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by a criminal delay. Make no further excuses. Pray to God for the Spirit of Jesus Christ to aid your feeble efforts; for he will not reject your prayer, but will give you all needful grace. Only begin; only be in earnest; only set out for heaven. God will never be wanting to you. The Spirit and the bride say, Come; and let him that heareth say, Come; and let him that is athirst, come; and whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely.

But allow me to point out,

II. And finally, THE SECURITY AND HAPPINESS OF THE. TRUE CHRISTIAN. We have seen that the effects of all events are just what God makes them to be. It is not therefore so much to outward circumstances that I would direct your attention, as to the inward temper of your heart. By prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ you can seek the beneficial use of all occurrences. What then are your fears? What your discouragements? What your disappointments? Let me direct you to your tender and faithful Lord. Pour all your solicitude and anguish at his feet. Repose, like the beloved disciple, on his bosom. Though you are perplexed, and harassed, and dejected, though without are fightings, and within are fears, though Satan assault you with perturbation of spirit and fierce suggestions, as with

fiery and poisoned arrows, though unreasonable and wicked men prevail for a time against you, though your own schemes have all failed, and you perceive no possibility of relief, yet sink not into despair. You cannot perhaps pray as you would wish for yourself; but your family, your friends, your ministers, the whole church are interceding for you. Your Saviour is allwise and all-powerful. Your case cannot baffle his skill or fail to receive his notice. He marks all your trials, and can send you in a subsidiary strength, a large supply of his Spirit. He can make even the wrath of man to praise him, and the remainder of it he can restrain. All nature is under his control. The deliverances which he wrought in a miraculous manner of old, he can repeat in the ordinary and secret process of his providence. Bright days shall return. The dark night shall usher in the morn. Cast not then away your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward. Believe your Redeemer's power; wait his pleasure; He will never leave you nor forsake you. Be still, and know that he is God. Imbibe the spirit of the Apostle, in the verses connected with the text. Your earnest expectation and your hope shall not be disappointed. You shall in nothing be ashamed. Be not then terrified with your adversaries, which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that from God. Christ shall

be magnified in your body, whether by life or by death. For you to live shall be Christ and to die be gain.

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"Blessed for ever and ever be that mother's child," says the judicious Hooker, "whose faith hath made him the child of God! The earth may shake, the pillars of the world may tremble under us, the countenance of the heaven may be appalled, the sun may lose his light, the moon her beauty, the stars their glory; but concerning the man that trusted in God, if the fire have proclaimed itself unable as much as to singe a hair of his head, if lions, beasts ravenous by nature and keen with hunger, being set to devour, have as it were religiously adored the very flesh of the faithful man, what is there in the world that shall change his heart, overthrow his faith, alter his affection towards God, or the affection of God to him? If I be of this note, who shall make a separation between me and my God? Shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No: I am persuaded that neither tribulation, nor anguish, nor persecution, nor famine, nor nakedness, nor peril, nor sword, nor death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor power, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall ever so far prevail over me. I know in whom I have believed; I am not ignorant whose pre

cious blood hath been shed for me; I have a Shepherd full of kindness, full of care, and full of power; unto him I commit myself; his own finger bath engraven this sentence in the tables of my heart, Satan hath desired to winnow thee as wheat, but I have prayed that thy faith fail not. Therefore, the assurance of my hope I will labour to keep, as a jewel, unto the end; and by labour, through the gracious mediation of his prayer, I shall keep it *."

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*Hooker's Works, vol. iii. p. 534. Oxford edition, 1807.

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Now thanks be unto God which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place:

It is a peculiar encouragement to the Christian minister to contemplate the example of the holy Apostles; for, whatever difficulties he may now meet with in the discharge of his high office, he perceives that they were assailed by much greater. He knows also that the power of divine grace is not less at the present time, than at the first propagation of the Gospel. He believes that the doctrine of the cross of Christ remains the same; and that, though the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit have long ceased, yet that his ordinary and most important operations still continue in the church. He hopes therefore, to recur to the allusion in the text, -that he may also be carried forward, in some measure like the Apostle, in a spiritual triumph, whilst the vivifying fragrance of the

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