fail, or if at any time we should fall from the practice of our duty, we must again work out our - salvation, by renewing ourselves again unto repentance, and bringing forth again the graces of a holy life, which are the only natural fruits, the only solid proof of a repentance which is indeed sincere.

But how shall we be able to do this great thing? Work as much as he will, how shall a corrupted man, with a corrupted mind, and in a corrupted world, be enabled to work out his salvation by a steady and persevering course of righteousness; or how, after having long been accustomed to do evil, shall he break through the sinful habits of a sinful nature, and change at once the colour of his life, and wash away the spots of his iniquity? My brethren, with man these things are impossible. But the Apostle builds upon a better foundation than the weakness of mortality. He tells us that "it is God that worketh in us both to will and to do"-and with God all things are possible, and through him we are able to do all things. Moses stretched forth his hand, and the waters were divided, and became a wall unto the children of Israel, on the right hand and on the left. Moses smote the rock with his rod, and the waters flowed withal, and the children of Israel were refreshed in the

wilderness, and were saved from death. But what was there in the arm of Moses, that the sea should obey it and stand still? Or what in the rod of Moses, that it should turn the flinty rock into a living fountain? Let me freely, though reverently, speak to you of the patriarch Moses. He was indeed great, because he was indeed good, in his generation. But except in the matter of his goodness-except in his superior faith and trust in his Maker-except in his more ready obedience to the holy desires which the spirit of the Lord inspired into his soul, he was no more than the rest of the Israelites, and the rest of men. Like them, like us, like every human being that is born of woman, he was compassed with infirmities, and tried with afflictions, and subject to terror, and surrounded with sorrow. Of himself he was able to do nothing, but all the mighty acts which he did, he did because "it was God which worked in him both to will and to do of his good pleasure," and because Moses did not resist the will of God, or neglect or abuse the power with which he was endued. If to the Jew God was very liberal, we have the promise of his beloved Son, that to Christians in all spiritual and necessary things, he will be still more so. Over the world without us, he will perhaps give us no power-because we are not called upon to save a people. But we are called upon to save

ourselves, and he will give us a power over the rebellious world that is within us. Stretch forth

but your hands in faith and sincerity to God, and surely he will separate between you and your lusts. He will divide the tumultuous sea of your passions, and open for you a way to escape from your enemies into the land of eternity. He will cause the waves thereof to stand still and harmless on your right hand and on your left, and make you to walk in safety and unhurt through the overflowings of ungodliness, which, without his controlling arm, would have drowned your souls in perdition and destruction. Be ye never so faint and weary in the wilderness of sin, yet if in humility you smite upon your breast, and say, God be merciful to me a sinner! he will melt the stony heart within you, and turning it into a fountain of piety and love-of love to man and love to your Maker, refresh you with the living waters of the comfort of the Spirit, and strengthen you by its power for your pilgrimage through life. All these things will the Lord our God do for those who yield to the godly motions which he inspires, and presume not to despise his inward workings. For God will not always work in us effectually, and never does he work in us irresistibly to will and to do the things which we will not to do. We are taught by his holy Apostle, St. Paul, that we may resist the influence, that we may quench the

power of God's working, and if we dare to do the deed, assuredly and in justice his grace and aid will be withdrawn from us for ever. The Spirit would not always strive with man in the days of Noah, neither will it do more in these latter days. Often grieved, and often slighted, he may often return in mercy, and in kindness renew in our hearts the will and the power to work out our salvation. But the day and hour are fixed-fixed in the counsels of the everlasting God, the day and hour beyond which his grace will be irrecoverable, and our misery unavoidable.

Work out therefore your salvation salvation "with fear and trembling"-not with that dreary fear which is the grave of all holy hope-not with that unreasonable trembling which is destructive of the spirit of energy and cheerfulness; but with a godly fear, and a salutary trembling-with a fear lest you should fall, with a trembling lest you should fail-with a fear lest you should forfeit, with a trembling lest you should come short of salvationwith a fear lest any part of your duty should be neglected-with trembling lest any part of it should be forgotten-with fear lest you be overcome by temptation-with trembling lest you should be deserted by God, in whom alone we are powerful to do good, and to obtain everlasting life. Work out your salvation with a fearful

feeling of your natural weakness, and a trembling consciousness of your natural unworthiness. For what thing, even in this transitory world, does a man desire to gain, and not fear to lose? The love of what being, the possession of what blessing? And what is there that is uncertain in this world, and man does not tremble for the uncertainty? So should it be in the great work of our salvation. Salvation may not be ours, and we should fear to lose, and labour not to lose it. Salvation depends upon the future as well as the present tenour of our lives and thoughts, and the future is always uncertain, and so we should tremble for the uncertainty, and strive the more zealously to make it sure. We should fear, because we have a work to do which, being left alone, we were unable to perform. We should tremble, because though God empowers us to fulfil the task, he works neither so irresistibly nor so certainly upon our hearts as finally to prevent our falling from grace, or to preclude the possibility of our failing of Salvation.

Such is the nature of that fear and trembling which the Apostle recommends; not that fear which is slavish and terrible, but a fear, which is the very reverse of confidence, and whose end is caution; not the trembling of agony and despair, but a trembling, which is opposed to carelessness,