our bodily life would decay and die away, if we took no care to preserve it, so will our spiritual life, if, when we grow old enough, we do not constantly turn towards HIM, who was the beginning of that life in us, and graciously offers HIMSELF to be the support and end of it also, if we do not prevent HIM.

Such turning towards CHRIST is Faith. It is, as I have said, looking out of ourselves, and entirely depending on HIM for every good thing, and for deliverance from all evil. It is not, as I suppose, turning to Him as our SAVIOUR only, but as to our Judge also, and our Teacher, and our King: it is seeking His favour before all the good things of this world, and willingly parting with them to please HIM; it is remembering His presence when we are most alone, and keeping our very thoughts in order, that we may not displease HIM who is for ever reading our hearts.

This is some account of that faith, by which the just live, and by which Christians are graciously enabled to keep that heavenly righteousness, which God gave them when He made them His own which faith if we lose, we draw back unto perdition, but if we continue so to believe, it is the very saving of our souls.

Thus we may understand how impossible it is, that those men should have true faith, who allow themselves in what is commonly called self-righteousness, that is, I suppose, any sort of notion, that they are good enough, and need not much fear the sentence of the last day. The Pharisees of old seem to have gone far in this temper, trusting to their being children of Abraham, to their knowledge of the law, and to their very exact observance of some particular portions of it: as also to their punctual and regular performance of such outward duties as fasting and public prayer. They did not so much try to deceive others, but were themselves greatly deceived about their own condition, by their carefulness in these things. They were deceived, and thought themselves good enough, because they looked to themselves and their fellow men, instead of looking out of themselves into the perfect law of GOD, and the deep sayings of Holy Scripture, requiring truth in the inward parts, and declaring that "the very Heavens are not pure in His sight: how much less man that is a worm!"

We are in continual danger of erring as they did, and losing both faith and the rewards of faith, in this way particularly: that we take up with what we find in ourselves, or with what others

seem to find in us, as if it were good enough to please God, instead of lifting up the eyes of our heart to the Cross of CHRIST, and to HIM who hangs upon it, and seeking from HIм more and more of the heavenly righteousness.

Some of us are inclined to trust in our readings and prayers, and in our regular attendance at Church: perhaps also in our being punctual at the Holy Communion. Let such consider, whether they are not the very persons to whom our LORD gave that solemn warning, "Many will say to me in that day, We have eaten and drunk in Thy presence, and Thou hast taught in our streets: and then will I profess unto them, I never knew you : depart from ME, ye that work iniquity."

Others imagine all is well enough with them, if they have their neighbours' good word, as honest, kind, friendly people. They do not consider that HE, with Whom they have to deal, requires also Purity of heart.

And so in many other ways: there is perhaps no part of goodness, which has not one or other of us depending upon it, in such sort, as that we willingly forget what God requires of us in other respects. It is sad and humbling to think, how ready we are to content ourselves, in this way, with what we may have already done,―our poor weak beginnings in goodness,—and take no pains to go on daily to something better. Whereas our LORD has distinctly warned us, though we had done all that is required, not at all to trust in it, but to feel that it is no more than our duty, that after all we are but unprofitable servants, and that if He is so gracious as to give us a reward at last, HE will but be rewarding His own work in us.

But some perhaps may say, they consider this to be most true, they account it very dangerous and unchristian to trust in works, their whole reliance is on faith and in this they think the New Testament bears them out, because it says so distinctly, that we are justified by faith. I would say to all such persons, Take care that you are not deceiving yourselves, and falling into the very error which you think yourselves most free from. What difference can it make in point of pride and presumption, whether a man trusts in his own faith, or in his own works? In either case he trusts in something of his own, and not in the only sure trust, His crucified SAVIOUR: in either case he goes about to establish

his own righteousness, instead of submitting himself to the righteousness of GOD. To be sure, it is the extreme of rashness and folly, for any man to think that his poor blemished works are good enough to claim eternal life at his MAKER's hands: but is it not as foolish to imagine one's faith, taken in itself, so perfect and precious in God's sight, as that it shall make up for wilful disobedience, and cause God to accept us though we live carelessly? Nay, it is neither our faith nor our deeds, but the merit of our LORD and SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST, such as true faith apprehends it, alone and all-sufficient:-this it is whereby we are justified: for His sake GoD is moved, both to forgive us our past sins, and to pour His sanctifying SPIRIT into our hearts, to make us truly righteous before HIM.

