circumstances, He is ready to assist us, to strengthen us in our weakness, and aid us in the struggle with ourselves, the world, and our spiritual enemies.

We are liable to sudden temptations, and in their suddenness, to many of us, at least, consists their danger: but it is under these sudden temptations that the aid of the Holy Ghost, honestly sought, is seen to be most strikingly effectual. The more urgent our need, the greater is the strength He vouchsafes. Therefore, if, under sudden temptation, we fall, it is a grievous thing, because there was help at hand which might have saved us; but when we have fallen, to plead forgetfulness as an excuse, is only adding sin to sin, nay, rather offering a direct insult to the Majesty of God, seeing that it is tantamount to an avowal on our part that the Eternal Spirit—(I am almost afraid of saying such a thing) either could not or would not help us, or else that we despised His assistance.

I trust that what has now been said will induce you to think very seriously of the consequences of excusing yourselves in sin of any kind; for to plead forgetfulness is, in fact, an admission from your own lips, that you have forgotten God, and the text declares that they who forget Him shall be turned into hell. We have a corrupt nature; we are in the midst of an evil world; we are surrounded with bad ex

amples. All these things are against us. But, as baptized Christians, we are the temples of God, and God's Spirit dwelleth in us, and therefore all excuses for sin are taken away. It is our own fault, if we are not enabled to stand upright.

Since, then, these things are so, let us look-well into our hearts and see whether we habitually remember God, or habitually forget Him. What it is to forget Him I have shown you. To remember Him is to devote ourselves to His service: to do all we have to do as in his presence, to speak as in His hearing; to regulate our thoughts, as knowing that unto Him all hearts are open, and desires known, and that from Him no secrets are hid. It is to make "the one thing needful," the absorbing object of our hopes and interests, the guage by which all our worldly affairs are tested and measured, the rule of our occupations and pursuits. To remember God is to live in watchfulness, and prayer and self-denial. It is to have a love, that loves nothing more than Him, and a fear, that fears nothing but what offends Him. It is to have our minds so full of Him, as that when they are unoccupied with the necessary duties of our daily calling, instead of being filled with vanity and frivolity, they naturally and habitually fall back upon Him, His perfections and attributes.

This it is to remember God, and with less than this

He will not be satisfied. But if he sees us honestly endeavouring to attain to this, He will take us by the hand, and lead us from strength to strength. Remembering Him in our youth, devoting to Him those years when the enemy is strongest, and danger greatest, He will not forget us through the course of our after existence. The earlier we seek Him, the sooner we shall find Him; the more earnestly we strive to do his will, the better we shall know it; the more we dread a fall, the more shall we be enabled to keep our footing; the more we avail ourselves of the grace given us, the larger will be the supplies conceded us. We shall be brought on our way rejoicing; shall be supported in dangers, and carried through temptations; and when at length we have fought the good fight of faith, and death is about to release us from our warfare, we may trust in humble confidence through our Redeemer's merits, that in spite of our innumerable deficiencies, we may hear the Judge's pardoning voice in that tremendous hour, when "the wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the people that forget God."

"

SERMON III.

CHRISTIAN PROGRESS.

MATTHEW xix. 20.

What lack I yet?

THERE is, I trust, no danger that any whom I now address are living under the fearful mistake of supposing that to lead a pious life is to merit that reward of eternal happiness in heaven, to which all of us, with greater or less fervency, aspire, as the termination of our prospects beyond the grave. None of you, I am sure, can have so far mistaken the doctrines taught by your spiritual pastors, as to have attributed the earnestness, with which they have pressed on you the necessity of a life of good works, to any belief on their parts, that good works could put away our sins, and endure the severity of God's judgment. You all know that we are accounted righteous before God only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by Faith, and not for our own works and deservings; and that although good