And then let us inquire, Whether we have made any progress in it; whether we have grown in grace since the beginning of the past year? For if there be any of us who can perceive no improvement in our religious state during the last year, we shall have just ground for suspecting that we have no religion at all in us. The state of the Christian is a state of warfare. If we be Christians, we must during the year have been fighting against the world, the devil, and the corruptions of our own hearts. But can we have been doing this, and yet be no better than we were a year ago, or many years ago? If this be the case, we have cause to be both afraid and ashamed. For we have not been doing our duty; we have deserted our Saviour's cause, or at least added nothing to his interests. We have not fought against sin as we ought to have done; we have not treated the world as our enemy. In short, we have not been engaged in the Christian warfare, and therefore it is that we have made no improvement. Our faith, our hope, our love to Christ, have not increased; and the reason is plain, we have not given them exercise.

.

ness, that it is by "having obtained help of God we continue unto this day."

1. First, then, it is by the help of God that our lives have been prolonged bitherto. Not that the addition of another year to the years of our life is, when considered in itself, a great matter in the eye of a Christian, though doubtless it ought to excite our thankfulness, is chiefly to be valued, as it affords us space for repentance, and opportunities of growing in grace and glorifying God. At this time, there fore, it well becomes us to bless God, who, by sparing our lives, has given us that space and these opportunities, and hath thus increased our knowledge of his grace. But how much more cause shall we have for thankfulness in the review of the past year, should we find that, during the course of it, we have been awakened to a serious concern for the salvation of our souls. Perhaps, at the beginning of the year, we were dead in sin, and hated religion; whereas now our hearts are so changed, as, in some measure at least, to love the service of our God and Saviour, and earnestly to desire and follow after his salvation. Let us bless God, who, in extending days, hath thus extended mercy to our souls; who, in adding to our lives, hath given us a hope of ever lasting life. Had we perished in our sins, what would have become of us? Had we died before we had seen the error of our ways, and turn ed from it to accept our Saviour's offered grace, whither should we have gone? How deeply should such thoughts as these affect our hearts, and impress upon them, that it is by having obtained help of God that we continue unto this day."

our

2. Let us also consider from how many temporal evils we may have been preserved during the year, which have overtaken others. If the lives of those who are dear to us have been spared, while many around us are mourning over the loss of all that they valued in this

eye, and the thought of eternal glory fills our souls; and shall we not allow that hitherto the Lord hath helped us, and that, having obtained help of him, we continue unto this day?

6. Are there among us any who have experienced something of what the Apostle suffered from the Jews? We may have had friends who opposed us, and set themselves against us, on account of our religion. We may, like Paul, have had our name cast out as evil, and loaded with slander and reproach, because we chose to preserve our integrity, and, instead of giving countenance to any unchristian practices, have resolved that in simplicity and godly sincerity we should have our conversation in the world. And though, like Paul, we loved our brethren, and though our heart, like his, has bled for them; yet, like him, we may have been persecuted as apostates from their cause, only because we have refused to continue blinded by their ignorance, or partners in their guilt. We may have determined, like St. Paul, to run all risks for the sake of Christ and his Gospel; like him, we may have been able steadily to pursue our course; and though many eyes have been upon us to spy out our failings, we may also have been able to avoid all ground for blame, and to give proof of the gracious aid of which I have been speaking by the purity of our life, and the good tendency of all our actions. If this has been our experience, shall we not give God the glory? And here let us remember, that it is no small mercy to have been even kept during the last year from open sins, or to have escaped those temptations to them which have beset our path. While we are humble, therefore, and fear for ourselves, let us render thanks to that Saviour, by whose grace, notwithstanding our weakness, we have been preserved from evil, and by whose help it is that we continue unto this day.

