are called to press forward in a way of a very peculiar character. Now, the more carefully and the more diligently you search the holy Scriptures, and the more humbly and fervently you pray over them, the more plainly will this way be revealed to you. It is the way of faith; and it is the way of holiness; and the end thereof is everlasting life. It is the way in which all the saints of God have run, in all ages of the world, to the present moment,-" Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, the Prophets," and all the worthies of the Old and New Testament,-who now, through faith and patience, inherit the promises. It is true of the race which the Christian has to run, that it is a most arduous one. It ends, indeed, in the most perfect repose: but there is a toil and a labour to be undergone, of which the world knows nothing, before that repose can be attained and enjoyed. I speak of no meritorious labour, but of those trials and perplexities, and of that gracious standing up under them, which commence immediately on the soul being quickened to newness of life, and receiving an evidence that it is interested in the free

and everlasting salvation that is in Christ Jesus. Now, it is a much more common thing for professing Christians to talk about these things, than it is to meet with those who have felt them in the way of actual experience. The path, however, which the true child of God finds that he must tread, is, in a great variety of particulars, a difficult path, and one calculated greatly to harass those who pass upon it. It is most painful when the obstacles which oppose his progress, are found in his nearest and dearest earthly connexions; but such is not unfrequently the case; and so very depraved and wicked is the heart of man, that they who ought to be the foremost to assist him in this most important work, are often amongst the first to molest and retard him. Still, it is his to "run with patience the race that is set before him :" to persevere, in the strength of divine grace, under all the discouragements he may meet with, and even to go on his way rejoicing. I beseech you, my brethren, who have really and in earnest, set forward on this heaven-ward course, and who are sensible of its trials, to use all diligence, as you value your ever

lasting interests, that you are not among those who draw back unto perdition; but of those who believe, to the saving of the soul.

II. The second point in the collect for this day, which we are called to notice, is, "the sins, and wickedness, by which Christians are sore let and hindered, in running the race that is set before them." In our text, this hindrance is spoken of as a "weight," and as “the sin which doth most easily beset them." Every one who is engaged in living the life he now lives in the flesh, to the glory of the God of grace, knows well the meaning of these expressions.

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needs not to be informed of the nature of the discipline to which they refer. Still, to feel the spirit borne down by the weight of an opposing principle, and to have the soul mournfully sensible of the power of in-bred corruption and sin, is, perhaps, one of the most satisfactory, though not the most gratifying, evidences of a renewed mind. A person who never felt this weight, never knew what sin really is: and they who say they have been made free from all existence or feeling of it, cannot possibly

arnish more indisputable proof of the most onsummate ignorance both of themselves ad of the Saviour. Independently of the any circumstances which oppress their spits, enfeeble their energies, and appear to heck their advancement in the divine life, his feeling of inbred corruption, and the inessant struggle between the old nature and he new, are alone sufficient to exhaust their trength, and to lay them in the dust. My lear brethren and friends in the Lord Jesus Christ can tell, how they are thus baffled, and thus perplexed, in running the race that is set before them. They know how often they become heartless in their spiritual exercises, when they ought to be all ardour and zeal; how blind, how deaf, and how dead to the things of God; and how weak and unnerved in contending with the impediments that lie in their way. The good which they would, they do not; and the evil which they would not, that they do. This has been the state of the renewed children of God, in every period of the history of the church; and it has always made them long for the coming of that blessed state of things, when their corruptible bodies, having put

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on incorruption, and their mortal immortality, they will no longer be subject to experience so truly distressing, but shall be like the angels which are in heaven, yea, like the glorified Saviour himself. There is this advantage, however, in being compelled to drag about a body of sin and death-that it detaches the Christian from the world; makes him long to be clothed upon with his house which is from heaven; shows him his absolute and continual dependance on the Saviour, and the impossibility of his having any justifying righteousness of his own; endears the Saviour to his soul; drives him to a throne of grace for renewed communications of the Holy Spirit, and makes him walk humbly and circumspectly before God. And I may be allowed to say, this is no unimportant consideration; such experience is the very essence of the Christian's life, and that which is especially distinguishing in the Christian character. Mark the man who never felt the warfare of which we speak : he may think he is in the enjoyment of peace; but it is the peace of ignorance, and only the forerunner of inexpressible trouble. And mark the man who tells you that he