sepulchre? that I may see and find Christ crucified for me."

Now the women who uttered these words had scarcely let them pass from their lips, when they saw that the stone was rolled away, great though it was, and upon it was sitting an angel from heaven, with a countenance bright as lightning, and raiment white as snow. And he said unto them, "Fear ye not: for I know that ye seek Jesus, who was crucified; He is not here, for He is risen, as He said."

My brethren, even so it befalls every one that through the sincere purpose of the death unto sin, seeks Christ crucified. Those hindrances which his weak unassisted nature never could so much as hope to remove, are rolled away by the arm of the power of God. And if he feel the power of the death of his Saviour, he feels also the glorious power of his resurrection: he is enabled by the grace of God to overcome all the hindrances and stones of offence, which before seemed so great and difficult of removal. He puts off the old man, and becomes the new man, endued with heavenly strength and angelic might, sufficient for the struggle that awaits him, and prepared to grapple with every obstacle. And on the very spot, and in the very moment of the crucifixion of the body of his sins, he is saluted with the joyful assurance, "Fear not: I know that thou seekest Christ crucified: He is not dead,

but He is risen." And thus, surrounded with the heavenly brightness of the promises of God, ministered to by his pure celestial grace, he looks forward beyond the grave of death, which cannot detain the people of Christ any more than it detained Him who vanquished it; he looks onward to the entrance into everlasting life and glory at the resurrection of the dead, when they that are dead in Christ shall rise first.

Now many are they who would rather forsake a course of carelessness and forgetfulness of God; they see its folly and unreasonableness; they perceive in what it must end. And many are they also that unwillingly abide in some known disobedience of God's law, in which they have so entangled themselves, that it should have come to seem necessary to their worldly comfort or well-being. But all these have not the resolution to free themselves from the yoke; and after a few qualms of conscience, they settle down again in all their former listlessness and disregard of God's commandments. They no sooner see the sepulchre of Christ, and the spot where they must become partakers in his death by dying to their besetting sin, than they give up the trial, crying out that the thing is impossible. This blocks up, and that blocks up. In short, they content themselves with saying, "Who shall roll me away the stone from the door of the sepulchre ?" and

then resign themselves without a further struggle to their fate.

But this would not be so, if they accompanied hearty prayer to the Lord with hearty endeavours at removing the hindrances from the way. Let them begin to practise with the lighter ones, with overcoming, for instance, the habit of frivolous excuses, which is so general an obstacle to a consistent course. When a man has once overcome one, ever so frivolous, he is prepared for overcoming one more serious. And when he has overcome it, he is quite astonished and ashamed that he should ever for a moment have yielded to it. He is thenceforward convinced that all the rest are not at all more serious and substantial, and goes to work with them, with the strong hand of a just indignation at having been so befooled and perilled by them; and thus under the grace of God his faith becomes strong enough to remove mountains. He has experienced that God will enable him, and nothing therefore shall deter him from his duty. And thus the man who began, for instance, with fighting against those common, and yet most frivolous excuses which are made for absence from this place on this day, will end with a strength which carries him conqueror over every temptation, helps him over every stone of offence, although, while they were yet at a distance, and before he came to grapple with them, they looked great and

stedfast as the mountains which cannot be moved.

This is the Christian course. We have continually to remove from before us the stones of hindrance which the world, the flesh, and the devil, put in the way of the seekers of Christ crucified. But all true seekers will find: they will be supplied with a help, against which all the powers of their adversaries shall never prevail; and they shall find Christ risen, Christ ascended, Christ glorified amid his saints in his kingdom which hath no end.

SERMON VIII.

NO PEACE IN SIN.

(Fourth Sunday after Epiphany.)

ISA. lvii. 21.

"There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked."

HERE is a solemn proclamation brought from the throne of God by his prophet; and this world is full of examples, proving to us how strictly God has kept his word. Who sees, who has ever seen, the wicked man in real peace? Peace requires a quiet mind. But what wicked man's mind is quiet? Its evil desires are always hurrying him after something or other, keeping him discontented with what he has, and hankering after that which he has not. When he has come to the end of one sin, it is but to start afresh upon another; and when he has tasted one enjoyment, he immediately longs for another. His eye is never quiet, but roving from one object of desire to another, or from one object of guilty fear to