feeble knees:" and run with patience the race that is set before you. "Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith; who, for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is now set down at the right hand of God."

SERMON XVIII.

SOWING AND REAPING.

GAL. vi. 7.

"Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."

WE have in these words a truth of the greatest practical importance-one that we can never too much weigh-one which, at this spring season of the year, must, I should think, often be in a serious mind.

It is a truth, moreover, that is much insisted on in the Bible. There are many passages besides my text which set it forth-which join in proclaiming this great law of God, as that which prevails in the spiritual, as well as the natural world-the law of just recompense-which declare that according to the seed sown shall be the harvest-that like produces like—that in every early act and habit, be it a good or an evil one, lies the germ of an after reward; that just as a bad tree produces bad fruit, and a good tree good fruit, so ill-doing leads to shame and misery, well-doing to peace and joy—or,

to express the same in the very words of Holy Scripture, "the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.”

Such, stated very briefly, is the instruction contained for us in this verse out of St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians," Be not deceived; God is not mocked for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall

Let none of us disregard the lesson; it is one that we all need. Let us lay it to heart. Let us take it as a word of God, which He has given us to make us wise; a light, to lighten our daily path, to guide our steps into the way of peace.

And first, I would observe, what the text suggests -that this life, and the next are not so far apartso totally distinct, and different-as we commonly imagine.

We speak of heaven and hell, as places, to one or other of which we all shall go; where, in the resurrection, we shall have our portion for ever. We speak of the one as a place of infinite happiness of the other as a place of infinite misery. But we hardly, I think, enough realise to ourselves what that blessedness, and what that misery will be.

-

Bodily torment-the worm that dieth not, and the fire that never shall be quenched-is, perhaps, the only idea that most of us have of hell. Absence

of pain and labour; the drying up of all tears; still and dreamy rest, is the picture that we paint to ourselves of heaven.

Now, I do not dispute but that, so far as they go, these are true images of the things that shall be hereafter. But they do not go far enough. There is more wanted to fill up the picture—to give us a full, and just notion of our after state.

What especially is wanted, is, that we should notice the close connexion, which, as the Bible teaches us, there is between our condition here, and our condition hereafter; how, if I may so speak, the one runs up into the other; how heaven really begins, and hell really begins, on this side of the grave. He that is unjust here, will be unjust there; he that is filthy here, will be filthy there; he that is righteous, and holy here, will be righteous, and holy there.

This is a truth of revelation too much overlooked. And yet, as you will see, it is one of great value for the guidance of our course at present. Each day we live, there is a process going on, which is helping to fix our condition for ever. Death will complete that process, but it will not alter it. The character we have stamped upon us when we die, that character, and no other, shall we bear throughout eternity. The wickedness of the wicked shall cling to him, and form his torment; the righteousness of

the righteous shall cleave to him, and fit him for the pure joys of his Master's kingdom.

This is surely a very solemn, and awakening thought. Do not hastily put it from you. Let it help to leaven your whole life; let it furnish you with incitement to godliness; let it serve as a flaming sword to turn you away from sin. We should all, I am sure, echo that wish of the prophet, "Let me die the death of the righteous;" but such a wish, be we very sure, can only be made good, by our living at present the life of the righteous. "God is not mocked;" and it would be a mocking God to think the contrary—to think that a life of evil, or a life of carelessness, or a life of selfishness, persisted in to the last, could possibly be crowned with the righteous man's end. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. He that soweth to the flesh, shall of the flesh. reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting."

But I will take lower ground. I will, for the moment, leave out all consideration of a future world. I will only look at the present life, and I will ask you to notice how, even here, the truth of the text is made manifest, how certain it is, that "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."

And first, I will take the good sowing-the sowing to the Spirit-by which I understand,