let us sit down idle in despondency and despair, as having more set us than we can do, and less time allowed us than we require. We have all in sufficiency, if we do indeed look up unto Him who is sufficient for all things. We are not indeed sufficient of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God, his grace is sufficient for us.

way,

Another year in a few hours more will have been taken away from this precious time. And is it not a time to consider how this year will have been spent? Has the grand work of salvation to eternal life in Jesus Christ advanced in our hands? Do we feel ourselves on the steadily going onward toward the mark? Have spiritual battles been fought with the great adversary? Have victories been won, have temptations been overcome? Has Christ been brought to dwell in the heart by faith, has the inner man been strengthened in spiritual might, has love been enlarged, has hope been settled, has peace with God in Christ been obtained? Is longer life desired, not for the sake of its worldly enjoyments, but for the sake of a longer service to our Lord, for the sake of improving in it, for the sake of bringing into some state of good and settled arrangement the work of our heart, even the ministry of our spirits, souls, and bodies to the honour and glory of his name, and the furtherance of his heavenly kingdom? So will the Christian enquire of himself on a solemn occasion like this, when even the most

careless cannot help numbering in some manner the years of his life, and thinking of what may become of him before the new year be added to the old.

But if no preparation has been made, what a warning is there to begin it. When a man has but a day to live, how anxiously he numbers the hours. When, therefore, he has but a few years to live, the sum of which at the longest is not a day in comparison with eternity, should he not as reasonably and as anxiously number the years? And if at the end of one year he find himself as unprepared to meet his God as ever, is not his salvation in great peril and jeopardy? For we find in all our concerns, that the longer we delay to begin a thing, the more unwilling we grow to begin it; we put it off from day to day, until we come to hate the very thoughts of it, and put it out of sight as much as possible. But is not this a sad state of mind to come into as to any good undertaking? how much more, then, in the grand undertaking of all, the work of our salvation? And if work which is of this world, and is therefore not out of the way of our worldly thoughts and habits, can be delayed and put off for ever by growing habits of carelessness, what hope is there that the work of salvation can be ever effected by the man who carelessly puts it off from day to day? For it is quite contrary to our worldly habits, disagreeable to our carnal nature, and

the longer it is delayed the more hardened the heart becomes by worldly service, the more insensible to the necessity of heavenly preparation, the more indisposed to meet the grace of God in his various ordinances; until at length a man studiously avoids all thoughts of a world to come, and gives himself up entirely to this life, without any more knowledge or concern in his heart about heavenly things, than there is in the beasts that perish. Such a man is indeed like unto vanity. His days are as a shadow that passeth away. And when he is gone his place is seen no more.

But the place of the righteous is for ever and ever in the glory of the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. There he shall cease to number years of trial and preparation; for he shall dwell in an eternity of glorious rest from his labour, in those habitations which can never fail, in that state where time shall be no

more.

SERMON XVIII.

THE USE OF LIGHT.

MARK X. 49.

"And they called the blind man, saying unto him, Be of good comfort, rise; he calleth thee."

A BLIND man in deep poverty is indeed a miserable object. Yet what is the misery of his condition compared with that of the man who is blind, not in the eyes of the flesh, but of the spiritual understanding, and who is poor, not in the things of this world, but in the things of the world to come? But our gracious Lord and merciful Saviour had effectual health and help for both. He healed this poor blind man, and came moreover to give light to those whose understanding was so darkened, that they knew not God, and He became poor through his sufferings in the flesh, that they through his poverty might become rich. And this account of the mercy which He showed to the blind and poor in the body, is a lively token of what He

does for man in the spirit. With this view let us examine the account here given.

That we are all by nature blind and poor, as to spiritual things, requires not me to tell you. It is the very foundation on which our belief in Christ as our Redeemer goes. Scripture tells us this from Genesis to Revelation; our own experience tells us this from the cradle to the grave. But however they may confess this truth, men do not consider it sufficiently in their hearts ; otherwise there would not be that slowness to avail themselves of the means of deliverance which our Saviour has given. If they were earnestly desirous of seeing God, the grand object of our spiritual sight, would they keep so little watch over the issues of their heart, when Christ hath said, None but the pure in heart shall see God? Would they, by adding sin to sin, in spite of the light of a better knowledge, bring themselves into the desperate state of which it is said, "For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them 1?"

To be aware of this blindness, and so to seek deliverance from it, is therefore the grand con

1 Acts xxviii. 27.