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we may not immediately abandon the good, and follow evil to our utter overthrow. "The steps of a good man," says the Psalmist, "are ordered by the Lord: none of his steps shall slide: though he fall, he shall not utterly be cast down, for the Lord upholdeth him with His hand."

In all our affairs we require the assisting hand of our blessed Lord; but without prayer it is impossible that we can reasonably expect it. "Ask and ye shall have, seek and ye shall find," is the maxim which we are exhorted in the Gospel to adopt. If, in the pride of our hearts, we are tempted to imagine that we are sufficient of ourselves to do all that is demanded-if we are negligent of our duty, or distrustful of the Divine Power or Goodness, it is clearly a matter of necessity, that we should receive no assistance from God. He is rigid in exacting due acknowledgments; for He is the only wise, the only powerful, the only all-sufficient helper and protector, the only free disposer and giver of all real success. And how can we anticipate a blessing, where we have neglected to propitiate so glorious and exalted a Being? How can we hope that He will bestow that which we have not thought it worth our while to solicit? Of ourselves we can do nothing; and we cannot therefore possess any reasonable security-any satisfactory hope, if we have not first humbly implored the favour of Almighty God.

The Lord Jesus Christ, my brethren, ought on all fit occasions to be present in our hearts and thoughts. This is manifestly deducible from the duties already discussed. For how is it possible to perform our actions with due regard to Him, if we seldom think of His goodness? In other respects, the human heart is not slow to meditate on that which it values. However employed, the mind of man will naturally turn toward the object of its solicitude and love. The avaricious will still revert to his hoarded gold, the voluptuary to his pleasures, the ambitious man to the rivals of his fame. He, therefore, who loves his Lord, will naturally often bring Him to remembrance, and mix up some affectionate tribute even with the busiest occupations of life. In the ordinary course of things, we perceive that those who are long absent or far distant, retain much less power over our hearts, than those who are more frequently near us and with us. And, in moral circumstances, it is the same. Only in the latter, we may supply, by representations to the fancy and to the memory, that which is produced by conjunction and approximation in nature. The farther the sun recedes from our hemisphere, the less we feel his heat; and in like manner, the less seriously and frequently we reflect upon any object of our attachment, the more will our affection cool and decay. If, therefore, we desire to maintain that regard for

the Lord Jesus, which, it cannot be denied, we ought to entertain; if we wish to suit our actions as befits that regard, we must frequently bend our contumacious thoughts upon His merits and sufferings-upon His exalted character-upon His sublime performances. We should recall Him to our minds, as overpowered with misery, and then as crowned with an eternal wreath of glory-as being made subject unto death for our salvation, and at last subjecting all things to His immortal power. We should represent Him to the eye of faith, as our Sovereign, and as the Judge before whose tribunal we shall all ultimately stand, to whom we shall be constrained to give an account of our proceedings, and from whom we shall receive an everlasting decision. Thoughts of this nature cannot but produce a greater degree of love and reverence-cannot but beget greater zeal for His service and wider charity to man.

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Let us, then, invariably remember, that we are Christians and related to the Lord Christ Jesus-that we are called by His name, and ought, therefore, in His name to do all thingsgiving thanks to God and the Father by Him," -to whom be glory and honour, world without end.

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SERMON XVIII.

SUBMISSION TO THE WILL OF GOD.

"Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done."-LUKE Xxii. 42.

THE groundwork of all human evil originates in opposition to the will of God. Placed by His creating power in a fair and beautiful worldsupplied with every requisite for subsistence, and continually protected by His guardian care, He has the highest claim upon our gratitude, love, and obedience. What other returns can we offer? Inadequate as they are, and beneath the Divine acceptance and regard, He graciously condescends to overlook their worthlessness, and through the Mediation of His glorious Son, to blot out our transgressions from the Book of Life. But such is the folly and perversity of the human character, that anything seems preferable to the restraint of wholesome laws, and anything to be complied with before submission to HIS pleasure, whose will it is the madness of vanity to hope we can resist! To promote our eternal welfare, how much has been performed, and how much been promised! He has attempted to quicken us by exhortation, and to deter us by menaces. He has added chastisement to entreaty; and,

from the infinity of His care and love, poured upon us the encouraging influences of His Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, He has done all in vain. Man's uncomplying heart is yielded up a victim to the wayward impulse of inclination, and turns, with indifference or with scorn, from the manifest will of His Creator. Behold, it is a stiffnecked people; uncircumcised in heart and ears!"

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This unnatural repugnance to the authority of God is the main obstacle in all our religious efforts-it is the chief embarrassment of our devotional lives. The sacrifice of inclination is the bitter but indeed the only perfect offering within man's power; and it is that which his Creator principally values. This duty, replete with all-important consequences, was invariably exemplified through the whole of our blessed Lord's eventful life. It was the duty which He most insisted on. And as He had borne testimony to its excellence in the earlier stages of His ministry, so, in the bitter hour that occasioned the language of the text-the terrific hour, which we are this day assembled to commemoratemost forcibly and beautifully did He inculcate it. In the tremendous agony of approaching dissolution, when His sweat was, as it were, great drops of blood, He expressed His entire submission to His heavenly Father; and while He intimated a lowly desire, that the cup of deadliness might pass from Him-"Nevertheless," He added, "not my will, but thine be done."

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