neous.

66

We must not expect that our reformation, even with the assistances of divine grace, will be instantaThe eradication of evil habits, and replacing them with good ones, is the work of time. It must be done gradually; for propensities and customs that have, in a manner, grown up with us, so as to have become as a part of our nature, cannot be destroyed all at once, but require much care and patience, and many a struggle with ourselves, before they will quit us. The Christian religion, while it is leading us forward to the utmost attainable point of human perfection, employs itself chiefly as a restraint and a corrective. It is attended with comforts, and with a peace that passeth all understanding;" but, at the same time, its great energy consists in checking the turbulence of our passions, deterring our hearts from sin, and withholding us from the dangers of temptation. When it has operated so far as to have abolished our sinful habits and inclinations, and has "renewed us in the spirit of our minds," still, from the essential frailty and corruption of our original nature that hereditary sin which we have derived from our first parents, and which cannot be entirely overcome in this life, there will daily be instances of transgression or omission, and many cases in which we have been surprised into sin. "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation," is our Saviour's charge to all his disciples: but in proportion to our own vigilance is his care for us. Under the protection, therefore, of his love, we are safe, as long as we

abide in him, and endeavour to obey his holy Gospel. When we have done our utmost, we are but unprofitable servants; for there can be no merit even in our best actions;-yet our defects will be more than compensated by his abundant merits; as he not only "died for our sins," but "rose again for our justification." If we are in him, he will be in us;-he will accept and assist even our humblest efforts, and will lead us on from strength to strength, till we are qualified to enjoy that eternal inheritance which he has prepared for us in heaven.

SERMON XI.

THAT THE WORLD SHOULD BE MADE SUBSERVIENT TO OUR ETERNAL SALVATION.

JOHN Xvii. 15.

I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil.

THE men whose thoughts are chiefly occupied with worldly plans, and who are continually straining their invention to contrive and execute them dexterously, are peculiarly unfitted for religious contemplations. As they fix their hearts and minds upon things of the present life, and make those all in all, they have scarcely an idea of any thing further. Occupations and enquiries that do not either immediately or ultimately lead to some tangible profit or secular advancement, are, in their estimation, not worth attending to:-and they look upon other men as rather deficient in intellect or in common sense, who are not governed by the same principle of selfinterest. They acknowledge religion to be a useful

and necessary thing, because it improves the human character; and, therefore, contributes to the wellbeing of society, by making men mild, and generous, and candid, and forbearing, and consequently peaceable, and safer to deal with in the ordinary transactions of life than they would otherwise be :--but as for its power to soften the heart, to withdraw our meditations from earthly things to heavenly, to wean us from self-love and matters of mere policy, and to prepare us for the momentous concerns of death and judgment ;-this is a point of view in which they are unwilling to see it, because it would not accord with their habitual notions and pursuits. They regard it as the refuge of weaker minds, of which they themselves have little or no need :-they feel, as they imagine, a more independent dignity in trusting to their own riches, their own wisdom, and their own strength.

The folly of this worldly arrogance is denounced in every part of scripture, but most emphatically and severely in the New Testament. Our blessed Saviour describes it as proceeding from the influences of the spiritual Enemy; and the title that he assigns to the Devil is, "the prince of this world."* St. Paul, while he is lamenting the depravity of those who are "enemies of the cross of Christ," says, that their "end is destruction," that their "God is their belly," and that they "glory in their shame ;" but he sums up the description, and accounts for it at the same

*John xii. 31.

time, by adding, that they "mind earthly things."* St. James declares, that "the friendship of the world is enmity with God;"+ St. John, in the former of his Epistles, says the same thing in other words" If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him ;" and the reason he gives for it is that “all that is in the world,-the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,—is not of the Father, but is of the world." The danger to be feared is not exclusively confined to the temper which, in popular language we call worldly-mindedness;— but it belongs to the world itself, as the scene of all those vanities which our Christian profession requires us to renounce, and of all those carnal propensities, which it requires us to mortify. The allurements that it holds out to our passions and senses are what we have to guard against, if we would " pollutions" that are destructive to the soul.

escape the

The reasonableness, however, of the Christian religion, as the law of human life, would suggest to us, that the world, in the bad sense only of the term, is to be the object of our extreme aversion; and this, indeed, is the case. We could not reconcile it with God's wisdom, much less with his great attributes of love and mercy, that he should make this earth the place of our natural existence and the trialscene of our fidelity, and yet that it should be so overspread with gloom and peril as to afford us no means of safe enjoyment or of happy discipline. He

* Phil. iii. 18, 19.

James iv. 4.

1 John ii. 15, 16.