"will speak peace unto his people and to his

1

saints." But the counsel he gives is, "Let

them not turn again to folly." God must keep you, and the peace you possess and enjoy at the present moment. Commit both into the hands of your heavenly Father, and that ceaselessly. Are there any here who are deserters? who are in a state of extreme distress? Satan will endeavour to drive you not only into a state of despondency, but despair. When we consider what evil spirits can do, and what weak creatures we are: what a mighty engine the imagination is in the hands of Satan, and what corrupt hearts we have, we may well tremble every moment, and distrust every one, and every thing, but God, and God only.

If you are in a state of desertion, yours is a season of prayer and humiliation; remember for your encouragement that many have been distressed, have been in similar circumstances with yourself, and God has been pleased to visit them. Return to him, I conjure you; abandon every

1 Psalm lxxxv. 8.

idol; throw every thing that may have provoked God to hide his face from you, to the moles and to the bats. God will have his family separated from every thing, that they may be eternally devoted to him. All his dispensations have this glorious end in view. He is determined to make them holy in his holiness; and, consequently, happy in his happiness, for evermore. This is the reason why he visits them with one dispensation after another, till they are thoroughly weaned from every thing; till they become as little children, distrusting themselves wholly, and trusting him wholly, for every thing. Now to God, &c.

SERMON X.

PHILIPPIANS ii. 5.

"LET THIS MIND BE IN, YOU, WHICH WAS ALSO IN CHRIST JESUS."

THE apostle Paul was a wonderful man in whatever point of view we consider him. He seems to have been, at one time, the generalissimo of hell, not only commanding, but fighting in the van himself against the living God. After he was changed, by the grace of God, he seems to take the lead in the armies of heaven; and we cannot but be eminently interested in following him, and keeping our eyes fixed on him perpetually.

K

In what a lovely, and I was going to say, unconscious, manner, his disposition evinces itself! See where he seeks and finds his happiness! In God? Yes; this is one source certainly. In God;-and, in the welfare of his church. He seemed to care for nothing else: he seemed to treat the world, and every thing in it, as if it had been a bubble that would soon cease to exist. God and His Christ, and His church, wholly absorbed him. May we know something of this spirit!

At the commencement of the new year* this is the idea I would enforce the necessity of newness of spirit. According to the laws of matter and of motion, we are fast travelling towards the grave. God grant we may be renewed in the spirit of our minds, that, while the body is travelling towards dust and ashes, the soul may be travelling towards the abode of the glorified spirits of just men made perfect!

*

The apostle says, in the first verse,

"If

This, and the following sermon, were preached on Sunday, 1st January, 1826.