is no sin which does not produce sorrow-there is no sorrow which is not the consequence, remote or immediate, of sin. But the Christian, as we have said before, has been redeemed from sin, therefore sorrow must have lost his power over him; and if he ever sorrow at all after a worldly sort, it is only because and so far as the taint of sin still hangs about him.

Do I include in this apparently sweeping condemnation, all the sufferings which arise from what are justly termed the finer and holier sympathies of our nature? Is there sin in the sorrow which a parent feels for the loss of his child, or a child

for the loss of its parent, or a friend for the death of that one who was dear to him as his own soul?-My brethren, of all the griefs that rack the heart of man, there are none more pious (to use that word in an old sense) than these, but at the same time the Christian is the last man in the world who can be pardoned for an excessive indulgence of them. We feel them by the law of nature-we have been relieved from them by the law of grace-we have heard a voice which cries "I am the resurrection and the life-he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and he that liveth and believeth in me shall never die '." What notions must that man have of the joy of his Lord, who can lament that his brother has entered before him into it ?— What estimate must he have formed of the rest that remaineth for the people of God, who can grieve that a parent has received it, in exchange for the increase of pain and care which increase of years seldom fails to bring with it?