Such faith as this-the faith which keeps hold of our LORD, not only as bearing our sins in His own Body on the tree, but also as uniting us to HIMSELF and making us members of HIM, strong in the strength of His SPIRIT to keep all we have vowed to HIM :-such faith as this leads immediately to the obeying all His commandments: not one or two which may happen to come easiest to us, but all. For since He was so good and merciful as to forget our natural sinfulness, and take us into His favour, before we could love and serve HIм: much more, being made His, will He bless our true love and service, weak though it be, with more and more of His grace. According to the Apostle's reasoning, "If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to GOD by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life."

Again, if our faith really tell us that we are in very deed brought so near to GOD in CHRIST, as the New Testament every where implies if HE be indeed the Vine, we the branches; HE the Body, we the members; bone of His bone, and flesh of His flesh; so that the life we now live, is not so much ours as that of CHRIST living in us, and we may cry out with St. Paul, "I can do all things through CHRIST which strengtheneth me:"-if these things are so indeed, how heavy must their account be, who wilfully break any of their SAVIOUR's laws, who scorn and slight HIM, actually abiding in them! How certain must we feel, as we think on these things, on the one hand, that none of our labour can be vain in the LORD, that HE counts and treasures up every

one of our good thoughts, and actions, and self-denials: and on the other, that every wilful sin must tell for the worse upon our spiritual condition; it may be truly repented of, confessed, forsaken; but there is reason to fear that it never may nor can so vanish, as if it had never been. It will make some difference to us, for aught we know, to all eternity. Surely, if a man really believes in eternity, nothing at all that he does here can possibly seem altogether trifling to him. He will feel sure that he shall hear of all again, and that it will be the better or the worse with him for ever.

On the other hand, faith in CHRIST JESUS, faith in HIM as our present SAVIOUR, just in the same proportion as it makes our actions important, will make our fortunes in this world of small consequence: because this thought will be ever in our minds : GOD has put us on our way to Heaven: CHRIST is abiding in us by His SPIRIT to help us thither: what real difference can it make how we fare, and how we are employed, in the worldly matters through which we must pass here? How we behave, how we think and feel, what our hearts are set upon; that makes the difference: not, how well we are provided for in this world. Therefore a thoughtful Christian will never like to be at all forward in choosing his own condition.

But if he must at any time choose, and if he will take the Bible at its word, he cannot doubt that the way of the Cross, the way of suffering and self-denial for CHRIST's sake, is to be chosen before all others. "Blessed are the poor, Blessed are they that mourn, Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake." It is our LORD HIMSELF who speaks thus earnestly: and if we will obey His teaching, we must really believe that there is some special virtue and blessing in these things, so bitter to flesh and blood; in poverty, mourning, desolation, persecution. As they make us outwardly more like our Master, so He has endowed them with an inward and spiritual power, to bring Him really nearer, and do our souls more good, if we will try and strive to take them rightly.

But then they must not merely be endured patiently; they must even be welcomed with a sort of devout joy, for the hope's sake that they really will bring us nearer to JESUS CHRIST. We must have learned, for God's sake, to subdue our earthly natures

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so far, as to be even comforted and refreshed in our mind, by every vexation and grief that comes upon us; considering with ourselves, that this is the way by which Christian people are to be made like unto CHRIST.

Devotional exercises, prayer and the like, are another great trial of the faith, by which the just are to live. As one of the best signs of bodily life-not mere living, but healthful life-is our having a relish for our proper food and exercise; so is the life of faith known by our loving to pour out our hearts before GOD, to call upon HIм in all temptations, to commit ourselves to HIM in all dangers; and above all, by our earnestly hungering and thirsting after HIM Who is our Righteousness: hungering and thirsting after that Bread and Cup, which are the very communion of His Body and Blood. This is why the holy ordinances of the Church, why prayer, especially in public, and the Holy Communion, are so very great a part of the Divine life. It is not that every such devout exercise is a good work done, and so an end; but by those things, in a certain sense, we spiritually live to delight in them, not now and then, but constantly, is the very token of the HOLY SPIRIT working within us: they are as the act of breathing, by which we continually inhale, so to say, more and more of that good SPIRIT, the quickening breath of the ALMIGHTY. If we can live without breathing, then may we hope to live spiritually without constant prayer and partaking of Church ordinances. And if we can live without food, then we may live the life of faith without receiving the holy and blessed Supper of the LORD.

I speak in this place more particularly of public Church prayers because, blessed as all good prayers are, the Church prayers more especially are those to which the great promises are made; our devotion, then, is not simply our own, but that of all the members of CHRIST, all our brethren every where; and so our communion with HIM is more perfect: as the limbs of the body derive strength and nourishment from the head in greater perfection when all are exercised together, than when any one is in action, the rest remaining still.

It is a bad sign, therefore, of the Divine life, when a man is contented to remain at home, and say his prayers, and read the Scriptures there, under the notion that place signifies little, if a man is