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found unlike CHRIST, we must be speechless. It will be no excuse that the strife was sore, and our foes many. As Christians, we must overcome, or we perish everlastingly. Must overcome, and be like CHRIST; or be overcome, and be unlike HIM.

Having, therefore, HIS SPIRIT in us, let us set His Holy Pattern before us, until His Image be reflected back from our souls. As He was, in HIMSELF, an Embodied Fulfilment of the Scriptures of the Old Testament, wielding them against the Adversary in the wilderness, and making them His closing words on the Cross-so let us make the volume of Holy Writ to be effectually to each of us the Word of GOD.

it daily, and ponder it much.

Let us search

As HE sub

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mitted HIMSELF SO exactly to the ordinances of the Jewish Church, which were "decaying, and waxing old, and ready to vanish away -let us, not carnally and formally, but “in spirit and in truth," yield a willing obedience to the ordinances of the Christian Church. If HE, WHO "knew no sin," vouchsafed to be baptized at the hands of a sinner, the CREATOR at the hands of the creature, let us tremble at so much as the

1 Heb. viii. 13. 2 S. John iv. 23.

3 2 Cor. v. 21.

question of whether Holy Baptism might be dispensed with, and that without incurring the displeasure of HIM WHO ordained it. If He kept the Passover, and, at the last feast, ordained the other Holy Sacrament, the Christian Passover, far indeed be it from us to give ear to those who assert that they can keep in remembrance the LORD's Death, while forgetting His commandment; and "show forth that Death, until His Coming again, ," while refusing to do that which HE instituted for that end and purpose.

Let us give alms of that which hath been given unto us" for ye know the grace of Our LORD JESUS CHRIST, that though HE was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich." Let us be constant in prayer-for He prayed in the temple, and on the mountain; in secret, and among the people; by day, and by night; in the garden, and on the Cross. Let us fast-for HE fasted in the wilderness, and taught us how aright to do the same. Are we young? "He was subject unto His parents. Are we advanced, or advancing in years? He continued, through1 1 Cor. xi. 26. 2 2 Cor. viii. 9. 3 S. Luke ii. 51.

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out His earthly life, as one of "little children." Are we in low estate? He was known as "the carpenter," working, we are told, in His worldly calling, as unto God. Have we enemies? He prayed for His on the Cross.

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CHRIST is all, and in all.” HE is our Example, and our Strength. In HIM we are the sons of GOD, and may, as He did, cry, ABBA, FATHER. We speak as the brethren of the SON of GOD. With HIм we live. With HIM, when Death approaches, we say, "FATHER, not My will, but THINE be done." With HIM, when Death is come, we exclaim, "FATHER, into THY Hands I commend MY spirit. With HIM, after our Resurrection, shall we speak of "ascending unto HIS FATHER and our FATHER."5 "To him that overcometh will He grant to sit with HIM in His Throne, even as He also overcame, and is set down with HIS FATHER in His Throne."'6 "And they shall be MINE, saith the LORD of Hosts, in that Day when I make up My jewels and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him."7

1 S. Matt. xiii. 55; 3 S. Luke xxii. 42.

5 S. John xx. 17.

S. Mark vi. 3.

2 Col. iii. 11.

4 S. Luke xxiii. 46.
6 Rev. iii. 21. 7 Mal. iii. 17.

SERMON VII.

THE CHARACTER AND CONDUCT OF

NICODEMUS.

S. JOHN III. 1.

"THERE WAS A MAN OF THE PHARISEES, NAMED NICODEMUS, A RULER OF THE Jews."

You may remember a verse in the Book of Proverbs, which will serve as a kind of text to the accounts given to us in Holy Scripture of Nicodemus. I mean the 18th verse of the 4th chapter, where it is said that "The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day." For that text teaches us, as Christians, that, regenerate though we be, and enlightened with the gift of the HOLY SPIRIT, nevertheless, the path of the just Christian through life is no less gradually brightened by consistent holiness, than the path of the

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just Jew was, in his journeying onwards to the reception of CHRIST. In short, that a true Christian course is no more made perfect by some sudden burst of light than night itself is turned into day by a sudden burst of sunshine. First the twilight; then the dawn; then the beams; then the full light. Just so with the Christian who lives like a Christian. When first born into this world he is "of the night." At his Baptism he is "illuminated" with that "light" which "is sown for the righteous." As he advances in life, as he makes use of his Baptismal gift, his Christian twilight gives way to Christian dawn, and his Christian dawn to Christian day, shining forth more brightly and more fully in this world, until at length it is made "perfect day," in the skies beyond the grave. It may be, now and then, that the relapsed Christian is stricken down on a sudden "in the way,' by "a light from Heaven, above the brightness of the sun," but we must not expect to see, on ordinary occasions, "a light above the brightness of the sun," either in the natural or spiritual world. What we must expect

1 1 Thess. v. 5.

3 Ps. xcvii. 1

2 Heb. x. 32.
4 Acts xxvi. 13.

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