your appetites, so as to avoid excess, even in the common concerns of eating flesh and drinking wine, lest you should appear to pass the limits of strict temperance and moderation? For though these things may in themselves appear trifles, yet, in the absence of all persecution or reproach for religion's sake, they are the most frequent, and perhaps the most satisfactory proofs you can give that the body is kept under and brought into subjection. That you may be assured is good in no contemptible degree, which in any way promotes the salvation of a brother; and that is proportionably evil, however apparently trivial or indifferent, by which thy brother stumbleth or is offended, or is made weak. "All things indeed are good, but it is evil for him who eateth with offence."

Thus running the race, and thus maintaining the fight-keeping the body under continual restraint, and converting it, notwithstanding its strong innate propensities to evil, into an instrument of glorifying God-animated by the prospect of that incorruptible crown which awaits you at the close, being the purchase of the Saviour's blood; and sustained and invigorated throughout all the contest, notwithstanding the weakness of the natural man, by the healthrestoring, life-imparting influence of the Spirit of of God, you have but to persevere in the use of

the same means; and when the trial is over, instead of being proved reprobate, you shall be brought triumphantly through the fire, though it be the furnace of affliction, being refined like silver, and purified like gold. Only remember, during your probation, the peril in which you will be involved, if at any time your passions acquire the ascendancy of which grace has now deprived them. And since this can never happen, while the influence of the Holy Spirit is within you, make it your daily, your earnest prayer, that this gracious influence may never, even for an hour, be withheld. Since too you need (who does not need?) continual incentives to persevere, continual stimulants to more active exertion, continual remembrances of the love of your Redeemer,―come, come, I exhort and implore, I even enjoin you, come to that sacred ordinance, in which you will receive the spiritual food that most strengthens and that best revives. What man ever departed from the table of the Lord, who drew nigh to it in faith, without finding the influence of his passions abated, the agitation of his spirit tranquillized, his holier affections quickened and excited, his better purposes strengthened and confirmed, after being thus assured of the unutterable love of his Saviour Christ, and the certainty of his eternal inheritance? Who does

not run more cheerfully in the race? Who does not strive more firmly and more successfully with carnal lusts and passions? Who is not impressed with a livelier sense of the joys that await the persevering believer? And who does not see how tremendous the peril which overhangs the negligent and remiss, since, even were he one who should preach to others as eloquently and as effectually as the Apostle himself, yet, did he fail to "keep under his body and bring it into subjection," though hundreds and thousands might be converted by his ministry," he himself would be a cast-away?"

SERMON III.

THE EVIL AND DANGER OF GRIEVING THE

HOLY SPIRIT.

EPH. IV, 13.

"And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption."

NOT only throughout the whole Christian church, but within the heart of every individual member, there are two opposite and irreconcilable principles, which are continually struggling for the mastery; and this contest can only be terminated, in the one case by the extinction of the church, in the other, by the dissolution of the believer. You have already anticipated my allusion to the flesh and to the spirit. Of all the good that ever has existed, that does exist at this moment, or that shall hereafter exist in the church of Christ, the Holy Spirit is the sole source and author; while of all the evil that impedes the progress, neutralizes the energy, circumscribes the benefits,

provokes the condemnation of the gospel, whether in the church or in the Christian, the flesh is alike the origin and instrument. Never was there a period in the annals of the Christian faith, at which these conflicting and counteracting principles were not actively opposed; for even while the freshness of recent inspiration still dwelt upon the church-even while the divine light shed abroad in the day of Pentecost was still lingering in all the effulgence of its primal glory; the council of the apostles and elders was summoned to consider and condemn the perilous errors of the Judaizing disciples, -errors unquestionably arising out of the carnal mind, which is enmity against God. Nor was there ever an individual believer, however eminent, exalted, and privileged, who did not experience, and, so far as we know, acknowledge, to the end of his days, a similar struggle in himself. Not only did St. Paul thus explain to his Galatian converts the reason why, with all their sincerity and earnestness and zeal, they could make no greater progress in the faith," the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, so that ye cannot do the things ye would;" but he assigns the same cause in accounting for his own conscious and evident deficiencies, when compared with the pure and lofty standard at which he aimed;-"I find