must subdue the outward to itself, or the outward will stifle the inward life. Let us, therefore, make our choice, and let us choose wisely. Most pure is the happiness which may be ours, if a bliss without a shade of sorrow.

only we will; There are no

thorns now in the hidden life of Christ; no chill, no blemish in its gladness. All things, even the best, below God, have a canker somewhere, and the taint of a fallen world is on them. Not so the life which is with Christ in God. It is as peaceful as it is pure; high above the reach of all perturbations. They that live in Him have their dwelling in God; they look out of Him as out of an everlasting shelter; and look down on the wide weltering sea of this world's troubled life. Let us pray of Him to draw us within the veil; to make us forgotten among men; to gather up all our life into Himself: that "when Christ, who is our life, shall appear," we may "appear with Him in glory."

SERMON XVI.

SINS OF INFIRMITY.

ST. MATTHEW Xxvi. 41.

"Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."

THESE words of our Lord in the garden, when He came from His agony and found the apostles asleep, are very sorrowful and touching. They shew an ineffable depth of tenderness and compassion. He uttered neither reproach nor complaint at their unseasonable slumber; but only, "What, could ye not watch with me one hour?" and He turned away all thought from Himself to them; and, for their own sakes, bade them "watch and pray," for that their trial was at hand. Now in this we have a wonderful example of the love of Christ. How far otherwise we should act in such a case, we all well know. When any seem to us to be less keenly awake to the trial we may happen to be undergoing, we are above measure excited, as if some great

wrong were done to us. There is nothing we resent so much as the collected manner of those who are about us in our afflictions. If they still seem the same when we are so changed-even if they can still be natural, feel common interests, and take their wonted rest, we feel exceedingly aggrieved, and almost forget our other trial, in the kindling of a sort of resentment. We have here, then, a wonderful pattern of gentleness and forgetfulness of self; for if ever there was a season of sorrow to any born of woman, it was the hour of agony in the garden. It seems strange to us how His disciples could have slept at such a time. They had but then left the upper chamber, where they had seen and heard all the sad words and acts of that last passover; they had heard Him saying, "With desire I have desired to eat this

you

passover with before I suffer;" and little as they understood the full meaning of that mystery of sorrow, yet from His way of speaking they must have felt overcast by the belief that some trial, greater than any before, was near at hand. Moreover, they had seen Him "troubled in spirit," and heard Him say, 66 one you shall betray me.”1 And, besides this, His parting words to them when He went away from them a stone's cast in the garden, were enough, we should have thought, to keep us waking:

of

1 St. John xiii. 21.

"Then saith He unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death; tarry ye here, and watch with me." And with all these things full upon them, it would have seemed that they, least of all, could have fallen asleep—they, the favoured three-Peter who loved his Master with so earnest and warm a love, and James who was counted worthy to be the companion of Peter, and the disciple who an hour before had lain on His breast at supper. In St. Luke's Gospel we read that they were "sleeping for sorrow." And this secret cause of their heaviness, it may be, the evangelist learned of some one who well knew what passed on that awful night. Who can doubt but that they sadly told all their infirmities? St. Matthew (and St. Mark also) say that "their eyes were heavy. And they that have entered into the depths of sorrow know well how nearly akin to slumber is the languor and amazement of unutterable grief; how the " sight faileth for looking upward," and the eyes, which gaze fixedly and see nothing, close for very emptiness. But none knew this better than He, the Man of Sorrows, when He spoke these few words of mild upbraiding. It was at that hour they had most need to watch, as being by sorrow least able to stand against temptation. Theirs,

1 St. Matt. xxvi. 38.

3 St. Matt. xxvi. 43.

2 St. Luke xxii. 45.

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then, is an example of an almost blameless infirmity; and yet, though hardly to be blamed, it was not the less beset with danger. And here we have a great warning, and a no less consolation: a great warning, indeed; for if they slumbered at such an hour, how may we not fear that our temptations will often fall upon us unawares? And yet, for our consolation, we see how gently He bare with them; and He will surely be no more severe with us. In truth, He made their defence for them; His very warning taught them how to plead with Him; and by teaching it, He acknowledged the truth of the plea: "the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." Let us consider these words.

And, first, we must observe, that by "the spirit" is to be understood what we call the heart or will, illuminated by the grace of God; as where St. Paul says, "the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh;" and where he prays for the Thessalonians, that their "whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless ;" and again, "the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God." And next, by "the flesh" is to be understood our fallen manhood, with its affections and lusts, so far as they still remain even in the regenerate.

1 Gal v. 17.

Now