at bottom. There must be some latent feeling, some old resolution, some better principle, accidentally overlaid by passion, some secret working of the Holy Spirit of God within the heart, or else punishment, or reproof, only hasten on the deadly consummation of rebellion and ruin. Just so we give medicines to the body, upon the hope and presumption, that there is still some natural tone of constitution, some remaining vigour, which may enable the patient to struggle back to health, and master the evil effects of the original disease and the medicine together. Before the patient recovers, he must get rid both of the disease and of the medicine: if the medicine kills the disease, the natural strength must revive and expel the medicine, or else recovery cannot be. And just so it is with the soul. Punishment may have effect in directly checking the repetition, or the outward effects of vice; but unless there be some vigour of grace, some remaining force of good resolution, some timely movement of the Holy Spirit in the heart, to enable it to struggle back to virtue, the punishment will rather increase than diminish the conflagration of sin in the soul. The soul that was dying of the sin, will die all the quicker for the intended remedy.

Think, then, my brethren, what dangerous

moments those are which follow after punishment or reproof! Think of the hazard which men run, when they allow tumultuous indignation, or bitter hate, to take possession of their minds. Consider whether such feelings do not go far towards proving them to be incurable. Consider whether those are not the very moments in which their souls become either permanently God's or permanently Satan's.

The separate occasions on which such feelings are to be manifested may seem small and unimportant ones; but as regards the formation of our characters, and our state in the eyes of God, they are far from unimportant. They form part (who knows whether they may not form the greatest part?) of our trial. Woe be to us, if we try to obey in great things, and neglect small ones! if we take care of our outward deeds or looks, and let our secret feelings run loose to sin!

No: it is the meek and humble spirit, which is most watchful against constant daily imperfections, which takes reproof, if ever it should meet with it, in the only true and Christian way. Watchful obedience trains us to lowliness and meekness, while careless and indifferent living is the surest mode of reaching undutifulness and rebellion of spirit. But in the one is

peace, in the other turbulence and sorrow; the one is well pleasing to God, the other most offensive to Him; the one is the imitation of Christ, the other the imitation of the traitor.

Consider, then, how great, and various, and deadly, were the assaults of the Tempter on that great evening of the first Communion!

Remember how he who then bruised the Saviour's heel, and caused His great and awful agony in the garden, assailed St. Peter with the dangerous weapon of indirect temptation, and Judas with the still more fatal one of rebellion against reproof: and remember, that in continual and earnest prayer, our own security is to be found against the powers of evil. Indirect temptation is the danger of the well-intentioned, the weak, the self-confident, and the amiable. Rebellion against reproof is the danger of the careless, the proud, the self-indulgent, the looseliving. But the one is more likely to turn and repent and be converted, while the other is in danger of becoming the hopeless prey of evil spirits.

SERMON IV.

DIVERSITIES OF GIFTS.

1 COR. xii. 4—6.

"Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are diversities of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all."

Ir serves as a key to the First Epistle to the Corinthians, to remember that it was written by St. Paul, as an answer to a letter, full of enquiries and difficulties, which they had sent him. Hence, the subjects are various, and the transitions abrupt. He passes from one point to another, following, as is probable, the order of their letter, for the most part, and sometimes recurring again to a subject which he had treated before. Amongst these subjects occurs, in the twelfth chapter, that of spiritual gifts. He

begins it quite as a new matter, one of which he had not spoken before. It was, probably, the next point of their letter. As far as we

can gather from the Epistle, the point on which they had applied to him was the order, or precedency, of such gifts. Given, as they seem to have been, in gracious profusion to the Corinthian Church, they seem to have excited jealousies and disputings among them. Some persons thought themselves above their neighbours on the ground of possessing them; others felt themselves in a situation of comparative disadvantage from not enjoying them. The possessor of one gift quarrelled with the possessor of another respecting their relative rank or value. Some question, arising out of this state of things, they probably laid before the Apostle, who, in this chapter (the first eleven verses of which are appointed for the Epistle on the tenth Sunday after Trinity), and the two following ones, enters into the whole subject.

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Respecting spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant." Their disputes had, apparently, shown them to be very ignorant of the whole nature and intention of their spiritual gifts, and therefore the Apostle begins by lamenting this ignorance, and proposing to remove it as though he had said: "As to the spiritual