and we live in the daily consciousness of their reality.

But what if all these blessed effects do not follow-what if our faith is still weak, and the world is not overcome; that is, if the temptations of the world are still too much for us, and earthly hopes, and fears, and affections, still reign within our bosoms with far greater sway than the love of God? What shall we say to this? Is God's promise not sure? Is our labour all in vain? Or is it an empty dream that the Holy Spirit of God will ever deign to abide with the corrupt spirit of man? Shall we be careless or desperate, or rush to that most deadly snare of all, and say that we are fated to be as we are, and we cannot help it? All these are questions which arise from not enough bracing our minds to the belief of this great truth, that our struggle with evil must last to the very latest hour of our continuance in the body. Who told us that our victory would be won with less than half a life's labour; that our first efforts would be successful; and that we should be partakers of the rest that remaineth for the people of God, ere yet the sun had begun to slope from his meridian-ere the first shades of evening had arisen around us? We must learn another and a harder lesson, or else indeed we shall lose

the victory for ever. Is our faith still weak?let us take heed that our prayers have not been

less frequent or less zealous. Is the world still too much for us?-let us take heed that we have not thrown away some portion of our defence; that we have not been imprudent, to say the least of it; that we have not used the world even so as to abuse it; that we have not let the weeds and the thorns of earthly riches, pleasures, and honours, grow too unchecked and rankly. Let us measure our years, if we are young or in the vigour of manhood, at once for encouragement and for warning: if we see how little progress we have hitherto made, let us take heed lest we should feel the same when all our threescore years and ten are over; for the despair that would be most sinful now will be too just and too certain then. And let us know, that if we indulge the spirit of carelessness now, this despair will come,-our years will pass away unnoted, till gone for ever. But if our hearts are only unreasonably fearful, if we expected to conquer sin with too little effort, think of the portion of our lives that yet remains, think to what precious purposes it may be applied, and and that he were but a foolish and faint-hearted traveller who expected to reach the end of his journey before half his day was over.

SERMON IV.

ACTs, ii. 42.

And they continued stedfastly in the apostle's doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.

IN speaking of Christian faith, I mentioned that there were three principal means of acquiring it: namely, reading the Scriptures, prayer, and a partaking of the Lord's supper. I have spoken of the two first of these, and I now propose to speak of the third; to which I may the better ask for your attention, as the communion is so soon to be here administered. Would that you might feel that communion to be as great a blessing as it really is; that you might, like the first Christians spoken of in the text, continue "stedfast in the apostle's doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers."

"The breaking of bread," here spoken of, was the Lord's supper, which is often mentioned under this name in different parts of the New Testament. It appears to have been celebrated as a real supper, as a sort of Christian feast; which we

may perceive from St. Paul's language to the Corinthians, where he charges them with profaning it, by not only making it like a common feast, but dishonouring it by actual riot and intemperance, such as would be sinful even at the commonest feast. But it is clear, from the very faults into which the early Christians fell with respect to the Lord's supper, that they were in the habit of celebrating it very often; and though in some cases, as at Corinth, it was celebrated very unworthily, yet we must not suppose that this was so always. Those Philippians and Thessalonians, of whom St. Paul speaks so highly, were likely to receive the communion of the Lord's supper not less often than the Corinthians; but in a very different manner, and with very different effects. To them, as to the first disciples at Jerusalem, mentioned in my text, it was a true remembrance of Christ's death; the bread which they brake, the cup which they drank, were a true partaking of Christ's body and blood. To them, in short, the communion was a powerful means of grace, and helped, under God's blessing, to increase their faith.

May it be so to us fault is not our own.

also; and it will be, if the It will be a means of grace:

I beg attention to the words; for this is a point very necessary to be understood, in order to avoid a superstition as foolish as it is mischievous. "It

is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing:" that is, it is not the consecrated bread and wine that have any virtue in themselves, for that would be to make them like a charm; but it is the state of mind which the preparation for and partaking in this ordinance implies, and is so well fitted to produce, which is so highly to be desired, and which tends to strengthen and confirm our faith. When, therefore, persons who never or very seldom receive the communion in health, are anxious to partake of it before they die, I am afraid that this desire is very often a mere deceiving superstition. They do not go to it as a means of grace; but as a means of gaining them pardon without grace,—as a means by which they may be saved without having in their lives heartily turned to God. And this is to make the communion a gross superstition; it is in fact to regard it as if it were a charm. In life and health it will assuredly make us better, if we habitually attend it; but who will dare to say that it can make us better on our death-beds, when we have neither the time nor the power of mind to complete so mighty a work as that of repentance, or a change of heart and desires from evil to good? The rain and the sunshine are the appointed means by which the fruits of the earth are ripened; but, in order to do their work, they must be sent in their proper season. They will make

VOL. II.

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