or dare only insincerely make, any general resolution that would interfere with these. One inclination craves to have free course, except when positively forbidden. We grant it, and then make our good resolutions in vain. One is left in our council who opposes every measure of devoted firmness. A few times we wish we had done what we ought, when too late; a few more times we doubt whether we have done what was best; and then we fall back into our old way, of doing our own will, except we see clearly that duty would be transgressed.

Hence in most men's lives every fresh turn seems to be a fresh setting aside of God for self. Whether it be marrying a wife, or choosing a profession, buying a field, or entering on a course of study, or other employment, self-will and self-interest have their first attention, and duty to God and the good of the soul come afterward at leisure, and are not followed, but allowed for, not obeyed, but bid wait till the present business is dispatched, the present pleasure taken.

Now, although it may be bold for any man to think he has attained to such a firm purpose of serving God fully as to be free from all danger of putting such slights upon God's service, yet much may be done, by God's

help, if we make a firm resolution to aim, in all things, at perfection. It is an attempt which He is pledged to aid, and which every one of us, properly speaking, is pledged to make. And though we cannot make a new covenant with Him of our own devising, yet our Baptismal covenant admits of a kind of renewal in Confirmation and Communion, and in the use of Confession and Absolution, where there is need.

Yet men go on professing to believe in Christ, and to acknowledge His Church, and still either not using at all, or not duly using, the means of holy living, and the opportunities of communion with God that are offered them. If they escape the profaneness of Esau, it is seldom but they fall into the faltering of Barak, seldom indeed that they gain the full victory of a perfect faith.

For all this there is no cure but in obeying the invitation of God without delay, and in sacrificing for Him what we have not been prudent enough to keep out of the way of our best course in serving Him. And for the future, whatever is our lot, whatever our state of life, there must be one rule for all our undertakings, that our first and our de-. cisive thoughts must be those of God and of duty. An axiom, one would have thought,

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plain enough to be acknowledged by every Christian, but one which every one of us would do well to lay to heart, and see whether he really acts upon it. Certainly the aspect of the Christian world is rather such that we might ask, should the Son of Man now come, would He find faith upon earth V In conclusion, if we all profess to be expectant guests at "the Marriage Supper of the Lamb," we can in reason do nothing less than make all our present pursuits and actions give place to that expectation. We can in reason do nothing less than hold slightly by all the possessions and enjoyments of life, that they may not set us upon making excuse when we are called to do anything toward our partaking of the Heavenly Feast. Wiser, far wiser have those been who have renounced every earthly enjoyment, and stripped themselves of every earthly possession, that they might attend more closely upon Him, than those who have been so cautious not to throw away that which may be lawfully used with thankfulness, that they have rather too much spared the flesh, than wronged it for the sake of the spirit. Would that a mere error of judgment on this side were all that we had to charge upon our

1 S. Luke xviii. 8.

Rev. xix. 9.

selves! Would that we had not need to lament a deep deficiency of love toward Him Who hath called us!

May He, in mercy, not withhold His grace from our efforts to obey His daily invitations with more readiness and cheerfulness, and finally receive us, maimed though we be, and halt, and blind, to the eternal banquet of His Love.

SERMON XVII.

S. John X. 34-37.

"Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto wlwm the Word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken; say ye of Him, Whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God?"

When any of the words of the Old Testament are taken by our Lord, and again set before us from His lips, we are led to think more of them than we should in merely reading them over. We may be sure it is not without reason that He has directed our attention to them, and caused His own Words about them to be written for our instruction. We ought, therefore, to try to understand what He meant in referring to such and such passages, and what truths those passages were chiefly meant to teach. The passage we have just read is not quite easy to understand at first, and requires some care and thought in explaining it; but the lesson it contains is one of great importance,