neglected, or causelessly been diverted from it? And when you have been thus employed, have you been always busy, your heart in your work, and all your strength employed upon it? Whoever prays indeed shall often find it no easy work. There shall need much wrestling, wrestling with the flesh, wrestling with the world, wrestling with Satan. And what! have you always wrestled, and always vanquished? Whoever you are, I am sure you are crying out, "Lord, forgive me the iniquity of my holy things!"

Thirdly. Have you also prayed in faith? Now it is the very nature of such prayer to cast all manner of care and every burden on the Lord; guilt, corruption, trial, temptation, whatever it be, to come and lay it all upon Christ; and this with a certain confidence in him, which both doth him the highest honour, and makes him best pleased with us. It charges Christ with all, and leaves everything with him. It says, “Lord, here are all these sins that I have done; here are all these temptations I have to struggle with; here are all these corruptions to subdue; here is all this work to be performed; and I am a poor helpless thing: behold, I lay it all upon thee, and leave it all and every part of it with thee. And I know that thou canst, thou hast told me thou wilt, take care of the whole. It is thy office to do so, and thou delightest to do it: Lord, I cast all my care on thee. There is no other boldness in this than what the promises of God encourage and give sanction to. Such is the very prayer of faith; and I must leave yourselves to judge how far you have approached the throne in this spirit.

Fourthly. Have you prayed with reverence? What, always, and with all due reverence, as speaking to God? You know how great a reverence, how profound a humility, becomes you, a creature and a sinner, when you approach the great God. But hath this attended you in all your approaches? Whence then is it that some are sitting on their seats? that others are unconcernedly gazing about while prayers are here offering up? Is this reverence? I do not say that wandering thoughts, lamented and contended with, shall render prayers to the most merciful God, offered up in Christ's name, of no account: but you must needs see that such thoughts argue a want of due reverence.

And which of you hath had such an abiding and awful reverence of the majesty and presence of that God with whom he hath been transacting in prayer, as to be altogether free of them? And may not this have been owing to an hasty and unprepared rushing into God's presence? And then what should that convince of, but that we were not solemnly enough impressed with that awful intercourse we were about to hold with God?

Let these hints serve relating to prayer; and let the whole convince you how exceedingly you have transgressed this second commandment, which regards the instituted methods of worshipping God in the word, prayer, and the sacraments.

Add the inquiries which have been made from the second commandment to those which were made from the first, and then say if you have not abundant need of a righteousness better than your own, and how justly the Apostle says in the text, that The law is a schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.' I shall be greatly rejoiced if these considerations drive any of you to him, or nearer to him. And much need there is they should drive us all to him, when we remember that otherwise the curse of the law abideth

on us.

But remember, my brethren, if you will go savingly to Christ, it must be in a way of true humiliation; loathing yourselves, ashamed, sorry, and greatly humbled for all your transgressions against God's majesty. Remember that Christ did not come to be a minister of sin. God forbid. But he came to give us encouragement and to give us power to repent. And how much greater will our damnation be, if to our transgressions of God's law we add so horrid an abuse of the Gospel, as from Christ's coming to save us to take liberty of continuing in sin?

I dismiss the subject for the present, determining to resume it again, if God permit, at the return of this season. But truly that is a great way off; and who can say that either you or I shall live to see it? Certainly many of us shall not. If it shall please God to take me in the mean time, what you have already heard will be his witness against you, and you must see to it that you be ready to give a faithful account of the improvement you have made of it at the day of judgment, where we shall assuredly

all meet again; and where it will be my joy and my crown, as it is my most earnest prayer, to see you every one at the right hand of the Judge, and hear that soul-ravishing sentence of acquittal and glory pronounced over you all, Come, ye blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.' Even so, Lord Jesus, for thy name's

sake! Amen, amen.

SERMON XXXI.

GALATIANS iii. 24.

Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

THE design of Lent is for the more express humiliation and mourning for sin. We must come to Christ as men cast away, and glad by any means to be saved from perishing. How doth the sinfulness and misery of our lost estate appear? The text tells us, by the law. The law is our schoolmaster, by holding up to us its righteousness and curse, condemns and makes us afraid, and so drives us to Christ. It is the contemplation of the law therefore must abase us; and this abasement causing us to draw near to Jesus for pardon, we learn from the love of God, manifested to us in the satisfaction and atonement made for sin, to loathe ourselves for it, and lament and forsake it. To open therefore the law as a rule of duty, and that in a way of inquiry, that therein as in a glass we might see our own deformity, was thought a proper employment at this season the last year. Then it was proposed to go over the Ten Commandments in this view; to go as far therein only as the Sundays of Lent gave opportunity; and, should God give me life and continuance among you, to resume what remained the next (that is now, the present) Lent. While I am speaking this, the thought of God's having spared me, and the most of those who then heard me, this year, also forces itself upon me, and suggests to me to ask myself and you, what fruit we can show for so long a time, and for so many opportunities as we have enjoyed in it? Are we grown stronger in faith, hope, desire after God and glory? What sins have been renounced, and lusts mortified?

Have we

been more active and zealous in our Master's service; and what have we attempted for his honour and interests, and for the salvation of others? Let us look back, and take shame to ourselves we have so little profited. Yea, but are we not rather further from God than a year ago? Have we not lost ground? Do we not see less of our sins, and feel less for our soul, and seek less after Christ? Are not our eyes closing? Or perhaps we have thought nothing about this needful thing, and just even as we were, insensible and careless! Is it not so with some of you? Are twelve other months gone over your heads just like the former? In these, as in them, have you been adding sin to sin? As if your guilt were not great and heavy enough before, have you been filling up the measure of it every day of all this time? If this be the case with any of you, I know not what to say to it. I wish I could say anything that might do you service. I will say this. Will you come to a resolution that you will not meddle with religion; that you will go on, live and die in your old way, and stand by the consequence? I would have you try to bring yourself to this resolution. Deliberately and positively determine, once for all, that you will never have anything to do with Christ. Come, resolve upon it, that you will not forsake your old way, as long as you live. Why, it is but to lose heaven, and perish for ever! Resolve, I say, distinctly and fully, that you will never meddle with religion. It is as good resolve as do it. Well, then, are you determined? No. Satan has never yet pushed you to this point, nor ever will. He knows he shall succeed more effectually by putting you on delay. Satan will not; then I will still more and more press you to try if you cannot come to this resolution. Doubtless if you can but once be coolly and deliberately resolved that you will have nothing to do with God, and godliness, and glory, and will never mind anything but the world, it will presently make your life more easy, you will eat, drink, and be merry; you will eat and drink, for to-morrow you die.' What profits it to halt between two opinions? You do not like Christ. Why not then resolve you will never have anything to do with him? You see my meaning. You are in

* Isaiah xxii. 13.