spirit which, filling our souls with love, may cause us ever "to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called." Else will our faith be vain. "Faith that worketh by love" is sure of salvation; but the greater confidence we build upon a dead faith, the deeper and more hopeless will be our fall.

SERMON XVI.

ON CHRISTIAN HOPE.

1 PETER, iii. 15.

Be ready always to give to every man that asketh you, a reason of the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear.

ALL who believe the Bible, know that after a few years at the utmost, they will enter upon a state which, without alteration, is to last for ever; and that after death, they will discover whether this state is beyond imagination, glorious and happy, or wretched past the power of man's mind to conceive. If they had a certainty of reaping eternal joys after death, they would feel upon earth happiness little inferior to that which they expected in heaven; if, on the contrary,

they had a positive assurance that their eternity was to be passed in hell, the torments of hell would now rage without ceasing in their bosoms. The horrid certainty of such a fate would swallow up the time of mortal life which might remain to them; casting its own fearful colour over every earthly pursuit or possession. To forget it for a moment would be impossible; under its power, the gains of the cheat and the covetous would burn in their hands like melting lead; the laughter of dissolute companions would sound like the shrieks of the damned; the cup of the drunkard taste like that, the wine whereof is red and full mixed" with the fury of an avenging God. To be hopeless of salvation, and to be forced to confess such hopelessness to our own hearts would be found intolerable; every man therefore, however wicked, cheats himself into something like hope; into some notion that before he dies a change will be made by him, in him, or respecting him, which may at the least give him a reprieve from misery in a future state; I mean every man who believes in heaven and hell; if

there be men who feel assured that there are neither, they may be as comfortable in the present world as the beasts whom they resemble. So necessary then is hope, that the most determined sinner can find no pleasure in his sin, unless he persuades himself that God, whom he insults in this life, will be gracious to him in that which is to come.

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It is true that this is, in great measure,

:

to hope against hope;" it is mere selfdeceiving but if this vain shadow have such power that it may give peace, however false, broken, and imperfect, what shall we say of a true Christian hope? Must not that be mighty-must not that be delicious which can fill the mind of a believer with a steady, clear prospect of his eternal inheritance-a prospect so near to certainty, as almost to begin the kingdom of heaven upon earth?

a

"The hope of the hypocrite shall perish!" while that which stands the trial of the word of God ripens into heavenly fruit, its counterfeit, self-deception, shall,

a Job, viii. 13.

at the touch of the finger of death, be changed into despair. If then we desire something better than a drug to quiet the tormenting fear of hell, if, with our eyes open, we would walk in the broad sunshine of Christian hope, we must "be ready to give to every man," to our own hearts especially, "a reason for the hope that is in us." The purpose, therefore, of this sermon is, to lay open the grounds, the character, and the effects, of a sound scriptural hope, the "hope that maketh not ashamed."

b

The Bible has, in one short sentence, laid its foundation; it is, "faith which worketh by love." Mistaken and deceitful hopes of every kind are built upon faith; for, if we believe not in things unseen, why do we yet hope for them? If we rely upon no promises, how can we hope for them? But deceitful hope is built upon mistaken or imperfect faith. There are those who say to Christ, "Lord, Lord!" yet "do not the things which he says:" what is the amount of their belief? They know that

b Galatians, v. 6.