mean appearance, are all considered serious evils. And thus year follows year, to-morrow as to-day, till we think that this, our artificial life, is our natural state, and must and will ever be. But, O ye sons and daughters of men, what if this fair weather but ensure the storm afterwards? what if it be, that the nearer you attain to making yourselves as gods on the earth now, the greater pain lies before you in time to come, or even, (if it must be said,) the more certain becomes your ruin when time is at an end? Come down then from your high chambers at this season to avert what else may be. Sinners as ye are, act at least like the prosperous heathen, who threw his choicest trinket into the water that he might propitiate fortune. Let not the year go round and round, without a break and interruption in its circle of pleasures. Give back some of God's gifts to God, that you may safely enjoy the rest. Fast, or watch, or abound in alms, or be instant in prayer, or deny yourselves society, or pleasant books, or easy clothing, or take on you some irksome task or employment; do one or other, or some, or all of these, unless you say that you have never sinned, and may go like Esau with a light heart to take your crown. Ever bear in mind that day which will reveal all things, and will test all things "so as by fire," and which will bring us into judgment ere it lodges us in heaven.

And for those who have in any grievous way sinned or neglected God, I recommend such persons

never to forget they have sinned; if they forget it not, God in mercy will forget it. I recommend them every day, morning and evening, to fall on their knees, and say, "Lord, forgive me my past sins." I recommend them to pray God to visit their sins in this world rather than in the next. I recommend them to go over their dreadful sins in their minds, (unless, alas! it makes them sin afresh to do so,) and to confess them to God again and again with great shame, and intreat His pardon. I recommend them to look on all pain and sorrow which comes on them as a punishment for what they once were; and to take it patiently on that account, nay, joyfully, as giving them a hope that God is punishing them here instead of hereafter. If they have committed sins of uncleanness, and are now in narrow circumstances, or have undutiful children, let them take their present distress as God's merciful punishment. If they have lived to the world and now have worldly anxieties, these anxieties are God's punishment. If they have led intemperate lives and now are afflicted by any malady, this is God's punishment. Let them not cease to pray under all circumstances that God will pardon them and give them back what they have lost. And thus proceeding, through God's grace, they will gain it, and Esau's great and bitter cry will not be heard from them.

SERMON III.

APOSTOLIC ABSTINENCE A PATTERN FOR CHRISTIANS.

1 TIM. V. 23.

"Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake, and thine often infirmities."

Of

THIS is a remarkable verse, because it accidentally tells us so much. It is addressed to Timothy, St. Paul's companion, the first Bishop of Ephesus. Timothy we know very little, except that he did minister to St. Paul, and hence we might have inferred that he was a man of very saintly character; -but we know little or nothing of him, except that he had been from a child a careful reader of Scripture. This indeed, by itself, in that Apostolic age, would have led us to infer, that he had risen to some great height in spiritual excellence; though it must be confessed that instances are frequent at this day, of persons knowing the Bible well, and yet being little stricter than others in their lives, for all their knowledge. Timothy, however, had so read the Old Testament, and had so heard from St. Paul the

New, that he was a true follower of the Apostle, as the Apostle was of Christ: St. Paul accordingly calls him "my own son," or "my true son in the faith." And elsewhere he says to the Philippians, that he has "no man like-minded to Timothy, who would naturally" or truly "care for their state." And still, after all, this is but a general account of him, and we seem to desire something more definite in the way of description, beyond merely knowing that he was a great saint, which conveys no clear impression to the mind. Now, in the text we have accidentally a glimpse given us of his mode of life. St. Paul does not expressly tell us that he was a man of mortified habits; but he reveals the fact indirectly by cautioning him against an excess of mortification. "Drink no longer water," he says, "but use a little wine." It should be observed, that wine, in the southern countries, is the same ordinary beverage that beer is here; it is nothing strong or costly. Yet even from such as this, Timothy was in the habit of abstaining, and restricting himself to water; and, as the Apostle thought, imprudently, to the increase of his "often infirmities."

There is something very striking in this accidental mention of the private ways of this Apostolical Bishop. We know from history the doctrine and the life of the great saints, who lived some time after the Apostles' age; but we are anxious to know

1 Phil. ii. 20.

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something more of the Apostles themselves, and their associates. We say, "O that we could speak that we could see him in his daily walk,

to St. Paul,

and hear his oral and familiar teaching!—that we could ask him what he meant by this expression in his Epistles, or what he thought of this or the other doctrine." This is not given to us. God might give us greater light than He does; but it is His gracious will to give us the less. Yet perhaps much more is given us in Scripture, as it has come to us, than we think, if our eyes were enlightened to discern it there. Such, for instance, is the text; it is a sudden revelation, a glimpse of the personal character of apostolic Christians; it is a hint which we may follow out. For no one will deny that a very great deal of doctrine, and a very great deal of precept, goes with such a fact as this; that this holy man, without impiously disparaging God's creation, and thanklessly rejecting God's gifts, yet, on the whole, lived a life of abstinence.

I cannot at all understand why such a life is not excellent in a Christian now, if it was the characteristic of Apostles, and friends of Apostles, then. I really do not see why the trials and persecutions, which environed them from Jews and Gentiles, their forlorn despised state, and their necessary discomforts, should not even have exempted them from voluntary sufferings in addition, unless such selfimposed hardships were pleasing to Christ. Yet we find that St. Paul, like Timothy, who (as the Apostle