above, who presents every prayer at the throne of grace, who watches over him with the tenderest and most parental care; who will never leave him, nor forsake him, who will "guide him with his counsel here, and after that receive him into glory." This is no fanatical presumption, which raises him into delusive ecstacies, and unhallowed enthusiasm; but that serene and humble hope which teaches human weakness and frailty to repose itself in the arms of its Saviour and its God. Peace of mind is the Christian's inheritance, and where that peace is ruffled by idle transports, or disturbed by gloomy imaginations, there the spirit of Christianity does not abound. Every doctrine of Christianity increases also the capacity of joy, by teaching its disciples to rest satisfied even with the insufficiency of all human pleasures. "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die," said the Epicurean of old. And is not the thought of that death a fatal damp even on the madness of sensuality, much more on the mind of a reasonable and a thinking being? Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we live, is the Christian's doctrine. Let us enjoy the pleasures which God has afforded us in this mortal state, so as to give an account of their use at his tribunal. Have we not a law by which we may guide ourselves, "that we be not judged of the Lord?" Have

we not a promise of grace from above, to resist the temptations of excess, to strengthen the dictates of that self-denial, which is essential to the enjoyment even of temporal and of worldly pleasure? Thus, then, in the moment of relaxation and delight, is Christianity our best and surest guide in the paths of real and reasonable joys. But trifling and insignificant will these appear, when compared with the joys of our hours of seriousness and contemplation. From serious moments the world excludes even the idea of joy, to the intervals of occupation or amusement, it attaches nothing but melancholy gloom. But it is in these hours that the Christian feels the liveliest hope and joy; a joy, which arises not from the short and transient pleasures of this life, but from an anticipation of that blessed eternity, that heavenly inheritance which awaiteth the people of God. His redemption by the blood of Christ, his justification before God, his sanctification by the Holy Spirit, all assure him, that he is an inheritor of the kingdom of grace, that he is an heir of everlasting life, that his hope is full of immortality.

Such then is the joy of a Christian, such the doctrines and the motives from which it results. By becoming, as the text enjoins, the predominant principle of our soul, it will abate the tumult, allay the influence, and mitigate the seve

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rity of every rebellious passion; it will regulate, direct, and extend every temporal enjoyment, it will moderate our desires in their pursuit, our conduct in their possession, our disappointment in their loss. This is a lesson that philosophy has long inculcated in vain, that Christianity alone has discovered a reasonable means of enforcing, a just motive for adopting. Rejoice in the Lord alway, and again I say, rejoice."

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SERMON XXXIII.

1 CORINTHIANS ix. 24.

So run that ye may obtain.

THAT We may understand the words of the apostle in the passage before us, we should remember, that he alludes to the methods pursued, and the customs practised in the games of ancient Greece. This illustration of his subject must have been peculiarly forcible in the eyes of his Corinthian converts, who lived so near to the spot in which the most celebrated of them all were solemnized. At first sight we might imagine that a comparison of the victory to which every Christian is summoned to aspire, with success in these sportive Pagan contests, would be degrading to the dignity of the former: but here again, we must remember, the high estimation and honour in which a victory in the games was held in former times; it exalted the name, it ennobled the memory of the conqueror: in mo

dern days, indeed, we have nothing that in any degree corresponds to the peculiar honour which it conferred.

So far, therefore, was it from offering any low or degrading comparison, that it placed both the discipline, and the rewards of the Gospel, on the highest ground which the Corinthians were ablé to conceive. But independent of the dignity, we cannot but admire the justness of the illustration. It holds good in so many leading points, and presents to us so striking and so important a view of a Christian life, that it would be well for us, more closely to examine, the various circumstances and points, upon which the Gospel insists.

The first point to which our attention will be directed, is, to the condition of the contest. "Know ye not that they which run in a race, run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run that ye may obtain." In the Grecian as in all other games there was one pre-eminent prize, which was the object of the combatants. But though one only in the end could obtain it, yet in the previous discipline and preparation for the contest, every one among them fixed his hope and expectation upon it, as if it were to be his own. Each competitor in the race, was fully assured that his strength and powers were equal to those of his adversaries, and in this assurance he en