since past, but for tlie taint also which they have left behind them, that this self-abasement is necessary. So Job thought', and so Isaiah ^, and so PauP : and, if we know ourselves aright, we shall find no terms more suited to express our real state, than those in which the prophet Isaiah described the Jews of his day ; " The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint : from the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in us, but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores'"."]
2. Our watchfulness —
[A magazine wherein there was a large store of combustible matter that might produce extensive injury by an explosion, would be guarded with all possible care: and can any care be too great, when we consider how many thousand things there are on every side ready to kindle a destructive flame" in our hearts, and how incessantly our great adversary is striving to make use of them for our destruction ? We know not what a day or an hour may bring forth. We may be as far from think- ing of evil as at any moment of our lives, and yet evil may arise from some unexpected quarter, and produce upon us the most painfid consequences. We are never safe for one moment, but whilst we are upheld in the arms of our Almighty Friend. We should therefore be continually crying to him, " Hold up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not!" at the same time that we should be striving contniually to " put off the old man, and to put on the new." This is the advice given us by our Lord himself; " Watch, and pray, that ye enter not into temptation:" for however " wilHng the spirit be" to approve itself to God, " the flesh is weak."]
3. Our gratitude —
[What a miracle of mercy is it, that, with so much cor- ruption about us, we are preserved in any measure from dis- honouring our holy profession ! The wonder is not that any fall, but that any are " kept from falling." And to whom is it owing that any of us are enabled to maintain our steadfastness in the divine life ? is it to ourselves ? No : Peter shews us, what we should soon be, if left to ourselves : Satan would soon *' sift us all as wheat," if our blessed Saviour did not intercede for us, and give us fresh supplies of grace and strength". Let us^ then be sensible of our great and unbounded obhgations to Him, who has said, that " he keepeth the feet of his saints." Let us bear in mind to whom it is owing, that, notwithstanding the bush is ever burning, it is yet unconsumed: and let us give all the glory of our stability to God, saying with David, " My foot standeth in an even place ; in the congregations will I bless the Lord"."] ° ^
> Job xHi. G. k Isai. vi. 5. i Rom. vii. 24.
™ Isai. i. 5, 6. " Luke xxii. 31, 32. « Ps. xxvi. 12.