will show that he does not wish
our spirits to fail before him, but to grow and flourish before him
to everlasting life. He will create the fruit of the lips, and give
us cause to thank him in spirit and in truth. He will show us that
he was nearest when he seemed furthest off; and that just because he
is the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is
Holy, who dwelleth in the high and holy place, for that very reason
he dwells also with the humble and the contrite heart; because that
heart alone can confess his height and its own lowliness, confess
its own sin and his holiness; and so can cling to his majesty by
faith, and partake of his holiness by the inspiration of his Holy
Spirit.

God grant that we may all so humble ourselves under his mighty hand,
whenever that hand lies heavy upon us, that he may raise us up in
due time, changed into his divine likeness, from glory to glory;
till we come to the measure of Christ, and to the stature of perfect
men, renewed into the image of the Son of Man, Jesus Christ our
Lord! Amen.

SERMON XVIII. ST. PETER

Matt. xvi. 18. Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my
Church.

This is St. Peter's day. It will be well worth our while to think a
little over St. Peter, and what kind of man he was. For St. Peter
was certainly one of the most important and most famous men who ever
lived in the whole world. You just heard what our Lord said to him
in the text. And certainly, from those words, and from many other
things which are told of St. Peter, he was the chief of the
apostles--at least till St. Paul arose.

St. Paul says himself, that he had as much authority as St. Peter,
and that he was not a whit behind the very chiefest of the apostles:
but St. Peter, for some time after our Lord's death, seems to have
been looked up to, by the rest of the apostles and the disciples, as
their leader, the man of most weight and authority among them. It
was to St. Peter especially that our Lord looked to strengthen the
other apostles, after he had been converted himself. It was to St.
Peter that our Lord first revealed that great gospel, that the
Gentiles were fellow-heirs with the Jews in all God's promises. The
same thing was afterwards revealed to St. Paul too, and far more
fully: but it was St. Peter who had the great honour of baptizing
the first heathen; and of using, as our Lord had bid him do, the
keys of the kingdom of heaven, to open its