how did they become vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened; how, professing themselves to be wise, did they become fools; how more and more, falling from that starry heaven of their intellect, did they sow to the flesh, and of the flesh reap corruption. But even if the natural life does not sink thus, yet even then it is miserable and insufficient; for it is God's decree that nothing short of Himself should fill or satisfy the soul. If this soul be unsanctified, if its desires and affections be not fixed on God, then all life is a failure; and all who have lived and died with everything which the world could give them, yet without God, might cry to the Christian as the soul of Gawain shrilled into the ear of the holy king,

"Farewell: there is an isle of rest for thee;

But I am blown along a wandering wind,
And hollow, hollow, hollow all delight."

No soul, then, is sanctified which has not learnt that the object, and the one object, of life is not what we have for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of things which he possesseth; and not what we are— for our wretched little gifts and attainments are absolutely nothing unto God, except in so far as they be used for the good of others; but what we do and what we speak-affections set on things above-the soul which is athirst for God, and the one hope that, however unworthy we be, and however imperfect, we may still be suffered to make our brethren better and not worse, and to spread God's kingdom among men.

III. And so we come to the best, the highest, the divinest part of man-man's spirit, which is none other than the Spirit of God within him. In one sense it needs not to be sanctified, being itself sacred; but it needs to be sanctified in the sense of being preserved

from the contagion and the conquest of the body and the mind. For the spirit may be quenched, though it cannot be sophisticated; and it may be overpowered, though it cannot be depraved. Our sius never arise because we are too ignorant to know our duty, but because we are too weak to do it. When a boy disgraces himself by any form of sin, it is never because he does not know better, but because, being weak as water, he cannot excel, and because his spirit has no power over the impulse of the body or the temptation of the mind. Only do not think that weakness is a plea, or infirmity an excuse; nay, since you might be strong and not weak, such weakness is a sin, and such. infirmity a shame; and if we cannot teach you this, life will teach it you by very rude and very agonising shocks. Nature, at any rate, accepts no idle promises, and listens to no weak excuses; and he who "will not be taught by the rudder must be taught by the rock." So that if you would shun this utter shipwreck, you must, by prayer, and penitence, and thoughtfulness, and humility, see that your spirit controls the warring lusts of the body and purifies the wandering affections of the soul. If not, yours will be one more of those wretched dual lives we see; the lives that face both ways; the lives rent by a fatal schism of disunion; the lives which are like bells jangled out of tune; the lives perfectly clear in their convictions, utterly contemptible in their actions. oh, let me earnestly warn you against the fatal delusion that such a dual, such a divided, such a disharmonious life as this, is enough for God; that there is either virtue or religion in this miserable moral see-saw: that it is sufficient for us to do homage with our lips to what is good, while all the while our unregenerate hearts are full of worldly imagination, and our unsanctified bodies

And

Oh,

are made the instruments of unrighteousness. believe me, the spirit cannot serve God while the soul and the body persist in serving sin. Do you need any illustration of the state I mean? There was once an English minister, who, having designed for his king an act of wickedness, went home and wrote in his private diary a pious prayer: do you think that that was a prayer which God loved, and which God would hear? There was once an English conspirator, who talked open infidelity to all around him, and who, even on the scaffold, uttered the piteous words, "Oh God, if there be a God, save my soul, if I have a soul," who yet, the moment that he was left alone, was heard to fling himself on his knees with passionate entreaties to the very God whom he had just denied: do you think those prayers would be heard? Ah, God is merciful, but I am quite sure that this is a very dangerous, a very awful, a supremely wretched state. Yet, is it a state wholly alien to all our experiences? Have you never known a boy go straight out of this chapel to walk in the way of sinners and sit in the seat of the scornful? Have you never known a boy rise from his very knees to defile his lips with wicked talking, and his actions with wilful sin? Have you never known a boy "wet the face of a sin with a tear, and breathe upon it with a sigh," and fancy that he has prayed against it at the Holy Communion; and then go and plunge into it recklessly again, and go through the same farce once more? Why is this? It is because he deceives himself; it is because he is not living up to his light; not obeying the best part of his nature; not allowing his spirit-which means his reason and his conscience to be the supreme guide of his life. means too often that, both bodily and mentally, he has fallen into bad habits; and that "habit can, in direct

It

opposition to every conviction of the mind, and even but little aided by the elements of temptation, induce a repetition of unworthy actions." And if you feel, any one of you, that this is your state, then realise at once your danger and your duty: your duty, because your present life is a violation of ail that God in His mercy intended for you; your danger, because if this be continued, it can only end in moral death. Oh, "great is the effort, great, and not so easy as it seems, to be good and not bad." If you would be sanctified, learn to be discontent with your dishonour, ashamed of your weakness, penitent for your sins. Arise in tears, and go to your Father; arise in shame and remorse, and cast yourself at your Saviour's feet. Struggle on, and deal very sternly with yourselves. Walk very humbly with your God. Struggle on, if it be only inch by inch, till the rout is resistance, and the resistance victory. I could not tell you to do this if you had to struggle unaided: but it is not so. Stronger is He that is with you than he that is against you. God is with you; His will is your sanctification. For you Christ died. May He—I pray it with my whole heart—may He sanctify you wholly, body, soul, and spirit. Yonder Holy Table, yonder loving Communion, yonder memorial of His body broken and His blood shed for you, is the pledge of His desire to save you. Faithful is He that calleth you, who also will do it.

November 7, 1875.

SERMON XXXVI.

TRUTHFULNESS AND HONESTY.

Ps. li. 6.

"But lo, Thou requirest truth in the inward parts.

I. You all remember how, in the first book of the Bible, there is a tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the first tendency to sin is to linger in its neighbourhood, and the first impulse to sin is to look at it as a tree to be desired, and the first act of sin is to pluck its fruit. On that tree of death we will not look to-day. In the last book of the Bible there is another tree-a tree planted by the river of the water of life, in the midst of the Paradise of God,-a tree whose leaves are for the healing of the nations. And the path to this tree is open; the fiery sword of the cherubim does not wave around it, nor asp creep under its shadow, nor awful mandates warn us from it. Nay, but we are invited, we are bidden, to draw near to it by heavenly voices, and to pluck from it

"A perpetual feast of nectared sweets,
Where no crude surfeit reigns."

II. It bears twelve manner of fruit, and to-day I want you to pluck one of them-the fruit of truthfulness. All the fruits of the Spirit which this tree bears grow very close to each other; nay, they touch each other