assigned us our place: whatever we have to do, HE set us our task; if we seem to have to do nothing, but only to suffer, still it was HE who laid the burthen upon us.

Are you then a rich and prosperous person? do not trust in your own riches: beware of thinking that you can do without the poor, that you need them not. You cannot do without them: you have the greatest need of them: you need their prayers and blessings in return for your alms, to guard you against the deadly snare of setting your heart upon this world, or any thing in it. If your alms obtain you the prayers of the poor, this will, very likely, by God's mercy through CHRIST, be a means of delivering your soul from death.

Are you, on the contrary, a poor man? Then beware how you allow yourself to think sadly on the rich, as being better off than you are. Such thoughts are too likely to end in repining and envy and therefore we should never use ourselves to meditate much on men's being above us,-on their having more grace, for example, on their being enabled to do greater things for GOD,without deeply meditating also on the mysterious ever-present SPIRIT, by Whom such differences were made. When it comes into your mind, "How far such an one is from the wants and doubts and troubles which annoy me," do not stop there, lest you begin to grudge him his tranquillity; but go on saying to yourself, "GOD, Who knows and loves us all better than we do ourselves, He saw fit to make this difference between my brother and myself, in just judgment, perhaps, for my sins; it is His doing, I dare not dispute or complain of it."

Again, are you in comparison learned? are you able to read the Scriptures? yet do not trust in your reading: do not think that you can make out your duty, and save yourself well enough: you still need the prayers of CHRIST'S afflicted and poor, you still need Communion with His Saints, both living and dead: seek that blessing in all charity.

Are you, on the other hand, an ignorant person, and does it mortify you to see and feel that you know much less than most others? care not for it, but turn your thoughts to the infinite and wonderful truth, which, as we all know, belongs to us and to the very wisest alike: turn your thoughts to the HOLY GHOST

abiding in you: it will be a wonder if you still go on envying and repining.

Are you so far blameless, as to have kept, by God's mercy, your soul and body from wilful deadly sin? You know it is altogether the work of GOD'S SPIRIT: believe and think of this; it will keep you from pride and self-righteousness.

And last, and most mournful of all, are you a guilty person, your conscience laden with grievous sins, perhaps many sins, after Baptism? Then, indeed, the thought of the presence of God's SPIRIT must be precious in your heart, for it tells you of your only hope, but that, please GOD, a sure and certain hope,namely, that HE, unseen within you, has still the power and will to enable you to repent: and if you truly repent, He is faithful and just to forgive you, for His dear Son's sake.

GOD keep us ever one, by His HOLY SPIRIT in our hearts; and dispose us to be contented where we fall short, and humble with what He gives us !

SERMON CLXXIX.

FESTIVAL JOY.

FOR TUESDAY IN WHITSUN-WEEK.

ECCLESIASTES ix. 7, 8.

"Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for GOD now accepteth thy works: let thy garments be always white, and let thy head lack no ointment."

THIS is one of those passages, so remarkable in the writings of Solomon, in which the words of sinful men in the world are taken up by the HOLY GHOST, to be applied in a Christian sense. As they stand in Ecclesiastes, it seems very plain that they are intended to represent the sayings and thoughts of sensual, careless people, indulging themselves in their profane ways, their utter neglect of GOD and goodness, with the notion that this world is all. As if they should say, " When people are dead there is an end of them therefore all we have to do is to enjoy ourselves as much as possible; to eat our bread with joy, and drink our wine with a merry heart; to wear always festival garments, and anoint ourselves with the oil of gladness, while GoD still 'accepteth our works,' that is, while it is yet well with us, and we are capable of finding delight in life, according to the order of God's Providence." It is much the same as the unbeliever's saying, in St. Paul, “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die."

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But see the ever-watchful goodness and mercy of GOD. The words which the dissolute, wild-hearted sinner uses to encourage himself in his evil inconsiderate ways, He teaches us to take up,

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and use them in a very different sense; to express the inward joy and comfort which God's people may find in obeying HIM. As thus suppose a person giving himself up, with his whole heart, to the service and obedience of GOD; suppose him really withdrawing himself from the sins which had most easily beset him; suppose him making some great sacrifice, parting with what he held very dear, or submitting to pain or grief for CHRIST's sake: then the Holy and merciful COMFORTER Seems to say to him in the words of the text, Go thy way now, thank GoD, and take courage; the blessing of GOD is now restored to thee, and will be upon all thou hast, and upon thine ordinary employments and refreshments: now thou mayest eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart, for God now accepteth thy works." For, "whether we eat or drink, or whatever we do," if we "do all to the glory of God," we shall do it with His blessing and approbation: it will be so much more of happiness, joy, and thanksgiving to us.

Thus we may understand the words to teach the same lesson as the Apostle, when he says, "Rejoice in the LORD always, and again, I say, rejoice." They are God's gracious word of permission to those who fear Him, encouraging them to enjoy, with innocence, moderation, and thankfulness, the daily comforts and reliefs, with which He so plentifully supplies them, even in this imperfect world. They bring the same assurance from God as St. Paul gives to Timothy: "Every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving."

Let us only think for one moment, what a heavenly light it would throw over our ordinary works and refreshments, if, being always careful to set about them with a good conscience, we could seriously bring it home to ourselves, that they are so many tokens of heavenly and eternal love; so many reasonable grounds of hope, that God really accepteth our works.

But there is yet a higher, a Christian sense of these words, a sense in which they were taken of old by the holy Fathers of the Christian Church. The bread and wine, the white garments, the ointment for the head, are, according to this interpretation, figures and types of our Christian privileges, the blessings and favours of the kingdom of Heaven. It is, then, as if the Holy Word had said to us, being, as we are, Christian men, Members

of the mystical Body of our LORD and SAVIOUR, "Now you have been brought into the communion of Saints; now God has set His seal upon you; now," to speak the Apostle's words, "you are washed, sanctified, justified, in the name of the LORD JESUS, and by the Spirit of our GOD. Go your way, then; use your privileges with all reverence, joy, and fear. Draw near as often as you can, to the holy feast of that Bread and Wine, which, to those who take it with penitent and obedient hearts, is the very Body and Blood of our SAVIOUR CHRIST. Awful as such an invitation is, you may yet draw near with holy cheerfulness, having GOD's seal and mark upon your forehead, and the earnest of His Spirit in your hearts."

And it would seem that if Christians were at all such as they ought to be, the words might be well and profitably understood with a particular reference to this sacred season of Whitsuntide.

For at this time, as you know, the blessed COMFORTER came down, to set up the kingdom of CHRIST on earth; to dwell in. men's hearts so as to unite them to CHRIST; by which union alone they can be partakers of the great things which the Gospel promises. This time then is the last of the holy seasons; it represents to us the full completion of God's unspeakable plan for the salvation of the world.

Supposing, then, any humble, faithful Christian to have rightly kept the former holy seasons: to have "worshipped and served CHRIST, for His conception, in faith; for His birth, in humility ; for His sufferings, in patience and irreconcileable hatred of sin; for His death, by dying daily to sin; for His resurrection, by rising again more and more unto righteousness; for His ascension, by a heavenly mind:" may we not, without presumption, imagine him to hear the voice of his approving conscience, the certain yet silent whispers of the Holy Comforter in his heart, 'Go thy way now, receive the fulness of the blessing of these sacred days, which thou hast so dutifully tried to observe. Let the light and warmth of Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide spread itself in a measure over the rest of thy year. Whatsoever

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GOD putteth in thine hand to do, in the way of holy devotion and true Church communion, do it with all thy might, in the humble hope that God now accepteth thy works."

Such is the kind of comfort, which the Sacred Scriptures encou