HUMILITY.

What is humility of mind? Humility is to make a right estimate of one's self. It is not humility for a man to think less of himself than he ought, though it might rather puzzle him to do that. Some people, when they know they can do a thing, tell you they cannot, but surely you would not call that humility? A man is asked to take part in some good work, " no," he says, " I have no ability," but if you were to say so of him he would be offended at you. It is not humility for a man to stand up and depreciate himself and say he cannot do this, that, or the other, when he knows that it is untrue. If God gives a man a talent, do you think the man does not know it? If a man has ten talents, he has no right to be dishonest to his Maker and to say " Lord, thou hast only given me five." It is not humility to underrate your endowments. Humility is to think of yourself,if you can, as God thinks of you. It is to feel that if we have talents, God has given them to us, and let it be seen that, like freight in a vessel, they tend to sink us low. the more we have, the lower we ought to lie. Humility is not to say, "I have not this gift," but it is to say "I have the gift, and I must use it for my Master's glory. I do not seek any honour for myself, for what have I that I have not recieved?" Humility is to feel that we have no power in ourselves, but that it all comes from God. Humility is to lean upon our Beloved, saying, " I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me" This is in fact to annihilate self and to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ as being our all in all.

PARDONED

BLESSED IS HE WHOSE TRANSGRESSION IS FORGIVEN,WHOSE SIN IS COVERED

Psalm 32 is very instructive. The experience of one man is instructive to another. We learn the way in which we should walk by observing the footsteps of the flock. The psalm begins with a blessing. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. I think I hear a sort of sigh of relief, as if the man had been burdened with a load of guilt, and now at last his sin is put way, and his sigh has more solemn joy in it than if it had been a song. Beloved you must know the bitterness of sin before you can know the blessedness of forgiveness, and you must have such a sight of sin as shall break your heart before you can understand the blessedness of the divine covering, that sacred coverlet that hides sin effectually, blots it out, and even makes it cease to be. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Would you not think so, dear burdened heart, if it ever came to your lot? I hope it will be so tonight. Do we not think so, who remember the day when almighty mercy forgave us our transgressions, and covered our sins? Indeed we do. This is one of the greatest joys out of heaven. Perhaps, for a sort of still soft melody, with much of the minor in it, this is the sweetest music in the whole book, blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

Now the psalmist must put the same truth in another form. He loves to reduplicate, to repeat again and again a truth which is very precious to him. Blessed is the man unto whom The Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile. Here are two reasons for the man's joyfulness, sin is not laid to his charge, and he is no longer deceitful, he no longer tries to palliate and to excuse his sin, he makes a clean breast of it, and God in a higher sense gives him a clean breast. He acknowledges the justice of God, and God displays His infinite mercy to him.

SPURGEONICS.

AFFLICTION.....The Lord gets His best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction.

COMMUNION.....One hour with Christ is worth an eternity of all earth's joys, and communion with Him is the best, the surest, and the most ecstatic foretaste of the bliss of heaven.

FAMILY PRAYER.....and the pulpit are the bulwarks of protestantism! depend upon it, when family piety goes down, the life of godliness will become very low. In Europe, at any rate, seeing that the christian faith began with one converted household, we ought to seek after the conversion of all our families, and to maintain within our own homes the good and holy practice of family worship.

PREACHING....."Often, when I come in at the door and my eyes fall on this vast congregation, I feel a tremour go through me to think that I should have to speak to you all and be, in some measure, accountable for your future state. Unless I preach the gospel faithfully and with all my heart, your blood will be required at my hands. Do not therefore wonder that when I am weak and sick, I feel my head swim when I stand up to speak to you, and my heart is often faint within me. But I do have this joy at the back of it all, God does set many sinners free in this place!"

OPEN WIDE.....Open your mouth wide in prayer, " I cannot " says one, well if you open your mouth God will fill it with prayer, and then, when you have prayed the prayer that He has given you, He will fill it with answers! God gives the prayer as well as the answer to prayer! Only open your mouth and, as it were, make a vacuum for God to fill. God loves to look for emptiness where He may stow away His grace

STRENGTH THROUGH WEAKNESS.....The way to grow strong in Christ is to become weak in yourself. God pours no power into man's heart until man's power is all poured out. The christian's life is one of daily dependence on the grace and strength of God.

WHERE CHRIST IS..... "Phlip was a searcher after Christ in the place where Christ loves to be, in the pages of scripture, and you must be the same, if you desire to find Jesus!"

PRINCE OF PREACHERS

FAITH, THE MARK OF SONSHIP.

