1. In the first place, a religious-minded Christian has the fear of God ever before his eyes; and the thought of God is in all his ways. In Church; at home; in business; in journeys; at meals; in hours of relaxation-the eye of God awes him, checks him, sobers him, guides him; while he says ever secretly to himself, like Hagar in the wilderness, "Thou, God, seest me." Thus by his ever-abiding sense of the presence of God he is restrained from sinning against Him.

2. Next, the religious man is really humble: he has a true abhorrence of his sins past; he despises himself for ever having yielded himself the slave of so base a thing as sin.

3. Again, He ever loves to meditate on the infinite goodness, the tender pity, the heavenly purity of his Divine Master. The sheep of the true fold have a true affection for the Good Shepherd. The very name of Jesus is music to their souls: and to contemplate His gracious character, and His awful Passion, is one great means to bind them to the love of goodness, and fill them with hatred of sin which brought death upon their Lord.

4. Lastly, however deeply conscious a good Christian may be of his own unworthiness, he still confides in the mercy of his reconciled Father manifested in Jesus Christ; and enjoys a blessed consciousness that so long as he exercises self-denial, charity, and devotion, he may repose unlimited confidence in unbounded mercy.

Dear brethren, are these marks found in us?

6 Gen. xvi. 13.

Where are our faith and fear, humility, love, and hope?

(1.) Surely very many of us live in any fear but the fear of God. We fear the world's censure; we fear the world's ridicule; we fear to be despised if we are weak; we fear to become poor if we are bountiful; we fear the accidents of life, loss of fortune, loss of friends, loss of health; but the anger of God, ever-enduring, if we repent not, the taint of sin, the loss of grace, the quenching of the Spirit, the return of the evil one with seven-fold power, and the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost, we do not fear.

(2.) As for humility, it is not even recognized by most men, as a duty. They glory in their pride; they boast their independence; they even resent a favour which implies inferiority; they wholly forget their sins, or think lightly of them.

(3.) And then of course they have no real love of Him who died to redeem them from sin. Why should they, when they are contentedly living in sin, with no sense of their degraded condition, no earnest wish to get free? Oh, miserable condition of those who can familiarly look upon infinite love suffering unutterable torments for their sakes, and feel no sympathy, no sorrow, no shame, no penitence, no love!

(4.) And if such, my brethren, be the condition of any among us, what avails an unmeaning, unthinking, unreal general trust in the mercy of God? Vain and miserable delusion! the last and subtlest device of him who is deceiving men to their destruction. To

take comfort in such a trust as this is as if a sorely wounded man, instead of seeking a surgeon's help, should take sleeping draughts to lull the pain, and remove all wholesome sense of danger and desire for remedy while it might be had. Be sure, dear brethren, no trust in the mercy of God is of any value, unless it be accompanied by a deep sense of sin and misery, and utter helplessness. The fatal knowledge of evil once having been obtained by experience, there is no safe and sure return to good until the evil be felt, hated, and forsaken.

Dear brethren, the Good Shepherd sees us noweven at this moment He gazes tenderly upon us. Some few He sees obedient, loving, gentle, good; and even now is whispering in their hearts, "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." But many of us He sees wandering wilfully, or in error, far from His heavenly fold. He sees the love of money, or the love of pleasure, or the love of power, ruling in each heart here. He sees the proud spirit rising up against reproof, or the selfishness of anger indulged to another's hurt :-He sees and He pities: and even now I trust He is suggesting better thoughts. O, hear His gentle voice! Perhaps He is saying for you, "Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold; them also I must bring." He is a good and gracious Shepherd, unbounded in His love for those sheep for whom He died; not caring only for those who are now within the fold, but ever ready to leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, to go after that 'St. Luke, xii. 32.

which is lost, until He find it. He has no pleasure in your misery, no wish for your death! Far otherwise. Even now He is inviting you, His lost sheep, to return into the fold from which, by selfishness and disobedience, you have wandered.

If you will hear His voice and follow Him, He will not drive you, but lead you back to the fold. He will give you all those dispositions which shall fit you to live there with a good will, joyfully. He will open your eyes that you may see Him, that is, He will give you reverential faith; He will open your heart that you may love Him; and then you will certainly despise yourself, and lean only on Him for your hope of salvation. Only let us obey simply the voice of His love, and follow Him in faith, and He will surely lead us by paths that we know not, until He brings us to the home of peace and safety. If once we sincerely and earnestly give ourselves up to Him, He will never leave us to ourselves. He knows the power of temptation, and the weakness of the flesh, and can compassionate our fears of falling back from Him if we now rise and follow Him.

I am persuaded that this strange fear prevents many persons from boldly rising up against sin, and seeking deliverance from its tyranny. They fear that if they repent, seek reconciliation with God, and bind themselves by solemn resolutions, and the receiving of the Holy Communion, to a holier life, Satan will return upon them with sevenfold power in some unguarded moment, and that their next state will be worse than their first.

There is indeed a real danger, but the way to

escape it is not to remain in sin, but to fly to Christ for deliverance. Satan does not return, as a matter of course, with his seven more wicked spirits, into the hearts of those who have by their own earnest efforts driven him forth, and at once supplied his place by opening their hearts for Jesus to enter in and dwell there. It is into the empty heart, the heart that he finds swept and ready furnished for his reception, that Satan obtains an easy re-entrance. Beware then, dear brethren, of being prevented by any fear of the power of sin from returning to Christ. If you will bravely overcome your fears, and, leaving the pastures of the wicked one, turn again to the Good Shepherd, He will most assuredly save you from the power of the adversary, and remove out of your way every obstacle that might hinder your return to His fold. But if you cowardly give way to the fear of falling again into sin, what is that but to rivet the chains which enslave you?

"Woe be to fearful hearts, and faint hands, and the sinner that goeth two ways! Woe unto him that is faint-hearted, for he believeth not; therefore shall he not be defended."8 Woe to the cowardice which so dreads the power of sin, that it dares not rise up and follow Christ. O, my brethren, let us avoid and reject such a fear as this, which is only another name for the deadly sin of spiritual sloth. To fear the power of sin so much, that we will not earnestly try to forsake it, is really to fear Satan more than we fear God. For even though we tremble at His wrath, yet if we abide in sin because we fear, should

Ecclus. ii. 12, 13.