may we consider them as assigned to us by the Spirit of God, and therefore not to be deserted or despised without guilt: so that, having done our duty in that state of life unto which it has pleased God to call us, we may finally be welcomed as good and faithful servants, and enter into the joy of our Lord!

SERMON XII.

PETER'S DENIAL OF CHRIST.

MATTHEW XXvi. 74, 75.

Then began he to curse and to swear, saying, I know not the man. And immediately the cock crew. And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly.

ONE of the simplest, and at the same time most striking proofs of the honesty of the evangelists, is the fidelity with which they record the errors and failings of the apostles, even when they might apparently have omitted to do so, without any impeachment of their veracity, or any deviation from the main object of their narrative. They seem determined to speak the whole truth, even when to do so is hardly required of them as inspired writers,

and would be positively and evidently injurious to them as artificers of a fraud. Their main object clearly is, to record the principal incidents in the eventful life of their Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. Whatever tends to illustrate his history, we may fairly expect to find distinctly narrated; but whatever seems to have no direct bearing upon that point, (especially if at first sight it appear to be injurious to his cause, or discreditable to his disciples), we might reasonably allow to be left unnoticed by his followers,-by men who had not only the success of their Master's undertaking at heart, but had also at stake (what is beyond measure dear to most men) their own personal characters, with their own age and with posterity. Yet so it is, that all the errors and weaknesses which we know to have belonged to the first embracers of the Gospel, we learn solely from their own account. It is not to their enemies that we must look for proofs that they partook of, at least, their full share of the common frailties of humanity,-out of their own mouths are they

condemned. They relate, in distinct and positive terms, apparently every instance of their ignorance, their timidity, their unbelief, their obstinacy; so that, while we have thus an unanswerable proof, that they which write such things against themselves can have no object but truth in recording them, we have at the same time presented to us a lesson in the great book of human nature-a sketch of man as he is in all times and stations-a picture of humanity under a state of visible probation, with cause and effect closely joined together, and the veil which too often covers the consequences of sin drawn aside. What character, for instance, has been any where more honestly depicted to us, in its weakness as well as its strength, than that of St. Peter? Elevated as he has rashly been, by an erring Church, to the head of the apostles, we find recorded of him by the evangelists more mistakes and errors, and more punishments of them, than of all the other apostles put together. Frequently is he led by his ill-regulated

zeal to overstep the boundaries of prudence and sound judgment, and as frequently is he rebuked by him, who would have our zeal to be according to knowledge, and our professions of fidelity to be based on the solid groundwork of principle. In the second Lesson for this day', we are presented with one amongst many instances of his hasty temper, and of its appropriate chastisement. Our Saviour, before his death, had fully and distinctly represented to his disciples the time, manner, and consequences of it, in order that, when the events which he had so faithfully predicted had literally come to pass, they might remember that he had told them before', and so have additional evidence that he was indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world. Especially he warned them of the disappointment and distress which his near-approaching death would inflict upon his faithful followers. "All ye shall be offended because of me this night for it is written, I will smite

1 The Sunday next before Easter.

2 John xiv. 29; xvi. 4.