might live. It is his own saying, "They that are whole need not a physician, but they who are sick." And, of all periods of life, there is none at which Christ will more gladly receive us than at this very time of our greatest weakness and great temptations; at the very time of our struggling with the besetting faults of boyhood-when, with lives stained by sin, and consciences not acquitting us, and yet not hardened ;—we are wandering out of our way daily, more and more, unless the great Shepherd of our souls recall us to himself.

To Him, then, who felt the same temptations which you now feel,-who was himself a boy, and knows that part of human life as well as all the rest,-who feels for it as deep a sympathy, and who, because it is a time of peculiar danger, regards it, for that very reason, with peculiar care,with Him let his surpassing love constrain you to take refuge. Remember,-(it is not a little thing to remind you of,)-remember that feelings which you migh shrink from exposing to any human eye, -annoyances, weaknesses, which even your dearest friends might treat lightly, or perhaps with ridicule, the lightest distress that can vex you, the humblest temptation which can beset you,little trials, little uneasinesses, which I could not even mention here without seeming to trifle with the sacredness of the place, which, in fact, you would hardly like to make much of to your own selves, and yet which do affect the goodness and

happiness of your lives; all these are regarded as tenderly by Christ as if they were the greatest matters in the world in human estimation. Whatever affects your comfort, and so affects your conduct, is of importance in the eyes of Him with whom you have to do. Perhaps you would hardly express some things in words, even in your secret prayers; they seem so trifling to bring before God. But Christ can read your hearts, and knows what is labouring within them; he knows what it is which most troubles you, or most tempts you; and though it be not uttered in words, he regards you with his sympathy, and will deliver you, or strengthen you to your need. Or, if feeling that you neglect him, that you have often heard his call in vain, you think that you are unworthy of his regard; if you would fain be better before you offer yourselves to him, then remember that it was the poor, the maimed, the halt, and the blind, whom the king in the parable called in to his marriage supper. When they came in, he furnished them with the wedding garment; but he did not expect that they should wait till they had themselves procured one. It is a true parable: Christ's Spirit is given to Christ's redeemed; it is his promise to his people. Think you that you can obtain it of yourselves before you offer yourselves to him? No; it is not only a great truth of the Gospel, but it is the very Gospel itself, that all which is demanded of us, in the first instance,

is, that the love of Christ should constrain us to come to him;-that feeling our own weakness and his power, we should come to him with repentance and faith, grieving for our own evil, and trusting to him to cure us. And O that this love

of Christ, our mighty and perfect Saviour, might indeed constrain us all to come unto him with humble hearts, that he might purify us and strengthen us unto life eternal! strain us to appear at his table, we feel to be admitted there!

Might it conhowever unworthy If we wait till we

are worthy, heaven and earth shall sooner pass away, and the judgment overtake us in our sins. But rather let us go to be made worthy; let us go, because he has loved us; and we, though cold, and careless, and full of sin, would fain love him. Let us go, because we are poor and needy, and because we would fain be made rich in all good works, which are the gift of his Spirit. Let us go, because we want help,-because a veil is drawn between us and heaven, and we yearn for our eyes to be opened. Let us go, because we are afraid to go, and half unwilling. Let us go, that our fond fears may be stilled, and our dishonest backwardness removed; that we may fear less, and be more active and zealous; that our will may be wholly as his will, and our weakness strengthened by his power.

SERMON II.

THE SONS OF GOD.

JOHN, i. 12.

As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God.

THIS is one of the encouraging passages of Scripture, full of mercy and of hope. But the words immediately before it are of a different character: -"He came unto his own, and his own received him not." And even the text itself, when put out more fully by the same St. John, in another part of his writings, becomes not indeed less full of mercy, but mixed with something of a more sober character, such as we cannot afford to spare. "Beloved," says St. John, in his first Epistle, "now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And every man that

hath this hope in him, purifieth himself, even as he is pure." What I have read has not consisted of many words, yet it furnishes matter of thought more than enough to occupy all the time which we have now before us. Let us see the principal points which it presents to us, each in its proper order.

First, Those who were Christ's own did not receive him.

Secondly, To those who did receive him he gave power, or, as the margin of our translation reads it, he gave the privilege of becoming the sons of God.

Thirdly, St. John declares for himself and his fellow Christians, that this great privilege was to them not wholly future; that they were then, in fact, enjoying it, yet not to the full; for there was more of the promise yet to be fulfilled, and that in a sense so high, that they could not as yet so much as conceive it. But meanwhile, so enjoying for the present, so hoping for the future, he declares that neither the enjoyment nor the hope were idle; they engrossed his whole being, insomuch that he continually was purifying himself, even as Christ is pure.

First, then," Christ's own did not receive him." This is a matter of fact asserted of Christ's coming into the world, and of his not being listened to by his own people, the Jews. The words relate, in