cheap, either by making no exertions to obtain them, or by making ready surrender of them in any respects in which they may seem to interfere with our Christian progress. We must discipline ourselves to part with them by voluntary privations, must make them as much as possible a matter of indifference to us, thankful if we have them, but ready to part with them, and unrepining when they are gone. For what saith the Apostle? "Brethren, the time is short it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none; and they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not; and they that use this world as not abusing it."

So much with respect to our dying daily to the objects with which we are surrounded. But there are other matters with regard to which our daily life must be a living death.

If we had never broken our Baptismal vows it might have sufficed for us to spend our allotted time in watchfulness, and prayer, and praise; but as we are, we have most of us, it is to be feared, a heavy load of guilt attaching to us, and therefore each day must bring with it a course of penitence and humiliation, and an acknowledgment that for our transgressions we have deserved death. We have to judge

ourselves, in the hope that thereby we may escape the judgment of the Lord. We have to pray to God to mortify and kill all vices in us. We have to put our remaining corruptions to death; in whatever respect we find ourselves to be carnal, therein we have to die daily.

Our whole course of life must be a warfare and struggle with ourselves. The spirit must be taught to master the flesh: the body must be kept in subjection to the soul. Our whole man must be disciplined till it knows no will but the will of God. And this, under grace, can only be done by denying our appetites continually, even in things lawful; by habitually considering others rather than ourselves; by taking up our cross daily, and bearing it cheerfully, be it what it may; by striving to follow the example of our Saviour Christ, and seeking Him in the ways of patience, endurance, and mortification spiritual and corporeal.

I do not tell you that this is easy. I do not say that it is pleasant to flesh and blood. But I dare assure you that its reward is with it, and that the peace springing therefrom is of a kind which the world can neither give nor take away. I dare assure you that not all the indulgence that heart can conceive, that not all the kingdoms of the world, and all the glory of them, would compensate for one single

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minute spent in the agonies of hell; and that could we daily die a thousand deaths as agonizing as those which Christ our Saviour underwent for us, such an amount of suffering could not be worthy to be weighed against the risk of losing the lowest and humblest place in the court of heaven.

Learn then, brethren, to die daily, that so you may live eternally. Die to the world, die to sin, die to self. And this not occasionally, and by fits and starts, but ever. Let your daily life be a living death. You will thus gradually learn to look on death not as a foe but as a friend. It will be Christ to you to live, and gain to die. Your days will be spent in serving Christ, and looking for that death which will unite you to Him; as years roll on you will be more and more dead to the things of this world; your thoughts and hopes will be living in heaven there needs but a little change, a dropping of the scales from your eyes, a casting off the garments of mortality, and your thoughts and hopes will be realized. The time is short: the trial is soon over: the long-looked for summons comes; and then, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye the snare is broken, and you are delivered: the wings of the dove are given you; and so you flee away and are

at rest.

SERMON XIX.

THE END OF ALL THINGS.

1 PETER iv. 7.

The end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.

It

THE revelation here made by the Holy Spirit is repeated in other parts of the New Testament. was not indistinctly intimated by our Lord Himself, while on earth; and after He had ascended to the Father, His Apostles gave it a prominent place in their teaching. They spoke of themselves as living "in the last days," "in the last times," and grounded their exhortations to increasing vigilance, upon the argument that "the night was far spent," and that "the day was at hand," that "the Lord was at hand," that "the day" was "approaching," and that "the coming of the Lord was drawing nigh."

Now perhaps we shall never ascertain the exact ideas in the Apostles' minds when they used such

language. expression of their expectation that the final consummation of all things would take place in their own day. And it is probable that as the Man Christ Jesus declared in the fullest and most awful of all His prophecies, that "of that day and that hour, knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father," so the Apostles, though God had not given the Spirit by measure unto them, were left in the same ignorance, in this respect, as the angels themselves. Possibly, for our sakes they were even allowed to continue in somewhat of suspense, whether the generation in which they lived would, or would not, witness a catastrophe infinitely more terrible than that of the overthrow of Jerusalem, and the casting away of the chosen race.

At first sight it would appear like an

But whatever may have been the actual state of the Apostles' minds in this respect, two things are evident, first, that they spoke as though the end of all things were immediately at hand; and secondly, that since that time, what to us seems a long period, has passed away.

Now if the Christian world, instead of being what it is, were leading a life of faith, it is evident that the result of this would be, not that men would have grown careless and indifferent on the subject, but