First-We may here learn to see and acknowledge our own weakness and insufficiency.

If some of the most eminent of our Lord's servants have been known to faint under the burthen and heat of the day; how little reason have we to place any reliance upon the grace we have received, or the resolutions we have formed! In order to our stability and perseverance, every day must bring with it fresh supplies of grace and strength and if these should be withheld, our light will necessarily become dim, our faith will fail, and, sooner or later, we shall stumble and fall. What sacred gifts soever we or our brethren may possess, or by whatsoever attainments we or they may be distinguished, let us never think of ourselves or of them more highly than we ought to think; ever remembering, that we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. If, happily, we continue to the present day, forgetting the things that are behind, and reaching forth to those things that are before; it is because we have received help of

God. He is the author and finisher of all the good we possess. It is he who worketh in us to will and to do according to his good pleasure but, while he giveth grace to the humble, he beholdeth the proud afar off. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time. And cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils; for wherein is he to be accounted of?

Secondly-We may learn from what has been said, to exercise an unshaken confidence in God.

All the help that is done upon earth, he doeth it himself. Whether our trouble arises from our own particular trials, or from the afflicted state of the Church, he can easily and speedily carry us above all our fears. Elijah's chief distress arose from the idolatrous abominations of his people, and the consequent displeasure of an offended God. He conceived the tribes of Israel to have wandered too far from the appointed path of duty, to admit the smallest hope of a return to it and hence he abandoned him

self to the deepest dejection of spirit. But to God all things are possible. His ways are not as our ways, nor his thoughts as our thoughts. He can, at any time, turn the captivity of his people as the rivers in the south. Even in their most deplorable fallings away, he can effectually rekindle their first love, and purge away all their transgressions. He may seem, for a small moment, to hide his face from the Church, and to abhor his own inheritance; but with everlasting kindness will he have mercy it. His service may be publicly neglected, his altars forsaken, and his sanctuary profaned: but, amid the general defection, he will never fail to have his unknown thousands in reserve, with whose abode he is acquainted, of whose sincerity he is assured, and whose souls are precious in his sight.

upon

Let us learn then, my brethren, to honour God by a complete reliance upon the wisdom and goodness of all his proceedings. And while he orders all things after the counsel of his own will, let us adopt at an humble distance the devotional language of

the great Apostle-O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! for of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.

74

SERMON V.

LUKE VIII, 5.

A sower went out to sow his seed.

THE parabolic mode of teaching was adopted by our blessed Lord, as the easiest, the surest, and the most engaging method of communicating instruction. All his parables are marked with a high degree of importance, and are calculated to throw extraordinary light upon the operations of divine grace; while many of them can never be sufficiently admired, for the beauty and force they possess. Among these interesting passages of Scripture, that which now claims our attention, may justly be considered as one of the most valuable and impressive. In proof of which we are informed that it produced a more than ordinary effect upon the minds of the disciples, exciting in them an urgent desire to acquaint themselves with its full intent and meaning.