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or hypocrisy. There is all reason to believe, from the representation in the parable, that their praying is highly acceptable to him. He encourages them in it. He assures them, by this parable, that not a petition shall be lost. Follow ye their example. Begin to pray, and beg of God to let you know for what you should pray, lest ye perish. You are on praying ground; and if this be the burden of your cry, "Son of David have mercy on me! Lamb of God, that takest away the sin of the world, grant me thy peace," the Lord will hear, and do, and save you. Yet neither you nor any of us know what we should pray for as we ought; but the "Spirit helpeth your infirmities, and maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered."

3. "Though he bear long with them." The people of God may have prayed again and again for particular blessings, and yet the Lord grants them not yet. He exercises their faith and patience. Hence their sanctification grows, and hence their eternal happiness also. In particular things, as well as in the whole of his dealings, this is the Lord's way. Therefore, next after establishment in the faith and love of the gospel, to have a contented, resigned, patient frame of soul, should be the great object of the believer's prayer. "Ye have need of patience," says the word of God, and his grace only can give it. The husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it-be ye also patient; stablish your hearts; for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh*.

4. But to talk of patience without faith, would be to build castles in the air. Our Lord complains, "when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith * James v. 7, 8.

on the earth?" intimating that but few believers will then be found. What is the christian's ground of patience? What is to encourage him to wait patiently in all trials, both with respect to particular difficulties, and the whole of his probation, but this? Verily there is an end, and thine expectation shall not be cut off." What is the expectation? Life eternal, the fullness of joy, and at God's right-hand pleasures for evermore.

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But what right has he, a sinner, to these? The inheritance is of faith, that it might be by grace, and so become sure. God gives it of promise, and not by the works of the law. The christian's forerunner is already entered, who has bought him a seat in heaven, and given him the title free and full, and who bids him be confident that he who began a good work in him will perform it till the day of his appearing. So that in this view patience has a firm foundation. Every believer may say, "my troubles will soon be all over. My Saviour will take me to joy eternal, unspeakable. In my present trials he will be with me, and give me a happy issue out of them all."

5. "I tell you that he will avenge them speedily." Take a short view with me of the end of all things. A day is coming when we expect Jesus Christ to appear in the air, before whose face the heavens and the earth shall flee, and all the works thereof be burnt up. Before him shall be gathered the whole race of men then living, and all the dead. I speak simple facts. Affected ornaments of speech are never, perhaps, more improper than here. Let the greatness of the facts speak for themselves. Among the rest we of this place must appear; some on the right hand-the Lord enlarge their number

who have here believed the testimony of Jesus. Others on the left, when He shall be "revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power. When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe, in that day."

Those among us who have now believed in Christ, for all their comfort, joy, and salvation, oh! how will they admire him when they see him-Him whom they so long panted after, and on whom as their unseen friend they depended in sore trials. Their joy and triumph, their endless bliss in his smiles, how great it will be, you will not expect that I should say. But what a call is here for God's people, to live above the world, and its cares and pleasures, and press forward for the attainment of the resurrection of the dead. Let not our ambition stop short of this. Oh! let us be more heavenlyminded; more detached from the world, than ever we have been yet.

But why should not the Lord's people be more numerous than they are? Awake, awake ye whom the sleep of sin is carrying to hell: ye who know that the mark of God's elect, "crying day and night," belongs not to you. Awake, then; for there is but a breath between you and perdition. Behold the crucified Saviour. You and he may be one, and he will plead your cause, if you will seek him now above all things. If not, you must meet him as your avenging Judge.

SERMON XXXII.

CHRISTIANS IN DANGER OF LOSING THOSE THINGS WHICH THEY HAVE WROUGHT, and NOT RECEIVING A FULL REWARD.

John, Epistle 2d, ver. 8.

Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward.

ST.

T. JOHN is exhorting christians to abide in Christ, to adhere to his doctrine, to preserve their fellowship with the Father and the Son, to love one another, to walk in the truth, to beware of seducers, and to see that they be not weary of the commandment of faith and love in Christ Jesus, but to keep constantly what they had been taught from the beginning.

How it may be with others, each must judge for himself; but I find the necessity of pressing on my own heart repeated admonitions, warnings and rebukes, that I be not weary, but patiently persevere in the ways of God. After a length of time we are all apt to faint, to grow languid, to lose christian simplicity. What need have we to feel the force of the exhortation in the text, "Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward." There is not only danger of losing the means of growing in grace

and of making farther advances in the divine life, but, what should greatly alarm us, even of losing the soul itself by losing what has before been gained, if we slacken diligence, and give way to temptations. And this has often been done. Many begin in the spirit and end in the flesh. The Apostle asks the Galatians, "have ye suffered so many things in vain, if it be yet in vain ?" And he tells the Corinthians, that they are saved by the gospel which he preached to them, if they keep it in memory, "unless they have believed in vain."

I have chosen, then, a subject very suitable to the state and circumstances of those of you, who for years have attended to the preaching of the gospel, and have known, or seemed to know, something of its power. I would speak after the Apostle John to the aged, or to christians of a long standing. As it was then, so it is now, many things in a course of time intervene that were little thought of, to stop the growth of christians, and to cause them to decline from the faith and love of the gospel. Therefore there is the more need to "take heed to the things that we have heard, lest at any time we let them slip." And while I am speaking to those who have long known divine truth, may the Lord Jesus himself speak to them; for he can speak to the heart, and with power.

We shall more distinctly conceive the subject, if we consider, 1st, what those things were which we wrought in the beginning of the gospel-2d, wherein lies the danger of losing them-and, 3d, the means to be used in order to preserve them. For though wherever the Lord has begun a good work, he will carry it on to the day of Christ, there are many

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