Is it true that we have obtained help of God in the manner I have

described, during the last year, and perhaps during many years before? Judging then by the past, what dat we think of the time to come! This is an animating and cheering thought; a thought fit to be takes with us into the beginning of a new year. If God has indeed prolonged our life to give us space for repens ance; if his arm, though unseen, has conducted us through many di ficulties and dangers; if he has al ready converted our souls, and supported us by his grace; if, having obtained help of God, we continge unto this day; why may we nx hope that the same God will help u even to the end? That gracies Being who has been so merciful wo us in time past, has mercy li e store. His arm is not shorteved that it connot go on to save us, ne ther is his hand yet weary of dong us good. A part of our life still remains. Temptations will still assail

us.

New and greater dangers and difficulties may yet arise. But let s look to our past experience and take courage. Let us hope in God and expect that in the next year he will bless us as in that which is past. But let us consider further, if God has thus performed his promises, by rescuing us from a state of sin, changing by his grace the very beat of our nature, and creating us anew in Christ Jesus; what comfortable ground have we to expect that he will fulfil those other promises, of an everlasting salvation, which his word contains! This is a hope founded on experience. We have felt in ourselves a change nothing less than from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God; and hav ing felt this so plainly, as one of the effects of Christianity, our hope of heaven becomes plain also. It is no longer that doubtful kind of place it seemed to be; nor does our own claim to it appear so much a matter of uncertainty as formerly. Let us not doubt, then, that he who sanctifies his people so strangely in this world, will save them as strangely in the next. God has promised them

grace and glory; grace here, and glory hereafter. He hath already given grace, will he not also give #glory? If one change promised in Scripture has already passed upon us, so will the other. For "if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in us, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken our mortal bodies by the same Spirit that dwelleth in us." There are, it is true, various kinds and degrees of Christians; some stronger in the faith, and going on with a firm pace to the conquest of the heavenly Canaan; others who are yet weak in the faith, who are just, as it were, getting out of their state of natural corruption, and still fearful and full of infirmity. If they are Christians, however, there is in all of them this mark, by which they may be known from men of the world, that their desires are directed to God and his grace. They are all struggling to get free from their evil natures. They are all humbling themselves under the same convictions of their sinfulness. They are all conscious of at least some change of heart. They are all living more or less a life of faith. They are all renouncing the world, striving against it, and refusing to obey its authority or to follow its example. If Christians, they are all enlisted in the cause of Christ, not in name, but in heart: they are not merely different from the world, they are opposed to it; they are waging war with it. It is in Christ also they all put their trust: to him their eyes, their hearts, their thoughts, are directed. And whoever follows them into their secret chamber, will soon see the cause of all this difference. They are fervent in prayer. They seek help where alone help is to be found. They bow their knees before the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he strengthens them with might by his Spirit in the inner man. Day by day they ask grace of him; and in answer to their prayers he pours down a portion of his own Spirit upon

them; and thus they are created anew, after the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness.

Is there nothing in this picture to touch the hearts of sinners, and to make them desirous of treading in the steps of these followers of Christ, of whom they now make so small account, and whom, perhaps, they regard only as hypocrites or enthusi asts? Let me address such persons, nor let them hastily reject the advice I offer them. You are entering on a new year: 0 that you would also enter on a new course of life! O that you would turn to God, that your souls might live, and that, be fore the conclusion of another year, you also might have the happy experience I have been describing as that of the true Christian. But perhaps you are so little acquainted with men of this character, that, instead of wishing to imitate them, you wish to avoid them as gloomy and miserable men. Make the trial, however, and you will find, on the contrary, that they are the happiest of mankind, for grace and peace are with them. They serve the best and kindest of Masters, and are engaged in the noblest and most honourable service. The fruit of their labour is to be seen around them, while their families, their children, their servants, improve under their watchful care. Year after year brings new consolations with it, Heaven is in their eye, and God himself comforts and sustains them in the way thither. He adds to their happiness, by increasing their grace, and ripening them year after year for glory. In a little time too, death shall come and bring them forth from their obscurity. Then shall their judgment appear as the light, and their righteousness as the noon-day. Then shall be seen by sinners, doubtless, as well as by saints, the manifestation of the sons of God. While on earth, they followed him whose kingdom was not of this world, and they now enter into his glory. And O how will all who now despise the Christian