less; and at last, parting asunder like a veil rent in twain, would disclose the eternal sanctuary of the Most High God, and Christ our High Priest the Mediator of the new covenant, and the golden altar of incense, and the innumerable companies of Angels, and the invisible armies of Prophets, Apostles, and Martyrs, and the choirs of whiterobed Saints, and the everlasting mansions of the redeemed.

SERMON XXI.

THE WAVERING CHRISTIAN.

JAMES i. 6.

"But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord."

Ir appears from these words, that even in the times of the Apostles there were persons who, although they did not omit praying, prayed nevertheless to no purpose. Their prayers were not heard; or rather, were heard and rejected. They obtained nothing from the Lord, although they prayed to Him and doubtless thence arose, even in those days, many cavillings against the Christian profession; many relapses into sin, through a despair of God's aid; and many false estimates of the true nature and object of prayer.

Numbers in our own times are, it is to be feared, daily led into similar errors, from observing in their own cases the apparent neglect with which their

Let us,

prayers are received by the Almighty. then, hearken to the Apostle St. James, pointing out to us one principal cause why the prayers of so many are sent up in vain, and produce, to all appearance, no benefit.

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The cause of this, he informs us, lies in the habit, common to many, of wavering in their religious course; a habit so pernicious in its consequences, that it checks the very ascent of prayer on its way to heaven, and taints that incense which, when rightly hallowed by earnest faith, is well pleasing to God, through the merits of the great Intercessor. “Let him ask in faith," says the Apostle, nothing wavering." And then, to strengthen the point which he desires particularly to enforce, namely, that wavering in religion is the great cause why so many prayers are rejected, he adds a comparison at once clear and forcible, shewing in its true light the character of a wavering Christian. "He that wavereth," he says, "is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. Let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways."

This inspired comparison will remind you of some other parts of Scripture, in which the same thought is contained. Thus, of the wicked, Isaiah says that they are "like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt."

Is. lvii. 20.

St. Jude, again, describes some of his own day as "raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame;" and Jacob, on his deathbed, at once foretels the fate and describes the character of Reuben in these words, "unstable as water, thou shalt not excel."

Now, in considering the comparison of the Apostle, we find three points of view in which a wavering Christian resembles a wave of the sea. First, a wave is driven with the wind; driven, that is to say, by every wind that blows: so also is the wavering Christian. Secondly, a wave of the sea is tossed, as the Apostle expresses it; that is to say, restless, disturbed, and disquieted: so also is the wavering Christian. Thirdly, a wave of the sea spends itself in vain: so also does the wavering Christian-such a man "must not expect to receive any thing of the Lord." Let us consider these three points in their order.

And, first, a wave of the sea is driven at the mercy of every wind that blows. Here paint to your minds what many of you have doubtless often witnessed-I mean, the face of the great deep. Imagine to yourselves the winds of heaven struggling for the mastery upon it. At one time the north wind has its full sway, at another the south, at another the east, at another the west. Before each the waves bend obediently, turning their course in the direction of the gale. As one wind

dies away, and another rises from an opposite quarter, so do the long furrows of the waves correspondingly alter their course. Each billow yields to the force of every new breeze that blows, having no direction of its own. Alternately it changes from one point to another, with every succeeding blast. And so it is for ever. Wind after wind springs up on the surface of the deep; wave after wave courses onward, the sport of every storm that beats from every quarter under heaven.

Now, how true is the Apostle in comparing this to the state of a wavering Christian, who, no more than the waves, has a fixed course of his own; but is blown about by every breath of doctrine, by every imagination that enters his heart, by every object that strikes his senses! Sometimes believing one thing, sometimes believing another thing; sometimes holding very strongly to one opinion, sometimes to another quite opposite; sometimes obstinate in adhering to a view which he has formed in his own mind; and then of a sudden, at the mere chance-suggestion of another person, giving up his former view for a new one: his mind shifting like a weathercock towards every fresh object that presents itself; unresolved and fluctuating in his creed, his notions, even of morality, unsteady, and based on no certain foundation; with no fixed religious habits: sometimes attending to his prayers for several days, sometimes omitting them for weeks together; sometimes reading his