put our souls into the hands of another, however high, or great, or influential, or powerful, he may be: but it is a folly, alas, too often practised. Remember we, that though an angel be the tempter, our yielding to his seductiveness will equally separate us from the love of God. In these few last sentences we have somewhat anticipated the two next sources of danger specified by St. Paul "principalities and powers"-the favour or the displeasure of the authorities of this world; the smiles or the frowns of the great. This is not the place to urge worldly motives, or present considerations, in behalf of an unbending, uncompromising, perseverance in duty of an independent character unmoved by threats or promises, neither lessened by the relaxing influence of principalites, nor broken by the persecutions of power: though, doubtless, even in this world, those men who look for their happiness to the high, and the great, and the powerful, live, of all men, a most unhappy and harassing life. But we have other and higher motives to urge. If we are drawn from our duty, and our religious improvement, by the fear or hope which hangs on principalities and powers, we are separated from the love of GOD; and we lose the favour and the protection of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. is there any one present, whose conscience tells him, he cannot without hypocrisy attend at the blessed table of the Lord's body and blood to-day? Let him ask his conscience the cause, what separates him from the love of GOD. Is it not present pleasure? Is it not the hope of future gain and advancement? Pleasure, profit, and honour, are the three present and future enemies of our souls. Too great carefulness and anxiety about the things of this world, will often try to withdraw our minds and hearts from trusting and confiding in God. At the same time, does not every passing bell warn us, that, as sounds melt into air, so do the joys and pleasures of this world pass away, even while their taste is fresh in our feelings? Does not every prayer of our church bid us turn our souls from such passing, fleeting joys, to those that never decay, no, not when this life is ended? Saint Paul adds, "neither height nor depth," nor any other creature. Neither the height of honour, nor the depth of ignominy, neither pros perity nor adversity, neither present enjoyment nor present pain, neither hope nor fear, and what is little thought of, but what certainly often strives to withdraw us from our integrity and sober-mindedness in Christ neither the height of spiritual success betraying us into pride and presumption, nor the depth of spiritual sadness and fear betraying us into despondency. Let all the world frown upon us, and scorn and slander us, and misrepresent our words, actions, and motives, and conspire to effect our overthrow or discomfort, the disciple of Jesus has fixed his anchor on the rock of his salvation, and will not be moved from his steadfastness, though the waves of this world rage and swell, and the moun tains shake. To the true christian, by name and by profession—if in our lives we deny our Saviour-we have not the love of GoD, we are separated from him now, and we shall be separated from him for ever. Be that end not ours; by our own careful and continued endeavours, under the guidance and with the blessed aid of divine grace, which must ever be heartily sought for in prayer, may we verify the apostle's declaration in ourselves. It rests with us, brethren; GOD hath done all; his love to his children is everlasting: while we are his children we shall continue in his love, and we shall continue his children only whilst we keep his commandments. The covenant of peace and salvation is built on God's love to men, and is more firm than the pillars of heaven, and the foundations of the earth; and he loves men for Christ's sake, and will love us only so far as our souls are conformable to the image of Christ. Oh! then let us cleave to Jesus as our only Sa his present and his future condition in life is sanctified. Come what will come, come what may come, come what can come, nothing shall come to frustrate his hopes of future happiness in heaven. My brethren, if we are true christians, nothing, no creature in heaven, in earth, or in hell, shall separate us from Christ, or Christ from us. But all depends on that word if, it was not for infidels, it was not for ungodly men, it was not for the careless votaries of pleasure, it was not for the followers of fashion, for the ambitious, and the worldly minded, it was not for nominal christians, it was not for lip or knee worshippers, that Saint Paul recorded this persuasion of his mind; it was only for sincere and true christians, for those whose hearts are with GOD, for those who seek heaven and eternal life, in deed and in truth, for those in whose soul the gospel has wrought its own work; it was for them that Saint Paul uttered these words, words of unspeakable