whatever it is, still stand in strength, and remain upright in the heart? My brethren, answer to yourselves, because this season is sent upon you for your spiritual improvement. The Church of the Lord Christ appoints it in His Name and under His warrant, and you must answer for it before His throne hereafter.

Next, remember that the fast has now but begun; if it has not begun with any of you as yet in truth, begin it. Esau is called up from the dead this day to warn you; let him not pass before your minds in vain. He was the inheritor of the promises, and we know how it came to pass that the Lord permitted the inheritance to pass away from him, because he loved the world he lived in more than the world promised; because he esteemed present enjoyment more than future glory. But we also are inheritors of promises; promises more valuable than that of Esau, because his promise spake to him rather of an earthly honour, while ours carries with it the everlasting peace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Esau was "chosen," was " called," was "elected" into his position of high promise; and so also are we, as we are assured by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans, "called of Jesus Christ," "beloved of God, called to be saints" But Esau fell away, nevertheless; his race fell away, and, in a worldly sense, they became outcasts: the sin which led to this was indul

e Rom. i. 6, 7.

gence of the flesh-worldliness. Tremble then, my brethren, and ask whether the same may not happen again; whether we may not fall away, whether our sons and our daughters may not fall, and whether the sin which led to such a downfal may not lead to it again, whether it is not very common and powerful amongst us.

My brethren, I press this upon you, because the Church of my Master and my Lord, your Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, commands me to press it on you; and, if in His grace and mercy towards you it may be, to exact it from you. Lent is the fast ordered by the Church of God, and it is the fast of God. You may slight it, and harden your hearts against its rules, but if you do, I stand sure on God's truth that you thrust aside graces, and that you gather sins into your bosoms. It is well known to all that the flesh commonly, much too commonly, rules the spirit, and overrules it, that the "law in the members" is often far too strong for us, always too strong, unless when we are under the guidance of the Spirit of God, and are walking in His strength.

Shall there be no time, then, to ask to what law we are obedient? Shall the very time appointed and set by for the enquiry, and, as needs may be, for repentance,-shall this time be a time neglected, cast away, or elevated in name only to be an observance, and proclaimed, as it were in mockery,

f Rom. vii. 23.

to be a fast? Is not this to barter the birthright for the mess of pottage? Which of you will so misspend this season, and then repair to the table of the Lord, your Father, and say, "I am Thy son, Thy first-born; bless me, even me also, O my Father?" Will he not find that the end will be what it has been before, "a great and an exceeding bitter cry ?"

SERMON XIX.

Third Sunday in Lent.

GENESIS XXXix. 2.

The Lord was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man.

THE history of Joseph, among all the histories of

individual characters, either in the Bible or in any other book, is one of the most remarkable and beautiful which we shall meet with. Perhaps there is no history in the world which shews more clearly the hand of Almighty God governing and arranging the events of this life, so as to bring from them at last the results foreordained by His providence, in the most wonderful, the most unexpected, and the most merciful manner. As the Church now orders us to read this history, and has placed a remarkable instance of Joseph's uprightness of conduct before us to-day, I will enter somewhat into the early portion of Joseph's life, which will bring me to this day's lesson; and I will then, under the aid of God, endeavour to draw from it some instruction useful to ourselves.

Joseph was one of the younger sons of Jacob. As

his youth rendered him in the eyes of his aged father an object of anxious care and more delicate attention, as he was of a beautiful appearance, and as, from his history, we must believe he was of a prudent, upright behaviour, walking under the especial and continued Grace of God, it is not surprising that he became one of the most favoured and beloved sons of the Patriarch Jacob. This circumstance awakened against him the envy and the anger of his brethren. "Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, . . . and when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him a "" Few courses, no doubt, are more unwise, few more wrong, few more injurious to all parties, especially to the favoured party, than for parents to shew among their children preferences and partialities. The child which is unduly favoured is usually humoured and indulged in foolish or bad habits; he grows to be a torment to himself and to his family; he is allowed to entertain habits and tempers which are likely to disgrace him in this life, and to condemn him in the next; in the common but very true language of the day, he is a child "spoilt."

My brethren, if you will have mercy on your children, train them in humbleness and self-denial, in a low estimate of themselves, in few wants; they will find in this course of life their strength, and their

a Gen. xxxvii. 3, 4.