is always to be remembered, in the war you wage with sin in yourself or others, that the Lord is on your side, and that all the power of Omnipotence are pledged for your support. And consider, that where sin is to be subdued, you have not in the " Captain of your salvation" a doubtful or reluctant ally. He "hates" it with a "perfect hatred." With sin he will hold neither alliance nor compromise. Go forth, then, to the battle, as David to his conflict with the Philistine, in the persuasion that your enemy is also the enemy of the Lord; and in his strength you shall conquer. What though your foes be many and mighty; what though you bear in your hand but the sling" and the "stone"-the most feeble and imperfect weapons-the Lord will give precision and force to the blow; will direct the stone to the "forehead" of the enemy, and he shall sink to rise no more. May these assurances, my Christian brethren, be fulfilled to each of you; and, in the words of the young warrior of Israel, when marching to meet his giant adversary, may "all this assembly know that the battle is the Lord's, and that he can give" every enemy "into our hands."

Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith; who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.

NONE will despise the difficulties of a religious course but those who have not entered upon it. St. Paul, though, as it would seem to us, triumphant in every sphere of duty, was far from entertaining a low conception of these difficulties. Indeed, in adverting to his own conflicts with the corruptions of his nature, he employs one of the most powerful images which it is possible to conceive. "Oh, wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"—who, in other words, shall rescue me from this body of corruption, which clings to me like the corpse, fastened (according to a mode of punishment among the Romans) to the living man.

It was likely, my Christian brethren, that a man thus impressed with the difficulties of the Christian life should be anxious to encourage the

minds of the fainting servants of God. And, having, in the first verse of this chapter, laboured thus to cheer them, by directing their eye "to the cloud of witnesses" who had already run the race, and won the prize, he proceeds next to display to them that still loftier source of encouragement to which the text directs our attention.

6

If an individual, engaged in any warlike enterprise, is taught that others have conquered in the same field, and against the same enemies, his next inquiry is likely to be, under what leader they fought, and by whose strength they prevailed?' In like manner the timid and sinking Christian will often be disposed, as he contemplates by the eye of faith the shining host of the redeemed presented to him in the first verse of the chapter, with much earnestness to ask, To whom he is to look for succour and guidance in this high enterprise; and who, "when the enemy cometh in like a flood," will "lift up a standard against him?" To the man thus inquiring, the text replies, "Look unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith!" You have, in the Master you serve, a Leader who is "mighty to save." You have in his mercy a remedy commensurate with the infirmities and diseases of human nature. You have, in the once-crucified and now triumphant Son of God, all that your necessities can require, or your heart can wish.'

Such, my brethren, appears to be the general argument of our text, and such its immediate connexion with the passage that goes before it. But let us proceed to the distinct examination of its several parts, calling devoutly on Him who is the

P

"Author and Finisher of our faith" to assist and bless our inquiry.

There are three points on which I would wish especially to fix your attention:

I. THE PECULIAR TEMPTATION OF THE CHRIS

TIAN WHICH IS REFERRED TO IN THE
TEXT.

II. THE DEGREE OF RESISTANCE TO THAT TEMP-
TATION WHICH GOD REQUIRES.

III. THE MEANS BY WHICH THIS RESISTANCE IS TO

BE ACCOMPLISHED.

I. The first point to which I would call your attention, is THE PECULIAR TEMPTATION OF THE CHRISTIAN, REFERRED TO IN THE TEXT.-It is adverted to in these words, "Lest ye be wearied, and faint in your minds!"

There is much danger, my Christian brethren, of “weariness” in religion-or, in other words, of sinking under the burden and difficulties of our Christian calling; of drawing back from the duties, on the discharge of which we had once faithfully entered; of sadly and hopelessly resting on our oars, or folding our arms on our bosom, when we should be vigorously and cheerfully stemming the tide of life. Thus Aaron, after a time, gave way to the importunity of the foolish multitude around him. Thus the meek Moses at length "spake unadvisedly with his lips." Thus Job at length "opened his mouth, and cursed the day of his birth." Thus Peter" doubted," and James and John "called for fire from heaven." Thus, says the Apostle, " at my first answer, No man stood with me." Thus, in the churches of Asia, multitudes forsook their first love."

Weariness such as this, may spring from a variety of causes. It may be, that whatever of re

ligion you possessed was founded rather upon sentiment than upon principle; in which case it was likely to be shifting and capricious as the feeling on which it was erected: the "house built upon the sand fell, and great was the fall of it." Or it may happen that some error in opinion is gradually sapping the foundations of faith" they do err, not knowing the Scriptures." It may be, that habits of sloth, or sensuality, or worldliness, like plants insinuating themselves between the crevices of the stone, are fastening on the heart, and gradually destroying the energies of the "inner man ;"" the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful." Or it is possible that some remissness, in the private or public duties of religion, in the study of the Scriptures, in attendance at the house or table of the Lord, or inspiritual communication with devout friends, is gradually benumbing and paralyzing the powers of the soul; "I will be inquired of by the house of Israel."

But the cause to which the Apostle more especially refers in the text, is the opposition or hostility of the world-that hostility which he calls the contradiction of sinners." It is, my Christian brethren, a painful but unquestionable fact, that he who zealously and consistently carries the principles of the Gospel into his daily conduct and conversation, will have to bear more or less of this species of "contradiction." The devout servant of God will, in many instances, have opposed to him, on the one hand, the merely moral, who feel themselves condemned by his superior piety; and, on the other, those who, being the open enemies of Christ, are the