Him, how often your resolutions have failed, how often you have since grieved his Spirit, how your carnal nature still clings about you, interrupting your communion with Him, lessening your faith and trust in Him, making you less desirous of his favour than of vain-glory in all you say and do. It is his friendship that we must covet earnestly. For this we must hunger and thirst. For this we must cry and lift up our voice, seeking it as silver, and searching for it as for hid treasures. The world tells us to covet other things, that we shall not gain God's friendship by coveting it; and that it is no matter whether we gain it or no. But as the Lord will make good only his own word, and not the word of his enemies, and as He hath said that without holiness no man shall see the Lord, and that those who hunger and thirst after it shall be filled, this should make us covet earnestly this best gift.

What we covet we shall be always labouring for. Now in regard to the attainment of holiness, the one thing needful, without which no man shall see the Lord, we must not only allot a portion, and a considerable portion of our time each day to prayer and reading and meditating on the Scriptures, but we should so drink of these wells of life as to preserve a temper of holiness at all times.

We must learn to look on the holy Scriptures as the greatest treasure that the world contains. Our Lord Jesus Christ himself stood up in token

of reverence when He read the holy Scriptures. Of all the monstrous follies of which we are guilty, none is greater than talking idly of the Scriptures. Can the very devils themselves manifest a greater alienation from God than mocking at his word? There are many who though really or apparently reclaimed from the ways of sin can find in their heart, for the sake of a wretched joke, to speak irreverently and indecently of the word of life. Is it possible that such persons can know any thing of the nature of holiness? Is it possible that they can ever have tasted the sweetness of that word? For my part I would rather hear a man curse and swear,-I would rather hear him blaspheme in a fit of anger (though the crime be a dreadful one and a mark of an unregenerate mind,) than hear him speak smilingly and jestingly of any thing relating to the sacred text. In the name of God my brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, in the name of the Holy Ghost who inspired the Scriptures, choose some other subject for your mirth. Laugh if Laugh if you like at every thing under the sun, but O preserve in the midst of your laughter some reverence for the message of reconciliation, the message of our gracious Maker to his apostate creatures, some reverence for that word which is spirit and which is life, some reverence for that word on which depend our hopes for ever and for ever.

This is the reason why our life in Scripture is called a warfare; that whereas holiness being the

temper in which we should pass through it, and temptations outward and inward perpetually occurring to beat down this guard of holiness, the warfare is literally incessant. There is positively not an hour, no nor a moment in which we are not tempted to do, say, or think something contrary to holiness. There is no respite from this warfare between the flesh and the spirit. We rest from it only when we sleep, and scarcely then. This is the reason why St. Paul so constantly exhorts us to pray without ceasing, to pray every where and to pray always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication. O let us remember that it is only to Him that overcometh that our Saviour will give the blessed reward of life everlasting. Seven times our blessed Lord repeats when he had revealed Himself for the last time to his beloved disciple St. John in the island of Patmos that he only that overcometh shall attain the promises. To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life. He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death. To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna. He that overcometh and keepeth my words unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations. He that overcometh the same shall be clothed in white raiment. Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame. Now this overcoming is not to be performed by

repeating a few cold prayers morning and evening, and abandoning ourselves all the rest of the day to all the assaults of an active, hostile, carnal mind, the worst enemy of all; if we wish to overcome we must be always clothed with that armour which St. Paul speaks of in his Epistle to the Ephesians, in short, we must be always, in spirit and intention, praying. On this subject Scripture is explicit. Whatever we are about in the whole course of the day our hearts should be always lifted up in prayer, performing our work as unto the Lord. How else can we imagine it possible to keep down the workings of our corrupt nature? Will a soldier do his duty if he only fight now and then? No: he must be always on his guard. If he sleep on his post he is punished with torture or death. Even so must we be continually on the watch, continually crying to the Lord for help, for our help is in the name of the Lord. We can do nothing as of ourselves. This is the warfare which we have to fight, to preserve a continual temper of holiness. This it is which we must earnestly

covet.

And that we may so covet it as to obtain it St. Paul proceeds to show us an excellent way to obtain it. This way is described in the following chapter as with the tongue of men and angels. The way is charity, or love to each other, which may be considered not only as that which transcends other gifts, but as the means of attaining other gifts which are useful whether for the ministry, or

temper in which we should pass through it, and temptations outward and inward perpetually occurring to beat down this guard of holiness, the warfare is literally incessant. There is positivelynot an hour, no nor a moment in which we are not tempted to do, say, or think something contrary to holiness. There is no respite from this warfare between the flesh and the spirit. We rest from it only when we sleep, and scarcely then. This is the reason why St. Paul so constantly exhorts us to pray without ceasing, to pray every where and to pray always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication. O let us remember that it is only to Him that overcometh that our Saviour will give the blessed reward of life everlasting. Seven times our blessed Lord repeats when he had revealed Himself for the last time to his beloved disciple St. John in the island of Patmos that he only that overcometh shall attain the promises. To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life. He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death. To him that ove to eat of the hidden manna. and keepeth my words unto give power over the nation the same shall be clothed