in you. If you

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have no command over your tempers and your tongues, it is a certain proof that the law of Christ has no sway over your souls. Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us:" as you declare, so will it be done unto you:-you forgive not others; you yourselves are not forgiven. I know that you will be ready to plead the strength and violence of your passions and every man may, as well as you, plead indulgence for his besetting evils in like manner. But if men can be true Christians while sin has dominion over them, there is no iniquity but it may flourish, and still men may assert their right to the privileges of God's children. Where are, then, the promises of the Gospel, "that by these ye might be partakers of the Divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust?" Fixed is the declaration, "Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity." There is power in Christ, communicated to all who really believe on him, to subdue their darling corruptions, their strongest evils, as well as those which have not such a particular predominancy in their constitution. You ought to know, then, that the more you profess the Gospel, and the more light you have in your understandings, if you walk not according to that light, you have as yet neither part nor lot in the matter, but only the more sin to answer for. Strike, then, at the

root of your evils; spare yourselves no more. Do not call these hateful tempers your infirmities disguise them not to yourselves under soft and pretty names. Behold them as black, diabolical evils, directly contrary to the holy nature of God, and evidencing in you a spirit of stubborn pride and rebellion against the Most High. Repent, and bring your sins to Christ, to be crucified with him, that you may look on him whom you have pierced by them, and obtain pardon through his blood, and victory over them by his Spirit. Then rejoice in Christ indeed.

But it must be confessed, that in no one thing does the constitutional frame of some men more differ from that of others than in this very subject. For some are naturally of a phlegmatic, mild, soft, and yielding temper. These are apt to think they have the patience we have described, and, through self-righteous pride, may be too ready to conclude all is well with them. Let such men know, that it may require a principle of Divine grace, a strong and powerful one too, to bring some men to that peaceable, mild, and gentle deportment, which, without any principle of grace, is natural to them. Let them know, that God looks at the heart, and considers how that is principled. Does, then, your meek patient temper (it behoves you seriously to inquire) arise from submission to the will of God, from believing views of the excellency of the Lord Jesus

Christ, and a sense of your own unworthiness and yet of your being freely forgiven all your sins for his sake? Have you any support in it from the considerations of the power, wisdom, and goodness of God, and that scheme of happiness which is steadily carried on by him in the world, and will be completed by him at the last day? Or is it not rather a mere earthly matter, that has nothing to do with God and his Christ, nothing of a spiritual and heavenly nature in it? If it be so, you should surely see, that, though a good temper be a great blessing to you in this world's course of things, it is no evidence at all of your being in a Christian state. If in other respects you live without the fear of God before your eyes, assure yourselves that you are not the children of God. Repent you also, and believe the Gospel, lest you perish equally with the most passionate and the most furious of mankind.

C

SERMON XVI.

FAITH, HOPE, AND CHARITY DESCRIBED.

1 COR. xiii. 13.

And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three: but the greatest of these is charity.

THE world we live in has ever been, since sin was introduced into it, a scene of misery and vexation of spirit. "Man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in vain." Nor is there any thing in it that can give rest and satisfaction to the heart, even when every thing succeeds as heart can wish. But, on the other side, disappointments and afflictions give real pain to the mind; and, if a man looks, within, the accusations of a guilty conscience, and the torment of lusts and appetites ever craving and unsatisfied, are an endless source of misery. What shall a man do? Will philosophy cure these evils? It has long been boasted of as the great healer of mankind. It never did what it pretended to. Beware of philosophy and vain deceit, is a caution as old as Christianity itself.

There is a cure, brethren, for our evils. We preach it, as we can, from Sabbath to Sabbath,

to those who will hear us, and who think it worth while to attend to Sabbath duties;-it is, The pure Gospel of Christ. God knows our miseries to be great, and he has provided a cure large and deep as the evil; and, thanks be to God for the unspeakable gift of his Son! where sin abounded grace has much more abounded. Let us attend to it. Let us forego vain and fruitless inquiries; let us drop all attempts to work ourselves into happiness from our own wisdom, resolution, or contrivances: let us become humble, teachable babes; and let us hear what God has to say to us.

I mean, at present, to fix as I can your attention, and my own, to the way in which the Lord would have us to walk. It lies in the three words faith, hope, and charity; these three; but the last is the greatest of the three: though-mark it, I beseech you!-they are closely connected: we must have all three, if any of them is to do us good. And it is a significant expression, "abideth." The church of Christ in other things is subject to great changes. It is a ship tossed about on the tempestuous sea of the world; and of the fluctuations of that world it must partake. In its outward state it is ever variable. The dispensations of Him whose church it is, are various, suited in infinite wisdom to the circumstances

of different seasons. Tongues, prophecies, miracles, have answered their end, and are now no more. But there is something in which the