SERMON XVI.

SELF DENIAL, A CHRISTIAN GRACE.

ST. LUKE IX. 23.

If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.

IN my former discourse on these words, I shewed you that a worldly life is one of self-gratification, a Christian life one of self-denial; this is indeed a fundamental distinction. I know of no one characteristic mark, by which the two are more clearly separated; a religious man lives in one continued opposition to the world and the flesh; an irreligious man in one regular course of conformity to them. This constitutes a most striking and essential difference between individuals of the same species, and it results from the very strange and peculiar nature of man; for man is a most extraordinary being, unlike all others in

creation, as far as our knowledge extends; all other living beings, respecting whose existence we have any information, are either altogether of a spiritual and immaterial nature, or altogether of a bodily and material substance; of the former class are God and his holy angels, in whom is nothing but goodness, and Satan and his wicked angels, in whom is nothing but evil. Of the latter class are all the irrational animals, that inhabit this globe. Man stands between the two, partaking of the nature of both, a mysterious compound of soul and body, by the one allied to the invisible spiritual world, in the other, resembling the inferior animals, not only in constitution and substance, but in his senses, his desires, his propensities, and his instincts.

But there is one particular, in which this two-fold resemblance to beings of the most opposite natures, is very strikingly exhibited. Although, "like the beasts that perish," man is mortal, destined to live only for a short period in this scene of things, and then to disappear from the world, his body mingling with the dust, out of which it was created, yet with spiritual beings he partakes of immortality, and in some condition or other, will exist to all eternity.

Composed of such contradictory ingredients, what is to be the method of his life? By which

of these two conflicting principles is he to be regulated and governed? Is he to "live after the spirit," or "after the flesh?" As mortal, and so study only the interests and pleasures of his present state of existence; or as immortal, and so arrange all his plans with a view to futurity? He must decide one way or the other, or else he will live a most distracted, inconsistent, unhappy life, tossed to and fro, dragged this way and that, ever at war with himself, and never satisfied with his own conduct.

It is a most important question that he has to determine; every thing both in this world and the next depends on this; his whole system of action and frame of mind will vary according to his decision; in the next, the consequences will extend through an eternal duration of happiness or misery.

Now I do not intend at present to argue that the self-denying life of religion is most for your ultimate happiness and advantage; this, I hope, with God's help, to make the subject of a future discourse; my endeavour on this occasion will be to convince you, that the nature of man being such as I have described, religion does absolutely require a life of self-denial, that it is impossible to be true Christians without denying ourselves, and taking up our cross daily.

There is nothing, my brethren, more necessary for us to be assured of than this; it is the grand maxim which we have to learn, and to practise; we ought to set out on our religious course fully prepared to expect perpetual and violent opposition from our own nature and inclinations; we ought to know that we are commencing a warfare with ourselves, which, although indeed it will be more difficult and dangerous at the beginning, than after a long engagement in it, will yet never be wholly terminated until life itself shall end. We ought to keep ever in mind that a Christian is "a new creature," the very contrary of the natural man, his inborn desires and propensities subdued, and new affections, new feelings, new interests, new principles implanted in him.

The greater part of mankind do not perceive or acknowledge this necessity; they even dispute it with strong and cogent reasons as they imagine. I have heard men maintain (and I have no doubt many a corrupt heart is influenced by the same false and specious arguments,) in behalf even of palpable and positive vices, that it never could have been intended that we should act in contradiction to the very nature which has been given us; that to do so is even to resist the will of God, who made us such as we are. Perhaps Eve