consolation and inex-viour, it is for his sake the Father pressible triumph, to you and to me, brethren, if we correspond with that character, if our hearts are with GOD, if our lives are pure and holy, if our faith is the faith of the Gospel, and if it works effectually by love: but not otherwise. If we are only christians smiles on us, we are chosen in Him, we are justified through Him, we are sanctified by his Holy Spirit; and if we suffer no creature, nothing this world has, to give or to take away, to separate us from His love, we shall be eternally glorified with Him. THE DANGER OF PROSPERITY. sink, I What What wisdom and philosophy and perpetual experience, and revelation, and promises, and blessings cannot do, a mighty fear can; it can allay the confidences of a bold lust and imperious sin, and soften our spirit into the lowness of a child, our revenge into charity of prayers, our impudence into the blushings of a chidden girl; and therefore God hath taken a course proportionable, for he is not so unmercifully merciful as to give milk to an infirm lust, and hatch the egg to the bigness of a cockatrice. And therefore, observe how it is that God's mercy prevails over all his works; it is even then when nothing can be discerned but his judgments, for as when a famine had been in Israel on the days of Ahab for three years and a half, when the angry prophet Elijaħ met the king, and presently a great wied arose, and the dust blew into the eyes of them that walked abroad, and the face of the heavens was black and all tempest, yet then the prophet was most gentle, and God began to forgive, and the heavens were more. beautiful than when the sun puts on the brightest ornaments of a bridegroom, going from his chambers of the east. So it is the economy of the divine mercy: when God makes our faces black, and the winds blow so loud till the cordage cracks, and our gay fortunes split, and our houses dressed with cypress and 'yew, und' the mourners go about the streets this is nothing but the pompa misericordiæ, this is the funeral' of our sins, dressed indeed with 'em-' blems of mourning, and proclaimed with sad accents of death; but the IF GOD suffers men to go on in sins, and punishes them not, it is not a mercy, it is not a forbearance, it is a hardening them, a consigning them to ruin and reprobation; and themselves give the best argument to prove it; for they continue in their sin, they multiply their iniquity, and every day grow more enemy to GOD; and that is no mercy that increases their hostility and enmity with GOD. A prosperous iniquity is the most unprosperous condition in the whole world. When he slew them, they sought him and turned them early, and enquired after GOD, but as long as they prevailed upon their enemies, they forgot that GoD was their strength, and the high GoD was their Redeemer. It was well observed by the Persian embassador of old, when he was telling the king a sad story of the overthrow of all his army by the Athenians, he adds this of his own; that the day before the fight, the young Persian gallants, being confident they should destroy their enemies, were drinking drunk, and railing at the timorousness and fears of religion, and against all their gods, saying, there were no such things, and that all things came by chance and industry, nothing by the providence of the Supreme Power. But the next day, when they had fought unprosperously, and flying from their enemies, who were eager in their pursuit, they came to the river Strymon, which was so frozen that their boats could not launch, and yet it began to thaw, so that they feared the ice would not bear them; then you should see the bold gallants, that the day before said there was no GOD, most timorously and super-sight is refreshing, as the beauties of stitiously fall upon their faces, and beg the field which God had blessed, and of Gop that the river Strymon might the sounds are healthful, as the noise of bear them over from their enemies. a physician. BP. TAYLOR, Serm. xii. AT BENTINCK CHAPEL, PADDINGTON, IN BEHALF OF THE CHRISTIAN UNION ALMS HOUSES, JOHN STREET, Edgeware Road, SUNDAY AFTERNOON, OCTOBER 27, 1833. Mark, xiv. 8.-" She has done what she could." THE most interesting scenes of our Lord's personal ministry upon earth, were not so much, I think, those in which he displayed the majesty of omnipotent power, and in which he put forth all the might of godhead, commanding material and immaterial nature by His authority; but rather those scenes in which He showed a deep and tender sympathy with human feelings whether they were of joy or of sorrow. It was, indeed, a mighty and a magnificent undertaking to redeem human nature in the aggregate; it was indeed, an achievement worthy of God's own Son, since it was one for which He alone was sufficient. Angels and archangels would have been utterly inadequate to the vast and stupendous undertaking; their strength would have staggered and failed under the mighty work