so ugly, is duty to a loving Father.  Do not listen to his lies; look up to your good Father in heaven; and try.  It is God’s will that these children should be confirmed; it is His will that you should help to bring them to confirmation; and if it is His will, He will help you to do that will of His.  It may seem difficult:  but try, and the difficulty will vanish, for God will make it easy for you.  You may be afraid of interfering:  believe that God’s Spirit is working in the hearts of your godchildren, and of their parents also; and trust to God’s Spirit to make them kindly and thankful to you about the matter, and glad to see that you take an interest in their children.  You may seem not to know enough:  O, my friends, you know enough, every one of you, if you have courage to confess how much you know.  Ask God for courage to speak out, and He will give it you.  And even if you are no scholar, be sure that, as the old proverb says, ‘Teaching is the best way of learning.’  Any parent, or godfather, or godmother, who will try to teach their children God’s truth and their duty, will find that in so doing they will teach themselves even more than they teach the children.  I say it because I know it from my own experience.  And for the rest, again I say, is not God your Father?  Therefore, if any man be in want of wisdom, or courage, or any other heavenly gift, let him ask of God, who giveth liberally and upbraideth not, and he shall receive it.  For after all, when you ask God to teach you, and strengthen you to do your duty, you do but ask Him for a part of that very inheritance which He has already given you; a part of your inheritance in that kingdom of heaven which is a kingdom of spiritual gifts and graces, into which you were baptized as well as your godchildren.

Try then, each of you, what you can do to bring your own godchildren to confirmation, and what you can do to make them fit for confirmation; for you are members one of another, and if you will act as such, you will find strength to do your duty, and a blessing in your day from that heavenly Father from whom every fatherhood in heaven and earth, and yours among the rest, is named.

SERMON VI.  JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH

Ephesians ii. 5.  By grace ye are saved.

We all hold that we are justified by faith, that is, by believing; and that unless we are justified we cannot be saved.  And of all men who ever believed this, perhaps those who gave us the Church Catechism believed it most strongly.  Nay, some of them suffered for it; endured persecution, banishment, and a cruel death, because they would persist in holding, contrary to the Romanists, that men were justified by faith only, and not by the works of the law; and that this was one of the root-doctrines of Christianity, which if a man did not believe, he would believe nothing else rightly.  Does it not seem, then, something strange that they should never in this Catechism of