corrupt nature at every turn: but if you value heaven above earth, spiritual things above carnal, we promise you, even by the way, the sublimest gratifications, the richest foretastes of heaven. Therefore let religion be well understood.

I. The righteous may be said to be scarcely, that is, with difficulty saved, if we consider, first, their peculiar trials.

"Great are the troubles of the righteous." As their's is a prize worth contending for, so is it not to be won without great exertions. Being invisible and to come, it is an object not of sight but of faith, of future reversion, not present possession. Faith therefore must be exercised by trials and discipline, in order not only to prove its sincerity and intenseness, but that it is something more than mere belief; that it is patient waiting for; earnest expectation; longing desire; rejoicing hope; living upon the promises of God; dying to the world and its fleeting vanities; Christ formed within us; the spirit of adoption in the heart crying Abba, Father: a principle in short, capable of sustaining the believer in all conditions, and under all circumstances; that can follow Christ as well for the sufferings it may be called upon to endure, as for the loaves and fishes, the consolations of his spirit. What the Apostle says respecting

heresies, holds with respect to the necessity of afflictions. "There must needs be (afflictions and persecutions) among you, that they which are approved, and whose faith is genuine, may be made manifest among you." All would be godly, and desire to go to heaven, provided the way thither were smooth and comfortable: all would bear the cross provided it did not cross their natural inclinations. But this will not do. We must take things as we find them, and conform ourselves and our corrupt nature, to that rule of life which Christ has made known in the Gospel, and not imagine that it will bend to and comply with the humours and caprices of mankind. And if on this account, you are disposed to quarrel with the Gospel, to be offended that salvation is placed at so high a rate as sufferings, crosses, and afflictions, it is to be feared, that you have not yet counted the cost, nor rightly considered the nature of the prize that you have yet to learn the conditions upon which salvation is promised. Need I tell you that salvation is a covenant made between God and man? A Testament sealed with the blood of the Testator, moistened with the tears he shed, and the sweat which exuded from his sacred body that consequently it is a covenant of suffering: that Christ's doctrines are such as

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directly involve and suppose sufferings, and a state of affliction; that his very promises were sufferings; his beatitudes, his rewards, and his arguments to invite men to follow Him, were only taken from the sufferings of this life? All this is, or ought to be, notorious to the true Christian. The Apostle thus addresses him in this chapter. Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you. But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. If ye be reproached for the sake of Christ, happy are ye, for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you." He adds, (what our blessed Lord had foretold before,)" for the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God, and if it first begin at us (Christians and believers in a crucified Lord) what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God?"

So that, my brethren, you see your calling. That whatever judgments God in his wisdom may think good to bring upon the world, Christians shall have their share, though it be but the skirtings of the storm. "Scenes of deep distress await us all." With some the time is already come; who are enduring a great fight of

afflictions, and are in heaviness through manifold temptations. To others the time seems always present; who are destined by a dispensation of apparent severity, though of real love, to experience no favourable change, no bright reverse in this life. And to you, my brethren, who may have never had your day, the fiery trial which is to try you is yet to come, which shall prove the strength of your principles, try the ground of your hearts, the reality of your faith, the spirituality of your thoughts, hopes, and desires. And if ye be true followers of Christ, you will not shrink nor flinch from the hand that deals the blow. You will think nothing too great, no trial too sharp, no affliction too heavy to show your attachment to the beloved. • Try me, O God, and seek the ground of my heart: prove me, and examine my thoughts. Look well if there be any way of wickedness in me; and lead me in the way everlasting." Could any principle less than a divine faith have induced the Psalmist to court such a trial as this? To call upon Omnipotence and Omniscience to seek and try the ground of his heart; to sift his motives; lay bare all his thoughts; to discover to to him upon what grounds his religious sincerity, his love, his hopes, and fears, had their foundation? The very desire to be so tried, was

a proof that his heart was right in the sight of God: since "he that doeth evil cometh not to the light lest his deeds should be made manifest." And we may assume it as a general and indisputable truth, that the man who is possessed of true Christian faith, which is the gift of God, will with the Apostle rejoice in tribulations, and smile through his tears; if for no other reason, than because the strength of his principles can alone be thus fully ascertained to his own satisfaction; that he has" overcome the world," "that he is born of God." Nor is there less of reason, than of Christianity, in such a dispensation of suffering and affliction. Faith is the Christian's armour. Will the soldier be desirous to take the field, before he has proved the temper of his steel, and the extent of his courage? Will he shrink from warfare because he may probably meet with dangers and death in a thousand shapes? Is it not in conflict and victory that he looks for promotion? What, indeed, is the strength and reality of any boasted virtue till it be first tried? And by what peculiar circumstance is that faith characterised, or distinguished, which has seen no fight of afflictions, endured no contradiction, made no sacrifice, nor ever been called out to scenes requiring no common exercise of patience and self denial?