serted you. Cherish, then, and keep up, by every means which God has graciously given you, the influence of the Spirit! as trials come, as difficulties increase, pray the more constantly. Let the habit of prayer be your strength, and your never-failing resort. Attend not only to the inward doctrines, but to the outward fences of religion. Hallow the sabbath: hallow the name of God. Beware how you tamper with the least observances of simplehearted devotion. Pray for the moral courage to pursue the straight path of unambitious duty. Shun, above all things, the most seductive form of vice, the vice of agreeable companions. And remember the lesson which has been derived from this day's Epistle; and as ye love life, holy life, and the prospect of glorious life, and would see good days, "Refrain your tongue from evil, and your lips that they speak no guile: eschew evil and do good: seek peace, and ensue it.”

SERMON XXIII.

COMPLETE OBEDIENCE.

ST. LUKE. i. 6.

"And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless."

THE persons of whom this singularly high testimony is given by the Holy Spirit, were a Jewish priest and his wife, Zachariah and Elizabeth, whose residence was at Hebron in the hill country of Judah. I do not select these words as the text of my present discourse, merely for the purpose of showing that men may by diligent obedience and performance of their duty please God and obtain His approval, though in this respect they (as the similar testimony respecting the Gentile Cornelius) are by no means unimportant; but rather to suggest to you the strong contrast which there is between our advantages and theirs, and the consequently increased necessity which lies upon us to be as

uniform and exact in duty as they were. They lived in a very unholy age. Their generation is stigmatized both by Christ and His precursor the Baptist, as a generation of vipers. Their teachers made the word of God of none effect by their traditions. Instead of feeding the people with God's word and promise, they bound grievous burthens of ceremony upon their backs, and would not so much as touch them with one of their fingers. They neither entered into the kingdom of God themselves, nor suffered them that were entering to go in. Yet amid this almost universal blindness and hardness of heart, in that very temple which was become a den of thieves in place of a house of prayer, did the old priest continue, all his life long, to offer incense in the order of his course, in simpleness of heart, and regular duty; not betrayed by the popular teachers into neglect of the commandments, not misled by Scribe or Pharisee into undue reverence of the ordinances, but blameless alike in such things as tithes of mint, anise and cummin, and the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith. And his domestic life was as exemplary as his public. In his retirement at Hebron, where after the weeks of his ministration, he returned to his childless home, the aged pair still had the testimony of God that their lives. were upright and blameless. Although Elizabeth

Matth. xii. 34; xxiii. 33.

2 Matth. iii. 7.

was now known among her kindred as barren, she bore with patience and integrity that "reproach among men." Both lived on in expectation of the "consolation" which all prophecy declared to be now prepared for Israel, though, as far as human foresight could judge, they were to have no part, as parents, in the events that should introduce it. Consider, then, in contrast with this account of fidelity under discouragement, the state of advantage in respect of duty in which we are placed. Carried in our first infancy to the holy fountain of baptism, we therein were put into covenant with God; and this covenant not one of burthensome service, mere external administrations, with curses for its sanctions, but one of help, and grace, and glorious promises. The Holy Spirit of God was conveyed to us in that sacrament, and from Him during all our lives, we have received continual assistance to please God and perform His will. Under His influence, we were early taught to pray. The lessons of Christian faith and practice were soon communicated to us. Our lives have been spent amidst continual opportunities of instruction. As we grow older, the holy communion of the Lord's Supper is offered to us, as the most abundant and richly blest means of spiritual grace. From our birth till our death we live within the pale of the holy Church, the possessor of the promises of God. Every sort of external circumstance, and every sort of inward succour are freely and fully

given to us; and the object of them all is, that we may be " a peculiar people," for Christ's sake, and in the strength of the Spirit, "zealous of good works."

But as the advantages of our situation are very great, so are the holiness and perfection of duty to which we are called as Christians very great also. As much has been given us, so much is enjoined upon us, and much will be required from us. The knowledge, encouragement, and inward strength, which are so abundantly furnished to us, must bring forth the good fruits of more perfect holiness, and more complete devotion, or else they will turn out to be only aggravations of our guilt and punishment. We are required to give up all our hearts to God, to do all things, even the humblest and most ordinary, to His glory, to be sanctified (we ourselves anxiously cherishing the Holy Spirit of sanctification) in body, soul, and spirit. The dispensation of faith establishes, enlarges, and renders more binding on the conscience the high spiritual morality of the law.

Now it is easy to speak in the strongest terms of the holiness which Christian religion requires ;every person readily acknowledges it. To say less of it, would be felt by every one as a derogation from the purity and excellence of our holy religion. But men do not by any means carry out in their lives that which they so freely acknowledge. They profess to have a religion of the most sublime and