He will be thy Food. In silence for His sake, He will speak unto thee. In weariness, He will be thy Refreshment. Make thyself poorer for His sake, and He will be thy Wealth. Withdraw thy thoughts from the pomps and vanities and distractions of the world, and He will gather them to Himself. Forego the praise of men, and thou shalt feel the sweetness of the praise of God.

But to sweeten the foregoing of things present, meditate on Him in Whom thou hast all, in Whom are laid up all which for Him thou foregoest. Thou canst not love, unless thou think on Him Whom thou wouldest love. Think then, as thou art drawn, one while on thy Lord, beholding thee with love, upon the Cross, bury thyself and thy sins in His Wounds, enfold thyself reverently, with the penitent, around His Cross; or gaze on Him bound, that He might free thee; wearing the thorns of thy sins, that they no more might pierce thee; bruised, to heal thee; dying, to be thy Life; and pray Him to bind thee fast unto His Cross and to Himself, that so thou mayest be motionless with Him to all which would draw thee from Him. Or gaze on thy future blissful home, arrayed with unfading light, which needeth not sun nor moon, for the Lamb is the light thereof; where is no toil to endure, no loss to sustain; where no evil entereth, nor is any cast out whom the Lord has bid enter into His Joy; where is the blessed and glorious society of Angels, Thrones, Dominions, Powers, to whose life thou shalt be equalled. There all, in unclouded joy and the overflowing fulness of eternal bliss, shall joy in the sight of God; each shall be full of bliss, according to his measure, each enjoy

in others the glory he has not in himself. There, in His light, we shall see light; and we ourselves, bedewed and filled with the Light wherein we are immersed, even of Him Who is the Brightness of the Eternal Light, the Sun of Righteousness, the Splendour of the Divine Majesty, shall become light, and by His Love shall love Himself, and in Him love all beside in everlasting peace and indissoluble love, since He shall be All in All, and all one in Him. Then God shall rest in His works, and our everlasting rest shall be in God; "God' shall rejoice in His works," and His works joy in Him. Him, of Whom now one thought filleth the whole soul with joy, shall we ever behold in His Beauty with unveiled Face. Eye to Eye shall we behold God, even the Everlasting Father, and His Co-equal Son, and the Holy Ghost, from Both proceeding, of Both the Bond in love. Him our eyes shall behold and not another, yet cleansed by the light of truth and upheld by Him to behold His Majesty. Our hearts shall be by Him enlarged to contain His Love; our souls entering into that sea of joy, shall be filled, yet overflowing, encompassed, penetrated, transfigured, containing, absorbed in, His all-containing Love.

So shall the joys eternal, while we gaze, be present to our souls, and this world's fleeting vanities, be dull and faded by their heavenly lustre; and His grace, to Whom we look, shall, one by one, loose our bonds whereby we have been held captive to vanity, and set our hearts at liberty. He shall loose us, link by link, from the bondage of corruption, and draw us by the band of His all-uniting Spirit,

1 Ps. civ. 31.

from the first-fruits and the earnest, to enter upon our inheritance and the full possession. Thither shall He draw us, whence He hath sent down His Promise into our hearts, to knit our hearts to Him. He shall give us sorrow that we were ever held, and strength to run the way of His commandments, draw us by His love unto His love, that tasting one drop of His ineffable sweetness, we may henceforth find nought sweet, save in Thee, our Redeemer and our God.

"O Good Jesu," is the prayer of an ancient saint,m "Word of the Father, Brightness of the Father's Glory, into Whom the Angels desire to look, teach us to do Thy Will, that led by Thy Good Spirit, we may attain to that blessed City, where is eternal day, and the spirit of all is one; where is certain security, and secure eternity, and eternal tranquillity, and tranquil blessedness, and blessed sweetness, and sweet joyousness, where Thou, God, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, livest and reignest to endless ages. Amen."

m S. Gregory at the close of the exposition of the Penitential Psalms, T. iii. § 2. p. 559.

SERMON XVIII.

VICTORY AMID STRIFE.

ROM. vii. 22, 23.

"I delight in the law of God after the inward man ; but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind."

SUCH is the weary conflict, which Adam's fall entailed on all born into the world in the way of nature, on all save Him Who, born not after the way of nature, came to redeem, renew, regenerate, sanctify, transform our nature into the likeness of His own. In Paradise there was no momentary disturbance to that inward peace of the soul, which is wholly united with its God. God had made them for Himself, and nothing had come between them and God. They had no fear, no pain, no longing for what they had not. They knew not sin, and so knew not what it was to sin; they could not even fear sin which they knew not. The forbidden fruit

hung before them; but in calm faith and trust in their Maker's word, they passed it by unheeded, as the only thing to be shunned in His whole Paradise, because forbidden them by Him Who loved them, and Whom they loved. They could not covet it, because they had in them nothing sinful; and to covet is sinful. They did not even look at it. For not until after Eve had listened to Satan's words, did she see that it "was good for food, and pleasant to the eyes, and to be desired to make one wise." Sinning not, they could not have any other evil, since death and every other evil came into the world by sin. Peacefully they enjoyed each other's love, loving in it God who had made them for each other, and nothing ever clouded the bliss of their unceasing love. All God's works spoke to them of God, and they loved Him, as the blessed shall; and, after the day's peaceful labour, they heard His Voice in the evening, as a friend discoursing with his friend. Man lived in Paradise as he willed, since he willed what God commanded; he lived enjoying God, and from Him, Who is Good, himself was good. He lived without any want, and might so have lived, until God should translate him peacefully, toilless, painless, deathless, to those joys, to which we hope to pass, as the end of weariness, toil, and pain, and through death to be freed from death, where death and sin shall be at an end for ever, and all shall be full contentment of perfect bliss.

To fall from God altered the whole face of man. Easy was the command to keep. The heavier was the disobedience which kept not a command so easy. They mistrusted Him, from Whom, with no shadow