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as a parent understands its meaning, so does the Father of spirits comprehend what the child of his adoption would say, and gives him encouragement to repeat them. But the believer deals in something more substantial than words; he begins with promises, but he ends with actions, which plainly tell him that his prayer has gone up as a memorial before God. He does not continue, as before, to say from day to day, "if I have done iniquity, I will do no more." But now he is less a speaker than a doer of the word; all men may see that there are springs rising in the desert, and fruit-bearing trees flourishing in the wilderness. Observe what he is when led forth by the Holy Ghost: notice his eye, how it looks unto Jesus, and his heart how it beats for God; his affections have fled away from the earth, and his faith has overcome the world. Are you in such a happy case, my brethren? you say, you can resolve-I question it not. If to-night were to find you struggling with a mortal disease, you would mourn, and perhaps in sincerity, over the past, and resolve earnestly for the future; but would not this be forced upon you, by the pressing and alarming circumstances of your actual condition, rather than by the gracious Spirit of God? If you have already had resolutions on your lips, have they been followed by such striking tokens of holiness, and such a transformation of mind, that every passing

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observer who knows the work of Jesus, might say, the Lord hath done it. His teaching, if you are taught by him, would be speedily succeeded by those practical evidences that could not, be misunderstood. It is better to know the worst of your hearts, that you may go boldly to the throne of grace, for the balm to soothe, and the physician to heal them. If you are without knowledge in this matter, whatever is your experience in other sciences, you know nothing, you are but babes, I cannot say that you are babes in Christ; what better admonition, then, than that in the text, could be put into your mouths, and I might add, what more profitable one, if your hearts were laid open to embrace it? Oh! come to it, in the spirit of a mourner! come to it as an applicant who would not be sent empty away! "Open your mouth wide, and he will fill it;" say to him, "that which I see not, teach thou me, and if I have done iniquity, I will do no more."

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SERMON IV.

CHRIST THE STRENGTH OF HIS CHURCH.

HEBREWS XII. 1st and part of the 2nd verses.

Seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus.

Ir is very comforting to the pilgrim who is tossed to and fro by the changes and chances of this mortal life, to remember that all the pilgrims of former ages had the same allotment, and that every one with whom he journey, has to bear the chastisement of a son, and to become like Jesus, who took this very path in his way to the grave, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. It is very animating to the good soldier of Christ to take this reflection with him to the battle, that other soldiers before him have been on the Lord's side, that his warfare is not a harder one than theirs;

that if "he bears in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus," they have been wounded too, and if he is in the midst of those who seek to take away his life, they had enemies not less mighty who gathered themselves together against them. The apostle felt what a strength there was in such consolations as these, when he searched all the generations of men for examples of faith, that he might set them before his Hebrew converts. He was not satisfied with selecting one or two of the brightest, but, beginning at the earliest age, he travels down through every succeeding period of time, even to the days of the prophets, to show that in every one of these ages a little flock was to be found sojourning in a strange country, and enduring grief, as seeing him who was invisible; he shows Christians how these elders obtained a good report, who had only seen the promises afar off, how entirely they could trust God though they had never been with Jesus; and then he calls over their names, as if he thought that the contemplation of these saints, living upon the nourishment of faith, though all in comparative darkness, would stir up and encourage his brethren to lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; and in this way of exhortation, he opens the present chapter: "Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses,

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let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus." These words embrace the whole of a sinner's duty. May the Spirit of truth fix your hearts to the serious consideration of it, whilst I attempt to point out, first, what the race is which is set before us; secondly, the hindrances that cause men to be so slack in it; and, thirdly, the encouraging support that the believer has, at every point of his progress.

This exhortation lets us into the apostle's character; it declares him to be a clearsighted observer of human nature, and justifies the description he gives of himself, that he would be "all things to all men, if by any means he might win some." He had seen the competitors in some earthly contest, striving for a corruptible crown, cheered and borne along by the acclamation of the multitude, and he borrows the idea for the use of Christians in their heavenly race, that they might have an additional motive for running well, in that cloud of witnesses which he beautifully introduces as anxious and interested spectators, looking out of their glory, ready to rejoice over them as they reach the goal, and to welcome them as conquerors to their home, and as fellow-citizens to the household of God. There

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