rather than God. But this is clear, in the first place, that there is a very great difference between taking God's law as a rule merely forbidding this and that, and not to be transgressed, and taking His will as a living, guiding principle, to direct one's whole life. This last is the true Christian way, as the other is the carnal and Jewish. To live in the flesh and after the flesh, seeking the things of this world, and the will of the natural man, only under certain rules, so as not to go beyond them, this is the carnal, Jewish way, and a way in which man cannot really keep God's law, but is sure either to break the rules he sets himself, or to deceive himself about those which God allows, so as to make room for things really displeasing to Him.

The Christian way is to serve God as we are taught to love Him, with all the heart, with all the soul, and with all the strength; in everything to seek first what is His will, and, as soon as we know that, to be satisfied, and care to know no more. So far as we depart from that way we shall either find ourselves hampered and hindered in our Christian course, or, what is worse, be really kept back and hindered without knowing it. The only way to avoid disobeying God, is,

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to have a lively and active principle of obeying Him. And man's natural will does not easily submit to this, but resists in many ways. Even before we come to the point of our natural will tempting us to what is wrong in any particular case, there is a kind of feeling in us that if we give ourselves up to God's will we shall not be our own masters, and must sometimes do what we dislike and forbear what we like to do; and this feeling makes a great resistance, when we would come to good resolutions of simply obeying God in all things.

But whoever would have real and wellgrounded peace of mind, must win this victory, and settle this point well within himself, that when God's will is known there is to be no further question, and that he is not only not to go against it, but to try his utmost to go with it.

Nothing less than this will serve for one who is to hold that clear course of dutiful and contented obedience which becomes one who is marked for God out of the world, and sealed with the earnest of Redemption for the life of Angels. If any one, in looking back over the past year, recollects that he has found it hard to keep the right way, and that he has even turned from it in such

wise as he would fain hope he may not do in the year to come, let him remember that such will be the case again and again if he merely takes his own way, and leaves things to fall out as they will.

Our natural will seeks the things of the world and of the flesh, and, if we are ruled by it, after these things we shall go. One thing after another is sure to turn up in the course of our lives, in which our natural will is against the will of God, for it "is not subject to the law of God," as the Apostle says, "neither indeed can be." The only cure for this evil is to have a settled principle of action beforehand, for obeying the will of God, and carrying it through in spite of everything that may be opposed to it. And the more vigorous and decided we are in adopting this principle for the guide of our life, the more will God support us in it. The power to do it must be His, and to Him, if we are enabled to do it, must we give the praise, but the will must be ours, and in us, though the will itself comes of His grace.

Looking backward and forward, as it is natural to do at this time, we may well discern how it is with us in this matter.

Rom. viii. 7.

Any one who will but think seriously must know something of it. Only attend at once to what you know—to what your memory and your conscience readily bring before you, and what they tell you at once are the sins and the short-comings of the past year, and what are likely to be the temptations, and what the duties of the next.

Only be firm to take seriously and effectually in hand, at once, what you know to be God's will for you, and to do it in the way I have said, that is, not only as one thing by itself, but because it is God's will, and because you will and must do His will before all things.

You know through Whom to seek mercy for past failings. You know in Whom to seek help and strength for the time to come. You know to Whom must be the glory if you prevail and conquer. The firm, honest, uncompromising will, to give up your will to His, is the mark of that circumcision of the Spirit, which seals you for His own.

SERMON VII.

Psalm xci. 2.

"I will say unto the Lord, Thou art my hope, and my strong hold: my God, in Him will I trust."

We do not speak to God in order to tell Him what He would not otherwise know, for He knows all before we say it. Yet His word teaches us to speak to Him, and if we think a little of the matter we shall see that there is good reason for our doing so. He does not know the more for our speaking, and yet those who do not speak to Him do not stand toward Him as those who do. For when we speak to Him as we ought, we really put ourselves in a different state from what we are in at other times. And, indeed, we may be said to "speak to Him" when we do not use words with the lips, if we earnestly lift up the heart to Him.

Now it is worth while to think of this till we see it clearly, because there are many mistakes made about it, and some very dangerous ones.