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passing a certain mediocrity of character, and induces them to look on Saints and Martyrs, rather as beings of a different order from themselves, than as examples to which they may and ought to be conformed, these persons will do well to trace the marks of human infirmity, which nevertheless did not unfit St. Peter for a death upon the

cross.

Conscious weakness and the recollection of past failings, are indeed in themselves a cheerless earnest of what we may expect from our future trials; and were our own experience all we had to guide us in judging of our capacity for improvement, we might indeed despair with reason, of forming within ourselves the spirit of Martyrs. But when we recollect too, what sacred Scripture teaches of the beginnings of those very men whose ends we dare not even aspire to imitate, it surely becomes faithful Christians to trust themselves boldly to that narrow way by which others have attained to everlasting life.

God's arm we may be sure is not waxed short; and when He sees fit to bring temptation on us, He" will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that we may be able to bear it'." And persons of the character which I am speaking of, persons conscious of irresolution, and dreading exposure to a trial above their strength, will derive advantage,

11 Cor. x. 13.

not only from reflecting on the final result of St. Peter's trial, but also from dwelling on the manner in which our Lord thought fit to prepare him for it. He was taught not only to expect, in common with the other Apostles, that as followers of a crucified Lord, their reception among men was little likely to be favourable, and that those who had persecuted the Master would be little likely to deal more favourably with the servants; but he was warned in an especial manner of the death which he himself was destined to undergo.

Almost the last words which our Lord addressed to him were these: "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, when thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself and walkedst whither thou wouldest; but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not this spake He, signifying by what death he should glorify God. And when He had spoken this He saith unto him, Follow Me." This was the solemn thought which was to attend this Apostle through the remainder of his life, and cast its awful shade over his pleasures and his sufferings; and we know the strength which, in the end, it communicated to his character. Such strength, then, we should aim at by means like those through which St. Peter attained to it: we should make up our minds at once to the worst, and harden our characters against the impression of fear, by familiarity

with the thought of what we may be called on to endure for Christ's sake.

Such a discipline, if resolutely persisted in, in thought constantly, and in deed as often as opportunity presents itself, must in the end enable us to finish our course with joy.

SERMON XI'.

THE DUTY OF AIMING AT THE HIGHEST
EXCELLENCE.

[HEB. xii. 1.

"Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight."]

No devotional exercise is better calculated to encourage each individual Christian, each member of Christ's Church militant upon earth, in fighting the good fight resolutely and manfully, than the thinking over and dwelling upon the successful struggles of those Holy Men who before us have had to contend with the same enemies, and yet have finished their course in God's faith and fear. This, then, is a benefit which we may derive in common from the Services of all those Holydays which the Church has set apart for the Commemoration of her Saints. It is, however, more especially connected with the Service of to-day, when we have brought together before our mind the general assembly and Church

[Preached on All Saints' Day, 1831.]

of the first-born which are written in Heaven, and the spirits of just men made perfect;-and when we take into account too that of the ten thousands who have the seal of God upon their foreheads, the greater number were not, like the Saints whom we at other seasons commemorate, endowed with any special supernatural assistance, but men like ourselves in all respects except the use which they made of their privileges. They were not supported by God's extraordinary presence and protection, not directed by any light of inspiration clearer than that which we enjoy, and yet to them the trial under which we faint did not seem insurmountable. "Out of weakness they were made strong, they waxed valiant in fight, and turned to flight the armies of the aliens."

Such thoughts ought at all times and to all men to prove especially invigorating; they should urge us on (if it were by nothing more than a spirit of rivalry) to follow the victorious army of the Lamb, and seek for ourselves the same blessed rest for our toils which these sought and have obtained. They should supply to us, and doubtless they are intended to supply, the place of that closer and more direct communion with God which He vouchsafed in the early ages of the world to some of those who sought Him earnestly, and which He gradually withdrew as men had more to stay their faith upon in the precepts and examples of their forefathers. And we in these last days should seek in the imitation of holy

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