Faith is the mark of sonship in all who have it, whoever they may be, for "ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus."gal.3v26. If you are believing in Jesus, whether you are male or female, Jew or gentile, bond or free, you are the child of God. If you have only believed in Christ of late, and have but for the past few weeks been able to rest in His great salvation, yet beloved, now you are the child of God. It is not an after priviledge, granted to assurance or growth in grace, it is an early blessing and belongs to him who has the smallest degree of faith and is no more than a babe in grace. If a person be a believer in Jesus Christ their name is in the register-book of the great family above, for, "ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus." But if you have no faith, no matter what zeal, no matter what works, no matter what knowledge, no matter what pretensions to holiness you may possess, you are nothing, and your religion is vain. Without faith in Christ you are a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal for without faith it is impossible to please God. Faith then wherever it is found, is the infallible token of a child of God, and it's absence is fatal to the claim.
This according to the apostle is further illustrated by our baptism, for in baptism, if there is faith in the soul, there is an open putting on of The Lord Jesus. " For as many of you as have been baptised into Christ have put on Christ."gal3v27. In baptism you professed to be dead to the world and you were therefore buried into the name of Jesus, and the meaning of that burial, if it had any right meaning for you, was that you professed your self henceforth to be dead to everything but Christ, and henceforth your life was to be in Him, and you were to be as one raised from the dead to newness of life. Of course the outward form avails nothing to the unbeliever, but to the one who is in Christ it is a most instructive ordinance. The spirit and essence of the ordinance lie in the soul's entering into the symbol, in the person's knowing not alone the baptism into water, but the baptism into The Holy Ghost and into fire, and as many of you as know that inward mystic baptism into Christ know also that hencforth you have put on Christ and are covered by Him as a man is by his garment. Henceforth you are one with Him, you wear His name, you live in Him, you are saved by Him, you are altogether His. Now, if you are one with Christ, since He is a son, you are a son also. God seeth you not in yourself but in Christ, and that which belongeth unto Christ belongeth also unto you, for if you be Christ's then are you Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. As the Roman youth when he came of age put on the toga, and was admitted to the rights of citizenship, so the putting on of Christ is the token of our admission into the position of sons of God. Thus we are actually admitted to the enjoyment of our glorious heritage. Every blessing of the covenant of grace belongs to those who are Christ's, and every believer is in that list.

GOD'S THOUGHTS.

A book is the expression of the thoughts of the writer. The book of nature is an expression of the thoughts of God. We have God's terrible thoughts in the thunder and lightning, God's loving thoughts in the sunshine and the balmy breeze, God's bounteous, prudent, careful thoughts in the waving harvest and in the ripening meadow. We have God's brilliant thoughts in the wonderous scenes which are beheld from mountain-top and valley, and we have God's most sweet and pleasant thoughts of beauty in the little flowers that blossom at our feet. But you will remark that God has in nature given the most prominence to those thoughts that needed to have the pre-eminence. He hath not given us broad acres overspread with flowers, for they were not needed in such abundance, but He hath spread the fields with corn, that thus the absolute necessities of life might be supplied. We needed most of the thoughts of His providence, and He hath quickened our industry, so that God's providential care may be read as we ride along the roads on every side. Now God's book of grace is just like His book of nature, it is His thoughts written out. This great book, the bible, this most precious volume, is the heart of God made legible, it is the gold of God's love beaten out into leaf gold, so that therewith our thoughts might be plated, and we also might have golden, good and holy thoughts concerning Him. And you will mark that as in nature so in grace, the most necessary is the most prominent. I see in God's word a rich abundance of flowers of glorious eloquence, often I find a prophet marshalling his words like armies for might, and like kings for majesty. But far more frequently I read simple declarations of the truth. I see, here and there, a brilliant thought of beauty, but I find whole fields of plain didactic teaching, which is food for the soul, and I find whole chapters full of Christ which is divine manna, whereon the soul doth feed. I see starry words to make the scriptures brilliant, sweet thoughts to make them fair, great thoughts to make them impressive, terrible thoughts to make them awful, but necessary thoughts, instructive thoughts, saving thoughts, are far more frequent, because far more needful. Here and there a bed of flowers, but broad acres of living corn of the gospel of the grace of God.

THE HOLY GHOST.

A very interesting subject is the work of The Spirit upon the Person of Our Lord Jesus.We see The Holy Ghost mysteriously operating in the formation and birth of the holy child Jesus, for by the overshadowing of The Holy Ghost He was born of a woman. This work of The Holy Spirit was manifested to all believing eyes when The Lord Jesus came out of the waters of the Jordan after His baptism, and The Holy Spirit descended like a dove and rested upon Him. Before He was said to "wax strong in spirit," but afterwards He is described as " full of The Holy Ghost." Then He was led of The Spirit and inspired by His divine energy, and this was shown throughout the whole of His life, for The Spirit was with Him in innumerable miracles, and in the demonstration and power which followed His word, so that He spoke as one who had authority, and not as the scribes. In Him was fulfilled abundantly the prophecy which saith "and The Spirit of The Lord shall rest upon Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of The Lord, and shall make Him of quick understanding in the fear of The Lord, and He shall not judge after the sight of His eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of His ears, but with righteousness shall He judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth."The Holy Spirit had also a peculiar interest in His resurrection, for He was "declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead." He was put to death in the flesh, but quickened by The Spirit. That same Spirit wrought mightily when The Lord ascended up on high, and led captivity captive, then succeeding His ascension, the gifts of the cloven tongues of fire and the mighty rushing wind were witnessed by His disciples, for The Spirit of God was given abundantly to the church in connection with the ascencion of the Redeemer. Oh how sweetly doth The Spirit co-operate with Christ at this very day, for it is He who takes the things of Christ and reveals them unto us. He is the abiding witness in the church to the truth of the gospel, and the worker of all our gifts and graces. Jesus gives repentance, but The Spirit works it, faith fixes upon Christ, but The Spirit of God first creates faith and opens the eye which looks to Jesus. This whole dispensation through it is the peculiar office of The Spirit of God to be revealing Christ to His people, and Christ in His people, and Christ in the midst of an ungodly and gainsaying generation, for a testimony against them. Blessed be the name of The Holy Spirit, that He is that divine anointing, and so proves His hearty assent to the great plan of redemption.