nterested about them? Read them
carefully, and read them often, and they will bring before our minds the
very thoughts which we need, and which the world keeps continually from
us, the thoughts which naturally feed our prayers; thoughts not of self,
nor selfishness, nor pleasure, nor passion, nor folly, but of such
things as are truly God's--love, and self-denial, and purity, and
wisdom. These thoughts come by reading the Scriptures; and strangely do
they mingle at first with the common evil thoughts of our evil nature.
But they soon find a home within us, and more good thoughts gather round
them, and there comes a time when daily life with its various business,
which, once seemed to shut them out altogether, now ministers to their
nourishment.

Wherefore, in conclusion, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil
the lusts of the flesh; but do even the things which ye would. And ye
can walk in the Spirit, if ye seek for the Spirit; if ye seek him by
prayer, and by reading of Christ, and the things of Christ. If we will
do neither, then most assuredly we are not seeking him; if we seek him
not, we shall never find him. If we find him not, we shall never be able
to do the things that we would; we shall never be redeemed, never made
free, but our souls shall be overcome by their evil nature, as surely as
our bodies by their diseased nature; till one death shall possess us
wholly, a death of body and of soul, the death of eternal misery.

LECTURE IX.

* * * * *

LUKE xiv. 33.

_Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot
be my disciple_.

In order to show that these words were not spoken to the apostles alone,
but to all Christians, we have only to turn to the 25th and 26th verses,
which run thus:--"And there went great multitudes with him, and he
turned and said unto them, If any man come to me, and hate not his
father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea
and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." The words were not,
then, spoken to the twelve apostles only, as if they contained merely
some rule of extraordinary piety, which was not to be required of common
Christians; they were spoken to a great multitude; they were spoken to
warn all persons in that multitude that not one of them could become a
Christian, unless he gave himself up to Christ body and soul. Thus
declaring that there is but one rule for all; a rule wh