holiness, when it is self-evident that no human being can be such a pattern ?— To warn you, my brethren, against a widely prevalent error in practice, from which it by no means follows that a man must be free, because his speculative notions on the matter are correct and clear-to warn you against the abuse of example.-Every man who opens a Bible, knows full well that with respect to each character, which he shall there find delineated, he is to imitate the good and avoid the evil.-He knows this-and he would not avowedly study the book upon any other principle.-But are there not moments occasionally, when it is forgotten? Are there not seasons, when fatigued, as it were, with continued straining after the lofty virtues that are brought before us, we fall back, and rest with indolent satisfaction upon the authority of some example of sin ?-Are there not occasions, when we can turn with ill-disguised complacency from the wisdom to the folly of a Solomon-from the zeal to the apostacy of a Peter-from the bro

therly love, to the carnal quarrellings of Barnabas and Paul?-Here, we say, are these chosen and favoured servants of the Most High yielding to the sins, in which I myself am implicated.—Under the shelter of their example, may I not escape with impunity?-May not my uncleanness be tolerated?-Shall not the weakness of my faith be overlooked?— Will the consequences of an unruly temper be visited upon me?

In answer to all this, we must be told again and again that chosen and favoured as peccable men have been, it was not for their sins that they were chosen and favoured, nor is it in their sins that they are proposed for our imitation.-Their sins are recorded in the word of God, because the word of God is a faithful portraiture of human life; and there is " no man living that sinneth not '."-But in this respect they should warn, not encourage us.-Come not hither, they cry, enter not this evil path-"Avoid it-pass not by it-turn

from it, and pass away"-and if, invited instead of repulsed by this, we obstinately hold on our course-we act as would the pilot who should strand his vessel upon the very rock on which the beacon was gleaming.

And the same infatuation we carry into every-day life.-Do I speak of a feeling altogether strange to your bosoms, my brethren, when I ask whether you know not what it is to triumph at the knowledge of a neighbour's infirmities? -To triumph-not over him, because he has fallen, (none but a fiend would do this)-nor exactly, because by that fall, he has been reduced to your own level, or below it but because the sight of his sin has reconciled you to your own-has restored that self-complacency, which his previous uprightness had disturbed. An example, humanly speaking, perfect, is a rebuke to all who come within its sphere.-We are never easy, therefore, till we have found some flaw in it, which we forthwith convert into a palliative for our past offences, or an

our

authority for those which we contemplate. Nor is this the only method by which we contrive to wrest a good example to own destruction, and by which we might misapply even that of St. Paul.-Point out a man (if haply such can be found) who is righteous in all his ways, and just in all his doings-who is a faithful servant of Christ his Lordand a friend and benefactor to all his brethren, whose conscience, in short, is void of offence towards God and manand what shall we say of him?—We shall say yes! undoubtedly-he is all this now, and we cannot deny it.-But we can remember a time when he was different. We can remember a very time when his ways were as our ways are-and he walked as we are now doing. -Do not hold him up as our pattern.If we take him at all, we will take the good and the bad together-or take him at that period of his life, which it would best suit us to imitate.-Upon the same principle and with the same reason, we might fix our whole thoughts upon Saul,

the persecuting bigot-and forget altogether the meek, but indefatigable servant of the Lord Jesus Christ.-If we do so, however, our end will be destruction. -But would we turn the examples of our fellow men-whether that of St. Paul, or of those who walk as he has taught them, to the welfare of our own souls-we must imitate only the best portions of their character, at the best periods of their career.-This may be a sufficient answer to the first question suggested by the text.

Having determined then how far we ought to be followers of Paul-let us now consider how far we can follow him.— How far can we follow one who was snatched like a brand from the burning, by the hand of God, visibly stretched out for his preservation ?—how far can we follow one who was carried, as he himself expresses it, into the third heaven, that the counsel of God might be revealed to him?-how far can we follow him, the virtue of whose touch transferred to napkins, healed the sick-and at whose