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mansion in heaven, are both secured to you. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."

But here again you may say, "There is, on points connected with this subject, much diversity of opinion, and consequently great danger of error: where shall I find a clue, which will guide me aright? Where shall I find a star, which will lead me to Jesus?" We would direct the attention of those, who make such an inquiry as this, to

A fourth object; not to the boasted consent of the Fathers, a consent which is nowhere to be found, and which, if found, might possibly be nothing better than a consent in error; but to that infallible standard of truth, the written word of God. This, too, is opposed in Scripture to the uncertainty and evanescence of everything worldly. "All flesh is as grass," says St. Peter, in a passage already referred to," and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: but the word of the Lord endureth for ever.” (1 Pet. i. 24, 25.) And to the same purpose most emphatically our Lord, " Verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." (Matt. v. 18.) What a source of

of consolation is it to the conscientious inquirer after divine truth, amid the palpable and gross ignorance and errors of a world lying under the power of the prince of darkness, to have in his hands an infallible guide to heaven! Study, my brethren, this word with a deep sense of your own ignorance and liability to error, and with earnest prayer to God for the enlightening and sanctifying influence of his Holy Spirit, to enable you to understand, and to profit by it, and you shall be led into all necessary truth.

Only, in conclusion, allow me, with still greater distinctness, to remind you, that it is not enough to be merely a reader or a hearer of this word, but that you must be a doer of it alco. Indeed, unless this be the case with you, your study of it will be of no avail to you: nay, it will only serve to increase your condemnation. But if, through the aid of divine grace, you faithfully follow its directions; if, in compliance with them, you really repent of your sins past; really receive Christ as your wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption; and show the sincerity of your faith by your obedience to his will; if you thus do the will of God; why, then, in the midst of a world, the fashion of which passeth away, you yourselves shall remain stable and permanent: for thus the apostle: "The world

passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever." (1 John ii. 17.) If this be the case with you, your hope here shall be as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, entering into that within the veil, (Heb. vi. 19,) and keeping you stedfast and serene amid all the tempests which may assail you: and hereafter there shall await you nothing less than a crown of glory; a crown, a principal glory of which consists in that which most eminently distinguishes it from the most splendid of earthly crowns and glories, the circumstance, I mean, that it is a crown that fadeth not away.

That this may be the case with us all; that, through the mighty influences of the Holy Spirit, we may all of us obediently listen to the voice now addressed to us both of the word and of the providence of God; that those among us, who have hitherto suffered themselves to dote on a world, the fashion of which passeth away, may now at length learn to wean their affections from their unworthy idol, and to turn their attention to objects stable and permanent, and infinitely deserving that attention; and that those of you, with whom this is in some measure already the case, may make a continually accelerated progress in your christian course; may look still less and less at the things which are seen and

are temporal, and, forgetting those things which are behind, may reach forth still more eagerly to those things which are before, press forward with still greater earnestness for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus: (Phil. iii. 13, 14:) may God of his infinite mercy grant, through the same Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, three divine and coequal Persons in one undivided Jehovah, be ascribed equal, eternal, boundless praise. Amen.

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SERMON VI.

RELIEF IN CHRIST UNDER ALL CIRCUMSTANCES OF DISTRESS.

(An Advent Sermon.)

ISAIAH XXxii. 2.

"A man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land."

Ir is very far from being anywhere promised in the Scriptures that the life of the real Christian shall be exempt from affliction. Nay, in addition to those general afflictions, which all flesh is heir to, there are others, and those often of a most distressing nature, which are peculiar to him alone. But under all his troubles, of whatever nature they may be, and however severe, he yet, according to the ancient prophecy

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