SERMON VIII.

THE DECISION.

Ps. cxix. 57.

Thou art my portion, O Lord: I have said that I

would keep Thy words

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SERMONS,

&c.

SERMON I.

THE TRUE GOD.

JOHN, xvii. 3.

"This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God."

To know the true God is the sum of all knowledge it is essential to the wellbeing of mankind. Without this knowledge all worship is vain, and all efforts for the elevation of our moral nature are thrown away.

Therefore, for you who have made up your minds to live a life of worship, and to aim at moral conformity with God, it is necessary, first of all, to be sure that you have the true idea of God. I invite you to-day to give your attention to this great and serious subject; look at it as a subject about which it is your

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right and your duty to be satisfied once for all. Come to it with reverence and humility; but do not shrink from it. And if you already have felt any difficulties in what you have heard, or read, or thought about God, consider that now is the time to bring these difficulties to the light, and set them to rest, if so it may be, for ever. The questions which present themselves to a boy's mind in its earliest working, and which he is disposed to put aside as too simple and familiar for serious consideration, are almost sure to contain the germ of those thoughts which make the real difficulties of belief in after life. They should be met as they arise, and so the truth will be strongly and permanently established in your minds.

And when I encourage you to draw near and see this great sight, do not think that I forget the bounds which God Himself has set to our thoughts, or propose presumptuously to intrude into those things which He has kept secret. Two things must be borne in mind while we pursue this subject, 1st, That the history and the present state of the world show very plainly that there is no natural faculty in man, by which, unaided, he can attain to the

knowledge of the true God.

2dly, That it is

yet evidently the will of God that we should know Him, because all His direct communications and dealings with men have had the avowed object of declaring to us His real cha

racter.

While, then, on the one hand, we carefully avoid the foolish presumption of those who amuse themselves with idle speculations on the Divine nature, measuring it by the span of their own conceptions, and forcing it into verbal definitions, we may yet, as indeed we are bound to do, examine, and ponder, and realise with all attainable clearness of apprehension, that character of God which He has set before us in various relations. "The secret things belong unto the Lord our God; but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever."

You must, then, lay down this rule for yourselves at the outset. -all that you can know of God is what it pleases Him to teach you in one way or other. Your own understanding is to be faithfully and conscientiously employed in receiving and interpreting His revelation. But it must not presume to sit in judgment upon