And he will do that, I believe, just as far as he keeps in mind what a wonderful and useful thing his body is; what a perpetual token and witness to him of the unspeakable greatness and wisdom of God; just in proportion as he says day by day, with the Psalmist, ’Thou hast fashioned me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me.  Such knowledge is too wonderful and excellent for me; I cannot attain unto it.  Whither shall I go, then, from thy Spirit; or whither shall I go from thy presence?  If I climb up into heaven, thou art there.  If I go down to hell, thou art there also.  If I take the wings of the morning, and remain in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there also shall thy hand lead me, thy right hand shall hold me.’

Just in proportion as he recollects that, will he utter from his heart the prayer which follows, ’Try me, O God, and seek the ground of my heart; prove me, and examine my thoughts.  Look well if there be any way of wickedness in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.’

SERMON VII.  THE VICTORY OF FAITH

(First Sunday after Easter.)

1 John v. 4, 5.  Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world:  and this is the victory which overcometh the world, even our faith.  Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?

What is the meaning of ‘overcoming the world?’ What is there about the world which we have to overcome? lest it should overcome us, and make worse men of us than we ought to be.  Let us think awhile.

1.  In the world all seems full of chance and change.  One man rises, and another falls, one hardly knows why:  they hardly know themselves.  A very slight accident may turn the future of a man’s whole life, perhaps of a whole nation.  Chance and change—­there seems to us, at times, to be little else than chance and change.  Is not the world full of chance?  Are not people daily crushed in railways, burnt to death, shot with their own guns, poisoned by mistake, without any reason that we can see, why one should be taken, and another left?  Why should not an accident happen to us, as well as to others?  Why should not we have the thing we love best snatched from us this day?  Why not, indeed?  What, then, will help us to overcome the fear of chances and accidents?  How shall we keep from being fearful, fretful, full of melancholy forebodings!  Where shall we find something abiding and eternal, a refuge sure and steadfast, in which we may trust, amid all the chances and changes of this mortal life?  St. John tells us—­In that within you which is born of God.

2.  In the world so much seems to go by fixed law and rule.  That is even more terrible to our minds and hearts—­to find that all around us, in the pettiest matters of life, there are laws and rules ready made for us, which we cannot break; laws of trade; laws of prosperity and adversity; laws of health and sickness; laws of weather and storms; laws by which not merely we, but whole nations, grow, and decay, and die.—­All around us, laws, iron laws, which we do not make, and which we dare not try to break, lest they go on their way, and grind us to powder.