them in all their parts. When our blessed Redeemer went about doing good, faith was commonly required from those, on whom the benefit was to be conferred. In like manner we are justified by faith, we are saved by faith: and by faith the merits of Christ will be imputed to us. Let us then seek diligently by prayer for this saving faith; and let us teach our sons and daughters to seek it too. Let the cares which were shed upon the head of Timothy, by the affection of his parents, be diligently bestowed by us upon our children. In these times of doubt and difficulty, when we are beset on all sides by dangers which we know not how to shun, let us impart to them a portion of that wisdom, which the chances and changes of the world can never impair. Let the bible be the first book they are taught to read, God the first Being they are taught to adore, and Jesus the first name in which they are instructed to hope. By these means, indeed, you may not ward off the stroke of death; you may not perhaps promote their worldly advancement; but you will do far better; you will snatch the victory from the grave, and the crown which earth denies them, will, through God's mercy, encircle their brows in heaven.

SERMON IV.

MARK X, 50.

And he, casting away his garment, rose and came to Jesus.

To every one whose mind is religiously disposed, the perusal of the actions and conduct of our blessed Redeemer, during his abode upon earth, is a continual source of comfort and delight. His miracles of mercy and compassion, are especially calculated to fill our souls with wonder, and our hearts with gratitude. But there is something more in the records of many of these instances of heavenly love, than will strike a hasty reader. Other lessons may be deduced, other consolations derived, upon a careful and devout consideration, than appear at first sight to flow from the subject. When we read of sight restored to the blind, hearing to the deaf, speech to the dumb, and life to the dead, we acknowledge immediately the greatness of the miracle, and the

bounty which caused it to be performed; and so far our devotion is heightened, and our religious confidence increased. But our hearts might be often solaced by a far stronger motive to our faith; might be often warmed by a far deeper glow of piety; if we did but compare the bodily infirmities of the afflicted objects of our Redeemer's charity, with our own spiritual necessities; and from the relief afforded to the former, draw the consoling conclusion, that if, in our wants and weakness, we ask for aid as earnestly and as sincerely as they did, like them we shall not sue in vain. In both cases we find the same implicit confidence insisted upon. "Be of good cheer, thy faith hath made thee whole," were the ordinary terms, in which our Saviour restored the cripple to his strength and the sick to health. In like manner, we are said to be "saved by grace through faith" and we are also commanded to "ask in faith nothing wavering." We shall not, then, employ amiss the time devoted to our attendance here, in endeavouring, with God's blessing, thus to examine, and thus to apply, the particulars of the history to which my text belongs.

66

They came to Jericho," says the sacred narrative, "and as he went out of Jericho with his disciples and a great number of people, blind Bartimeus, the son of Timeus, sat by the highway-side begging." In these simple words, a

plain and unvarnished tale of distress and misery is placed before us. The man was blind. God's blessed sun never gladdened him with his light. It was never day to him; but one long, dark, changeless night hung upon his path. The sight of kindred cheered him not; the meads and pastures of his own dear land were fair in vain for him. But this was not all. He was poor and forsaken too. In the wide world, perhaps, he had not a child to love, nor a friend to pity him, for he sat by the way-side begging. He felt deeply, as the sequel shews, the wretchedness of his destitute condition; he felt, too, his own utter inability to relieve the wants under which he laboured, or to remove that dreadful privation, which forbade him the enjoyment of one of God's choicest blessings. In the extremity of his distress, he was compelled to implore the aid of the casual passenger for the relief of his necessities. His petitions might not always, perhaps not often, be regarded; or, if some good Samaritan did pour the oil and wine of charity upon his afflictions and his sorrows, the succour thus given was but a temporary assistance, and could not, in the slightest degree, tend to alleviate that misery which pressed the heaviest upon the suppliant's spirit.

And now let us examine how nearly the state of the sinner resembles that of blind Bartimeus,

especially of the sinner just awakened to a sense of his guilt, and yet unacquainted with the means by which that guilt can be removed. The first emotions thus excited in the soul, are those of anguish and desolation. The only feeling which pervades it, is that of a deep sense of its own guilt, and a constant and terrible dread of God's displeasure; joined with an almost total ignorance of the resources, by which the one may be atoned for and the other averted. It knows not how to pray; it knows not how to repent; it knows not how to believe. It is compelled to seek from others, the aid which it is conscious it cannot minister to itself. It sits, as it were, by the way-side begging: and though it feels there is a sun of righteousness beaming around it, yet it strives in vain to catch the brightness of its rays, and share the blessings of its light. But does God, when, by his grace, the first springs of remorse are opened in the sinner's heart; when the remembrance of past iniquities first becomes grievous to be borne, leave him to himself? Does he turn away from his cries for relief; does he break the bruised reed or quench the smoking flax? Let us proceed with the narrative before us, and we shall find a consoling answer to these important enquiries. The poor blind beggar heard an unusual noise; the trampling of many feet, the sound of many voices. He enquired