I trust in him." This is our duty. We ought to trust in God, not only while he visibly succeeds our wishes, but when the commission of ourselves to him seems only to bring a death upon our hopes and desires. This I say is our duty. But of the difficulty of practising it, I am well aware. Who is sufficient for these things? How is it possible that our hearts, so weak, so foolish, so perverse, so unbelieving, so rebellious-should be brought to this temper? The answer is-" The grace of Christ is sufficient for us." It must be upon our knees, and with the records and promises of his word in our hands, that we must call upon our souls in such cases as David does in the text: Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted in me?

Hope thou in Blessed be God,

God, for I shall yet praise him." we are taught in the holy Scripture to pray "The God of hope," the Author as well as the Object of hope, to fill us with all joy and peace in believing, and to make us abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost!"

Whatever be our care, or our trouble, or our desire, personal or relative, temporal or spiritual, this should be our course.

"Cast thy burden on

the Lord: he will sustain thee."

This is a remedy and support commensurate with all our possible necessities. Nothing

through all eternity can separate those from God, who thus betake themselves to him through Christ in humble, penitent, and obedient faith : and if he be with them and on their side, who can be against them?

No one, therefore, can be so deep sunk in trouble, that he may not be raised and supported by this means. To the disconsolate widow-to the dejected bankrupt-to the wretch labouring under incurable disease, and looking forward to an opening grave-to the exile banished from his country to the captive immured in the dungeon, "fast bound in misery and iron"-to him whose every earthly hope has perished, we may say, "Hope thou in God!" and addressing to each this exhortation, we address to him that which is adequate to all the exigencies of his case. Yes, and blessed be God, many suffering under one or other of all these severe afflictions, have found "hope in God" sufficient for their support. May you, dear brethren, seek and find the same, to your great and endless comfort!

SERMON III.

JOHN VIII. 9.

AND THEY WHICH HEARD IT, BEING

CONVICTED

BY

THEIR OWN CONSCIENCE, WENT OUT ONE BY ONE, BEGINNING AT THE ELDEST, EVEN UNTO THE LAST.

THE persons spoken of are those scribes and pharisees, who brought unto our Lord, a woman taken in adultery, demanding his opinion as to the punishment which should be inflicted Their conduct was insidious, conupon her. cealing malicious designs under the appearance of respect. "This they said tempting him, that they might have to accuse him." They thought to entangle him in a difficulty from which he could not escape. If he ordered the woman to be put to death, according to the law of Moses, this might not only impeach his character for clemency before the people, but perhaps furnish a handle to charge him before the Roman government, with advancing pretensions to sovereignty, and assuming a power to pronounce sentence of death. If on

the other hand he dispenses with that sentence, they would represent him as an enemy to the law of Moses, and as taking upon him to set aside its enactments. The admirable wisdom of our Lord enabled him, however, not only to escape the snare, but to put his enemies to confusion. At first, "he stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.” But when " they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her."

We may be sure our Lord did not mean, that no man ought to act as judge or witness in a criminal cause, who is not wholly exempt from sin in his own conduct; for that would disannul civil government, which is God's ordinance. But he knew the concealed iniquities of these men; and by thus appealing to their consciences in respect of themselves, he made them sensible of the impropriety of their taking an active part in this prosecution. A divine power doubtless attended his word, and the effect followed which my text describes. Being convicted by their own conscience, they went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last." Abashed and confounded, and perhaps alarmed at the apprehension of more particular exposure, they were glad to withdraw, so that "Jesus was left alone,"

that is, as far as they were concerned, he was left alone," and the woman standing in the midst."

On what follows in the history, concerning his dismissing the woman with the address, "Hath no man condemned thee? Neither do I condemn thee: Go and sin no more"-I only observe, that our Lord in this merely adhered to his plan of declining all interference with the duties of the magistrate. He does not mean that he did not duly censure and condemn her misconduct-for the contrary is implied in the charge to "sin no more; "--but only that he had no judicial sentence to pronounce against her.

In the instance thus brought before us, we have a striking display of the power and operation of conscience. And it is on that subject that I intend to speak.

I shall consider,

I. THE POWER OF CONSCIENCE.

II. THE HEAVY CHARGES WHICH CONSCIENCE MIGHT JUSTLY BRING AGAINST US ALL: AND

III. What, under such circumstances, IS OUR

PROPER RESOURCE.

And, while we consider the subject, may that spirit of conviction from God accompany the word, which shall not merely alarm, but humble and convert our souls!

I. THE POWER OF CONSCIENCE.