places of your heart.  Pray God’s Spirit to quicken your soul, and bring it to life, that it may see and love what is good, and see and hate what is wrong; and instead of being most hard on your neighbour’s sin, to which you are not tempted, be most hard on your own sin, on the sin to which you are most tempted, whatsoever that may be.  You have your besetting sin, doubt it not; every one has.  I know that I have.  I know that I have inclinations, tempers, longings, to which if I gave way, my soul would rot and die within me, and make me a curse to myself, and you, and every one I came near; and all I can do is to pray God’s Spirit to help me to fight those besetting sins of mine, and crush them, and stamp them down, whenever they rise and try to master me, and make me live after the flesh.  It is a hard fight; and may God forgive me, for I fight it ill enough:  but it is my only hope for my soul’s life, my only hope of remaining a man worth being called a man, or doing my duty at all by myself and you, and all mankind.  And it is your only hope, too.  Pray for God’s Spirit, God’s strength, God’s life, to give your souls life, day by day, that you may fight against your sins, whatsoever they are, lest they kill your souls, long before disease and old age kill your bodies.  Make up your minds to it.  Make up your minds to mortify the deeds of the body; to say to your own bodies, tempers, longings, fancies, ’I will not go your way:  you shall go God’s way.  I am not your debtor; I owe you nothing; I am God’s debtor, and owe Him everything, and I will pay Him honestly with the service of my body, soul, and spirit.  I will do my duty, and you, my flesh, must and shall do it also, whether it is pleasant at first, or not:’  and be sure it will be pleasant at last, if not at first.  Keep God always before your eyes.  Ask yourself in every action, ’What is right, what is my duty, what would God have me do?’ And so far from finding it unpleasant, you will find that you are saving yourself a thousand troubles, and sorrows, and petty anxieties which now torment you; you will find that in God’s presence is life, the only life worth having, and that at His right hand are pleasures for evermore.  Oh, be sure, my friends, that in real happiness you will not lose, but gain without end.  If to have a clear conscience, and a quiet mind; if to be free from anxiety and discontent, free from fear and shame; if to be loved, respected, looked up to, by all whose good word is worth having, and to know that God approves of you, that all day long God is with you, and you with God, that His loving and mighty arms are under you, that He has promised to keep you in all your ways, to prosper all you do, and reward you for ever,—­if this be not happiness, my friends, what is?

SERMON XVIII.  SHAME

Romans x. 11.  For the Scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on Him shall not be ashamed.