which was given Him to perform. In thus dealing with human nature in the aggregate, there was much that was mighty, much that was magnificent. He was restoring and bringing back to its allegiance a fair province of His Father's kingdom, which sin had alienated, and which guilt had defiled. But when we see him VOL. VI. dealing with human nature in the detail; mingling amongst individuals of the sin ruined family, caring for their wants, soothing their distresses, participating in their enjoyments, then we do, indeed, feel that the Saviour is bound unto us by a tie of the closest brotherhood, since He thus makes it apparent that he is bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, and we feel that our hearts go forth to him with a more devoted affection, than could have been inspired by the loftier manifestations of irresistible power. While Christ was on earth carrying out the designs of everlasting mercy, not a day, nor an hour passed, but He showed this tender sympathy, with the individual distresses of poor, wretched, debased humanity. We find many such instances recorded for our comfort and our encouragement in approaching unto Jesus. Perhaps one of the most interesting is that to which the text refers. The family of Bethany were, probably, obscure, humble persons, such as the high and the mighty of the earth would have passed by without much consideration or regard but Jesus loved them; and when they were in A A the deeps of affliction, he who alone undivided force to Him who had could stem their tears spoke comfort bound her to Himself. Faith saneto their hearts; and when the sun- tified the gift-Not only did she by shine of gladness was again within the act of anointing recognise him their dwelling, Jesus went to them to as the Lord's Christ, but she made participate and enhance the joy of preparation for the burial which was which his interposing kindness was to ensure the destruction of the last the only source. It may be ques- | foe of the church and people of God. tioned whether there is an identity The words of the text were her combetween the occasion to which the mendation. And this commendation commencement of this chapter refers, shall go down as her record to the and the feast of which we read in the latest posterity, and it shall be her twelfth chapter of the gospel of St. memorial as long as earth and time John. It is possible, according to the endure. When kings and conquerors opinion of some, that the occasion and the mighty ones who have filled was the same as that on which Mar- the world with the noise of their tha cumbered herself with much serv- achievements, have fallen into the ing, and was busied in her anxious deep silence of merited oblivion, still preparation to receive her Lord, shall that which this woman hath done remain for the consolation of whilst Mary chose the better part, and disregarding the secularities of many a humble hearted disciple of the occasion, seized the opportunity the cross, who would carry his offerfor spiritual benefit, and sat at the ing to the Saviour's feet. And now Saviour's feet; and as at other times, my friends, in making this the subso now also she listened to his words,ject of our meditation to-day, there and drank in such blessed truths as no other lips but His could speak. Those words had been sent home to her heart; she had become a convinced sinner and a converted creature; and because she was able to estimate in some measure what the Lord had done for her, and to understand something of the length and breadth of divine grace, therefore she loved much and she gave herself up with entireness of self consecration to Christ. She did what she could; she brought her offering. Though it was of costly kind, it was infinitely far from being commensurate with the benefit received; it was utterly inadequate to the amount of the blessing conferred; yet the Saviour in the condescendingness of his regard would not put it from him, or discourage the simple and devoted affection from which it sprang. It was precious in His sight, for it was the offering of love, consecrated in its are two special points to which I would desire, under the divine blessing, to call your earnest and your undivided attention. The First is, THE MOTIVE OF CHRISTIAN DUTY. And the Second, THE AMOUNT OF SERVICE WHICH THE GOSPEL CLAIMS. As to the first head of our discourse.-THE MOTIVE OF CHRISTIAN DUTY. Love is that motive. It is the very principle which filled the mind of Deity, and made GOD look out from his own everlasting dwellingplace upon this distant world which sin had made waste and desolatewhich caused him to look on it, not to destroy it in his wrath, not to pour forth the flood of his vengeance upon it, and to annihilate it because of transgressions, but to recover, and restore, and redeem it for himself. It was love which brought the Saviour down, and which led him through all the scenes of his earthly sufferings, and carried him at last to |
