with grace," for it is useful. By this you are furnished for moral stations and relative exertions. This qualifies you to teach your children, to govern your families, to edify the members of the Church. This prepares you to be good neighbours, to comfort the distressed conscience, and to have the tongue of the learned, that you may be able to "speak a word in season to him that is weary." And then you may be able to address those that are without, with the earnestness which real experience will induce a man to use, saying, "That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ." "Lo, this, we have searched it, so it is; hear it, and know thou it for thy good."

"It is a good thing that the heart be established with grace," because it is consolatory. It has connected with it a degree of certainty. To be left in suspense in common cases is painful, but nothing is more distressing than uncertainty, indetermination, and perplexity in cases which are very momentous. This will be the case here.

It may be desirable to specify a few of these to show how much a firm character conduces to our everlasting consolation, as well as good hope through grace.

Take the doctrine of justification. How necessary is it that the heart be established here! What else must you do? How can you obtain peace with God now, or hope of future blessedness, but by coming to and believing on Christ alone? We obtain peace by the blood of His cross. There is no robe of righteousness in which you can appear with acceptance before God, but the robe of Christ's righteousness. You cannot be acceptable in His sight in your own filthy garments. See how necessary it is that you should be decided and firm here.

Take the doctrine of final perseverance. How well is it that our hearts be established on this point! I have to contend with the powers of darkness, I have to "wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." Am I left to my own prowess, and strength, and standing? Then I am sure I cannot succeed; but I have the assurance that I shall in all these things be more than conqueror through Him who loveth me? Oh, how this revives and animates me!

"A Friend and Helper so divine

Does my weak courage raise ;
He makes the glorious victory mine,
And His shall be the praise."

Take the doctrine of Providence. I mean not only of a general, but of a particular Providence. How desirable is it that we should be established here! Am I left to choose; or am I under the management of my heavenly Father and Friend, of One who is always kind and nigh at hand, and faithful to His promises? Ám I in this world the sport of events; or does He care for me? Am I authorised to say, "All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep His covenant and His testimonies," though some of them seem to be very painful? And may I say, "I know that all things shall work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose?"

So good is it, therefore, that "the heart be established with. grace," because it is safe, because it is honourable, because it is useful, because it is consolatory.

So much for our explanatory notes. Now, as for references on the subject: we observe, first, that whatever we may think of the liberality of mind and freedom of inquiry of which some of our fellow-creatures boast, it is not an enviable state to be always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth; but it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace.

Then, secondly, error is not a harmless thing. In proportion as we allow error to be harmless, we allow truth to be useless. But Divine authority says, "Buy the truth, and sell it not." "For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace."

Therefore, thirdly, a sound, judicious, and evangelical ministry is a great blessing. We ought, in obedience to our Lord's injunctions, not only to take heed how we hear, but to take heed what we hear, for "It is a good thing that the heart be established with grace."

Then, lastly, see the importance of experience. There is nothing that confirms like this. Orthodoxy may be easily severed from mere speculation. What one man puts into your heads, another may easily put out of them. But it is otherwise with regard to what you have derived from divine teaching. And, therefore, hear the conclusion of the Apostle John when he refers to some who threw off the form of godliness, and entered the world: "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us they would no doubt have continued with us, but they went out that they

"But

might be made manifest that they were not all of us." ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things. And the anointing which ye have received of Him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you; but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth and not a lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in Him." Therefore, my beloved brethren, love one another, and walk in love as Christ also hath loved us. And "the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure; for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall; for so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."

44I

XLI.

CHRISTIAN HUMILITY.

(Delivered on Thursday Evening, November 27th, 1845.)

"Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He shall lift you up.”— JAMES iv. 10.

MUCH of the wisdom of the ancients was delivered in short sentences, easily remembered. Each of the wise men of Greece were distinguished by some adage or maxim. We often read of our Saviour's sayings : "Whoso heareth these sayings of mine"; "If any man have ears to hear, let him hear." Many of these, we may be assured, would be handed down from time to time by traditions. Paul met with one of these therefore he writes, "Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, It is more blessed to give than to receive." But many of them were not left to carnal preservation, but are recorded in the Gospels, and not one of them all was more frequently mentioned than this: "He that exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." We will mention two of the sayings; the first occurred on a civil occasion, for our Lord did not deem it beneath Him to teach His disciples good manners and behaviour. So we read that "He put forth a parable to those which were bidden, when He marked how they chose out the chief room, saying unto them, When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room, lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him, and he that bade thee and him come and say unto thee, Give this man place, and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room. But when

thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room, that when he that bade thee cometh he may say unto thee, Friend go up higher; then shalt thou have worship of them that sit at meat with thee, for whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted."

The other was on a religious occasion: "He spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. Two men went up to the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee, the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not so much as lift up his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted."

So then we see that the way to be rich in His estimation is to be poor in spirit, and the way to rise is to descend.

We find also that the Apostles of our Lord were led into the same truth. Hence Peter says, "Ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble." "Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time." So James in our text says, "Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He shall lift you up."

So far what we have considered has been to give the words a character of importance; we must now hasten to their intention, and let us first examine the humiliation here enjoined ; secondly, the exaltation here promised.

I. THE HUMILIATION HERE ENJOINED. selves in the sight of the Lord."

"Humble your

We should humble ourselves "in the sight of the Lord," even as creatures, for as such we are nothing, "less than nothing and vanity." Yet we are the work of His hands, “and fearfully and wonderfully made." But we should humble ourselves especially as sinners before Him. We have not only neglected, but have opposed Him, and declared ourselves His enemies by wicked works.

This humiliation before Him will include particularly three things, though not exclusively. First, you must humble your reason with regard to His revelation, receiving His word with meekness, and, as the Apostle says, "Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought