its temptations, affections, and lusts. No one, surely, not the sincerest Christian, but must at times feel strongly that but for the preventing Grace of God he must have fallen into sin, that but for his watchfulness and prayer he might have been found sleeping. And observe how well the Apostle's word expresses the manner in which those who have once escaped the pollutions of the world, again fall away, namely, they are entangled: it is not that the world can make an open and barefaced attack on them as on others who have never escaped; this would terrify them into safety; but step by step, little by little, trifle by trifle, as it seems to the unhappy victims, they are entangled in the snares of the world, and then, says the Apostle, they are overcome they are doing the same things as before; they have gone down from sin to sin, from depth to depth, from forgetfulness to forgetfulness, till at last they have entirely lost sight of the LORD Who bought them, and sink away from His fear and love.

V. Well, what does the Apostle teach

us of these unhappy men? Plainly that they are lost; "the latter end," says HE, "is worse with them than the beginning." Yes, those who have once deliberately cast off the profession of the Cross of Christ seem marked with the especial

anger of God. The Apostle, in the Epistle to the Hebrews (vi. 4.) says, "For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the Heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the HOLY GHOST, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them to repentance: seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of GOD afresh, and put HIM to an open shame."

If then it is possible for us again to be entangled in the cares of the world which pollute us by excluding from our hearts the chief object of our love, namely CHRIST and His righteousness; if we may ever return to gross sins which we have forsaken, and be overcome; and if this our last state is thus declared by the

HOLY GHOST to be worse than the beginning, what manner of men and women should we be in all holy conversation and godliness of living.

We should lay our first check on our thoughts, for it is out of the heart and its thoughts that all evil comes; we should take care to exclude all and any meditation on sin, be it of what kind it may, and should deny to ourselves even to do in imagination what we know to be hateful to God. If we make it our daily constant prayer to GOD that He will give us His Grace to be thus watchful, we have no cause for fear we have then only cause to fear when we are standing at a careless security.

And when we watch our thoughts, the task of watching our actions will follow naturally and easily; for although circumstances will befall us when we may be called on to act as it were without thinking, yet the habit of watchfulness will commonly preserve us, and give us so good a guard over ourselves that we shall at all events escape sin even when

called upon to act with the least preparedness. But in the main, the life will uniformly exhibit the reflection of the heart, and the thoughts, words, and actions will all bear testimony to the Christian vigilance within.

Thus doing we shall, under the blessing of God, never fall back into the pollutions from which we have once escaped.

But, is this all? Surely not': we have as much to gain by our watchfulness as we have to lose by our carelessness. We may be lost; but recollect that the gates of Heaven are standing wide to receive

us.

Does any one whisper to himself: "These things are all in course; they are what our Clergy are bound to say; I hear the same Sunday after Sunday, year after year; yet things have gone well with I am here, in health; I will indulge a little longer by and by I will give my attention to them."

me;

:

O presumptuous sinner! Bless GOD

for that He does not strike

you with His wrath, does not hurry you to your ac

count headlong! Is it our duty to tell you these things of which we are commissioned by the HOLY GHOST to be keepers? Is it for nothing that we are so commissioned ? Was it meant that you should show such scorn to God through us? Did CHRIST die that you should crucify HIM afresh, and put HIM to an open shame by your neglect?

Should such be here, let him not leave this house of GOD without an earnest prayer that GOD may give him Grace to soften his heart, and give him true repentance; that his sins may be washed out in the Blood of JESUS CHRIST, and himself snatched from the terrible pit over which he is now hanging by the slender thread of his life.

But to those who are faithfully following their LORD; who have escaped the pollutions of the world, and do truly abhor them; who love their SAVIOUR, and live after His bright example and strive to be perfect, even as their FATHER which is in Heaven is perfect, let the word of the LORD Himself be for comfort: I,