respect felt for his piety, depends upon the belief entertained of his sincerity and consistency. Suppose a person really sincere, yet not therefore perfect; and suppose him betrayed, according to the bias of his natural temper, into some act either of violence or weakness. He then loses his hold on the opinions of his neighbours; some call him a hypocrite, others scrupling to do this, yet condemn his inconsistency, and profess to lament that persons, professing to fear God, should act with so little regard to his commandments. But suppose that by perseverance in well-doing, he succeeds in establishing his character with indifferent persons, and in ordinary times. Yet if, from any circumstances, he should oppose any prevailing opinion or habit of the day, it is well if the fruits of a life's labour, so far as earth is concerned, are not presently sacrificed; if he be not reviled instead of respected, and every word and action of his life misrepresented and condemned. Let any one read the circumstances of the deaths of some of the martyrs who were sacrificed in the religious persecutions of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Take particularly the deaths of John Huss, and Jerome of Prague, who, falling earlier in the cause than our own

English martyrs, were supported in their last agonies by a far smaller number of hearts to sympathize with them. Consider these two men, whose professions, well borne out by their lives, had shown them to be true followers of Christ; remember how they were reviled as outcasts from Christ, and enemies; how, while their flesh was burning, they were forbidden to have any comfort in death, but were openly told that these earthly and passing flames would be exchanged for the fire unquenchable. And by whom were they thus denied all part in their crucified and risen Lord? Not by open profligates and blasphemers, but by the according voice of the ministers of Christ's visible church, assembled in their general council at Constance; by those who were daily preaching Christ, and of some of whom, no less than of the very sufferers themselves, it might be said that they preached him in sincerity. Yet could one servant of Christ insult, torture, kill in body, and doom to the everlasting destruction of his soul, another servant of Christ, whose love to their common Lord was no less than his own! So it is; and who shall trust that his bitterest foes will not be amongst the number of his Lord's most faithful servants, if the accursed spirit of

party be enkindled, and the weightier matters of the law be forgotten, for some paltry difference about the mint, and anise, and cummin.

But even on spiritual grounds we are sometimes apt to expect the fruit of our serving God too early. We expect too soon to enjoy an unwavering faith, mortified affections, the love and the peace of God triumphant within us. We think it so shocking that we should sin, after having been once enlightened by the heavenly gift, that we are either dispirited, and fall back in despair, or else take the horrible step of persuading ourselves that sin is not sin, because they who cannot sin have committed it. Rather should we prepare ourselves for an incessant struggle; for seasons and foretastes of God's peace, indeed, the earnest of that which is to come; but not for peace unbroken, nor for temptations wholly subdued. Well doing will still at times at least be so much of an effort that there may be danger of our growing weary in it. Enough of the wilderness will still remain to make it dangerous to resign ourselves to enjoyment, as though we were already gone over Jordan.

Be not therefore weary in well doing; be not wearied because the fruit of it is such as you cannot yet fully value, nor because

your progress is less rapid than you had expected, nor because you do not meet with the respect and support of other men, even of good men, so much as you might have thought probable; nor even because, in your own inmost souls, the present sweets of God's service may often be but faintly tasted, while its difficulties yet remain to be struggled with. Remember that although Christ rose again for us, to show that we should rise also, yet it is so fixed that we must die before we can rise, that he himself became subject to death also. As death still remains to us, so also does, and will remain, some of that evil which first brought death into the world. We shall triumph, through the blood of Christ over the one and the other; but till death be destroyed, sin will not utterly perish, nor Christ's church cease to be militant. Pray we that we may hold fast by him through all our struggles and difficulties, that we may never be weary of following Him, who, in this, as in other things, was a comforting example to his faithful servants, that his struggles with evil were not over till the very moment when he commended his spirit into the hands of his Heavenly Father.

SERMON XXIX.

CHRISTIAN THANKFULNESS.

II CORINTHIANS IV. 1.

As we have received mercy, we faint not.

THIS is the true Christian's motto. As we have received mercy from God, we are encouraged to labour in his service from love and gratitude; God's mercy ever coming first, not to reward work done, but exciting us to work to come. And this is so in the great matter of our whole lives; we are forgiven freely, and then are called upon to live as those who are forgiven, as children whom God loves: and it is true also of many particular points and events in our lives, where God's mercies wholly undeserved are poured upon us, to quicken us to love him in return. We know this indeed, and have all heard it many times over, but the state of the world clearly shows that we do