I cannot describe from seal, from wisdom, from firmness and from munificence. Every friend of yours will join in my heartfelt prayer, that it may please God to preserve you long to us and to the Church of England. You will join heartily in the prayer that it may please Him to preserve His Church to us and to you. Ever, my dear Sir, Most truly and affectionately yours, HUGH JAMES ROSE. Trinity College, May 10, 1831. CONTENTS. TITUS 1. 15, 16. Unto the pure all things are pure; but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled. They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abomin- able, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate p. 45. Comforts of Religion to the Believer. JOHN XVI. 32. Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall * Preached also, with alterations, before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, ST. MATTHEW XXVI. 13. Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall ST. JOHN XIV. 22, 23. Judas saith unto him (not Iscariot), Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? Jesus answered and said unto him, If SERMON I. GOD'S GRACE SUFFICIENT TO SANCTIFY 2 CORINTH. XII. 9. My grace is sufficient for thee. 'I CAN do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me1', is not the language of a boasting or self righteous man. It is the language of him who in his sincere and heartfelt humility declared that he counted not himself to have apprehended, but that he followed after, if by any means he might attain unto the resurrection of the dead"; it is the language of him who knew that he must maintain a perpetual warfare with evil and seducing passions, 'lest that, by any means, when he had preached to others, he himself might be a castaway.' This strong declaration came not from trust in himself, but from trust in God; it came from a full acceptance, and a just appreciation of the gift of God, and of the promises of the gospel. For the whole tone of the gospel is, in fact, a tone of triumph. It denounces indeed the bitterest and severest woes against sin; it 1 Phil. iv. 13. 2 Phil. iii. 12. 31 Cor. ix. 27. sees and it proclaims the weakness and the corruption of the human heart; it is extreme and exact in requiring from that weak and corrupted heart, the practice of the highest holiness. Yet with all this in its view, with the danger of sin, and with man's propensity to sin, with the difficulties of holiness, and man's aversion from holiness full in view, the tone of the gospel is a tone of triumph. I speak not now of its triumph in recording the sacrifice of the cross, and the victory of that heavenly love which was stronger than death, or in reciting what God has done for men. I speak of its triumph in contemplating the state of man himself under the gospel, and in teaching that notwithstanding the evils of his own heart and nature, he may be not only more than conqueror over the dangers of sin and the temptations of an evil heart, but that he may perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord, and may go on from strength to strength, until the day when released from the troubles of the world and the temptations of the flesh, he is called to stand before the God of Gods in Sion. I speak of the joyful sense of release from sin and death, which is written in every page of the gospel, and of victory in that struggle between a weak body and a willing spirit, which abashed and confounded the lovers of righteousness under the law. It is this spirit of triumph which demands, of death where is its sting, and of the grave where is. its victory. It is this spirit which asserts that the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared |