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those who in these emergencies have called in the assistance of their spiritual guides, and for a while submitted to their direction. The visitation of the sick, as ordered in the service of the church, is meant chiefly for the consolation of those who have in health been accustomed to attend God's worship, to fear his name, to obey his will. If we administer these exhortations and prayers to those also who have previously seemed hardened in sin, it is not out of any notion that the remorse of death can stand instead of a holy life, but it is because in our ignorance of man's heart, we know not with any certainty which be the faithful and which the false disciples, we cannot discern the good from the bad, we are bound to exhort all to repent, to help all with our prayers in their repentance, and to warn all whilst they have hope however slight of life, that they should live henceforth so as to escape the wrath to come.

Sickness we reckon but one condition out of many, and that not always the most

man's effectual conversion unto God. The feebleness of old age, and the hours of adversity or affliction, are liable to the same objections, as seasons for repentance, we are neither sure of their ever coming, nor if they come are we sure we shall repent in them, nor if we repent can we be very readily satisfied that we repent effectually, that we are moved so much by conscience and the love of God, as by the fear of punishment. A certain knowledge of the hour when our Lord should come would, when that hour approached, force all men to obey. This however is not repentance. Neither would this be faith. Our business is to be ready against an hour we know not, we think not: our trial is, that we serve God in whatever condition of existence it may please Him to grant us; and our highest praise, if we serve Him faithlly in our youth, and health, and strength, his coming seems most remote.

e therefore ready. Be watchful, be :, be faithful, be sincere in your enr to reform what you know to be now when perhaps you least expect

soon to be called to account; now when you may most entirely prove that you love Him truly and obey Him freely; now when you may have best satisfaction in yourselves that you serve Him not through constraint of his presence, but through faith during his absence.

In his mercy He is gone away for a time, giving us this occasion to exercise our trust, offering us, in this trial of our affection, the higher attainments of grace, the more eminent mansions of heavenly glory. Let us seek after these more excellent gifts. Let us aim at the blessing of that servant, whom his Lord coming unawares shall find doing his commands. And if ever in any besetting sin, in any projected reform, we are hindered in our duty by the thought, "my Lord delayeth his coming," let us reflect that the more distant we deem his visitation, the more immediate our risk of it actually is, for precisely in such an hour as we think not He cometh.

Nor finally will these words serve only

also, if only first they make us truly to repent, enable us in the end effectually to rejoice. In the hour of our severest trial, when least we hope, when most we fear, to our joyful surprise, to our comfortable relief, the Son of man cometh. In sorrow, in sickness, in the protracted agonies of a lingering death, in the power of Satan, and in the wrestling against his wiles for the salvation of the soul; when most we faint, when in our deepest misery we are most tempted to exclaim, My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me? even then will his undeserved aid sustain our yielding spirits, or his arm in mercy take us to Himself. Be ye therefore ready; not so much because ye fear, as because ye rejoice in his coming. He cometh indeed to judge, but to shew mercy also unto thousands in them that love Him and keep his commandments. He cometh indeed to take you from the earth, but it is to take you, if only you repent and believe, unto the mansions of endless glory.

SERMON XX.

CHRISTIAN PERFECTION.

MATTH. 5. 48.

Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

THIS is, we must acknowledge, a difficult saying; one of the most difficult to flesh and blood in the whole compass of the Scriptures. It is however repeated by St. Paul, as part of his concluding exhortation to the Corinthians, "Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect." (2 Cor.13.11.) And the text occurs in the sermon on the mount, one of the most plain of all our Lord's discourses, and one which He most evidently intended for the daily practice of all his disciples. He had immediately before been teaching that we should love our enemies, bless them that curse us, do

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