survey from afar the good land into which we enter not ourselves: we are not consigned without help to a law which cannot save, which merely convicts and proves our unworthiness; but we are actually enlisted in baptism under the banner of our Jesus, under whom, as the author of all grace, we may fight and conquer. The waters of Jordan have been passed by His atoning death and resurrection: the cleansing virtue of which has, in the laver of regeneration, been solemnly conveyed to us all. Let then that warfare, on our serious engagement to which, as soldiers of Christ, our eternal life depends, be seriously undertaken and conducted by us: let our opposition to the corruptions which would impede our progress to immortal blessedness be as universal and as unsparing as that of Israel to the Canaanites. Let no evil passion against which we can bring to bear the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, or exercise the means which Christ's Church presents of prayer and fasting, and participation of the celestial nutriment of His sacrifice,-let no such evil principle be allowed, as far as we may, to live or reign within us,-to obstruct and cloud (as, in proportion to its prevalence, it must and ought to cloud) our hope and sure confidence in God. Let our prayers, our endeavours, even when most consciously weak, be directed to their utter extermination; for this is to realize the saving virtue of Christ's Cross, as the holy Scripture represents it, and as the Catholic Church has ever received it: and this with its pains will bring with

it also its ineffable consolations. Thus only shall we enjoy that peace which Christ has bequeathed, and of which His Spirit is the communicator and inspirer; and faint as our success may appear, yet may we finally, with that great company to which these acts unite us, be admitted as more than conquerors through Him that hath loved us.

SERMON VIII.

THE REJECTION OF SAUL.

(Preached at St Mary's, on the Fifth Sunday after Trinity, July 11, 1841.1)

1 SAMUEL XV. 28, 29, 30.

And Samuel said, The LORD hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee, and hath given it to a neighbour of thine that is better than thou. And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent. Then he said, I have sinned: yet honour me, I pray thee, before the elders of my people, and before Israel: and turn again with me, that I may worship the LORD thy God.

THE history of the unhappy prince whose character and whose fate are sketched briefly in these words. of our morning lesson, holds no unimportant place in those records of the early age that were written for our learning. The example presented to us is, indeed, melancholy beyond most others in Scripture; for nothing can be conceived more so than the view of high and honourable hopes issuing in disappointment and the gloom of hopeless reprobation. It is not however on this account the less salutary; and though in this, as in some other instances, our feelings may be in some degree ex

1 First preached in India, July 11, 1830.

cited at first in favour of him whom the Almighty rejected, the narrative itself, pursued with any attention to its close, is sufficient to vindicate the Divine proceeding even to our apprehension; to shew, what is the great lesson of revelation, that faithful adherence to God is the only path either of virtue or of happiness; that virtues of other growth without this, not only fail of the highest reward, but prove themselves intrinsically unreal and evanescent.

I would now, therefore, invite your attention to the history of the man, who, in these words of the prophet Samuel, is solemnly rejected by the Almighty from the high place to which he had been as solemnly anointed and consecrated before; and who unites, in the same text, a cold and general confession of his guilt before God, with the expression of his predominant wish-that, however this may be, he may yet be honoured, and retain his full credit among the people. Having seen the character which these few words imply developed in the leading events of his preceding and subsequent life, we may finally enquire, how this case of the disobedient king of Israel applies to Christians, and what instruction we may draw from it, upon whom the ends of all are come, in the last and most perfect revelation of truth and righteousness to the world.

But a short time had elapsed since the people of Israel had asked God, through his prophet Samuel, for a king; and God, to use the words of the prophet Hosea, gave them a king in his anger.

The grant, though coupled with marked displeasure against the erring nation whom nothing else would content, was not, however, accompanied with rejection or hopeless denunciation of their foolish choice. They had sinned greatly, by undervaluing the singular place which God, as their extraordinary ruler and monarch, held in their commonwealth, and preferring in their hearts to all the solid benefit, and all the high distinction, of this theocracy, the exterior decorations of that species of government which they saw exercised over their heathen neighbours. But in conceding this point to their vain fickle humour, even as greater things had been previously conceded to the hardness of their hearts, the substance of the theocracy is still to be preserved; and its inviolate maintenance is made the condition of God's continued protection, under the new form of government which they had chosen for themselves. The king to be anointed was to hold his crown upon these terms only, of obedience to Jehovah the God of Israel his supreme Lord: on condition of his punctually executing all the orders which the Lord by the supernatural means then ordinarily exercised had to communicate, he might possess the same insignia of royalty with other sovereigns, and claim a right to the people's fealty and allegiance. The people also were given to understand that such was the relation in which they stood to God as their paramount Sovereign. "Now, therefore," said Samuel to them, "behold the king whom ye have chosen, and whom ye have desired: and behold,