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tions will animate all their services, and, God the Creator and Redeemer will receive, the same glory and honor, thanksgiving and power, which are paid to him by the pure spirits before the celestial altar.

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Conceive of the spirit of perfect obedience to the divine will pervading this lower world. Behold these creatures of God, in all their multitude, in all their variety of condition and place, and in all the gradations of their intellectual endowment, all regarding him with the highest veneration and love, and conducting themselves toward one another as toward brethren of the same vast family. See them doing the will of God as it is done in heaven-failing in no precept-never varying from this standard of perfect rectitude-unceasingly devoted to their duty, and from the best spiritchargeable with nothing that can be condemned or reproached; and how would the Spirit and glory of God overlay this renovated creation! No longer would his character be defamed, his government impugned, his designs impeached and opposed, nor his honors taken from him; but every where would he be brought forward to the view of men, and every where acknowledged as God over all, blessed for ever. No longer would the kings of the earth take counsel against the Lord, and against his anointed; but princes and subjects, young men and maidens, old men and children, would give him the honor which is his due. His name would be great among the heathen, and in every place incense and a pure offering would be offered on his altar. But I will add,

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In some respects, God is even more honored by the obedience of earth than by the obedience of heaven. The planet on which we dwell is a peculiar world. There are no such expressions of the divine goodness made to any other world, as are made to this. No where does this lovely attribute assume the form of grace, and make its highest expressions of favor to the guilty, except to men. No where does it flow through such a channel-the death and sacrifice of the Lord Incarnate. And to no such expressions of his goodness are so many events in the universe rendered subservient, as to these. Hence, when men on the earth become holy, they are a peculiar people; and show forth the glory of Him who has brought them out of darkness into his marvellous light. They differ from all other beings in the universe. They bear a relation to Jesus Christ nearer, dearer, and more exalted than the angels who never fell. They are the purchase of his blood, and the reward of his sufferings and death. In all their untold and unceasing multitudes, and from generation to generation, they are fallen by their iniquity, and reclaimed only by his incarnation and sacrifice, by the agency of his Spirit, and the instrumentality of his truth. Others have been created and preserved; these have been redeemed and sanctified. Others have been sustained in their primitive integrity; these are perfect through the comeliness which he has put upon them, and possess a beauty and loveliness surpassing the excellence of the unfallen. As penitent and believing sinners, they have traits of character which the unfallen cannot have; moral relations

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which the unfallen cannot know; moral perceptions and emotions which the unfallen cannot feel; joys to which the unfallen are strangers; and a song in which the unfallen can never unite. God is glorified by the obedience of the unfallen; but their love and admiration flow forth in none of the forms peculiar to redeemed sinners. We are told that "there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance." And who does not see, that when such a population becomes holy, such rebels become children, such outcasts heirs of God; there is glory to God in the highest degree? At such a spectacle, well might the pure and incorporeal spirits before the throne exclaim, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!" When it is seen and known to principalities and powers in heavenly places, that in defiance of the machinations of the prince of darkness, and the invincible depravity of man, the kingdom of Christ and the empire of mercy are triumphant; what honors will be recovered to the Great Supreme, of which he has been so long defrauded; what expressions of power and purity, justice and mercy, supremacy and wisdom, in impressiveness and beauty hitherto unequalled, will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea! How will the mountains echo it to the valleys, and the valleys roll it back again to the mountains, that the Lord God omnipotent reigneth! How will one continent proclaim it to another, and the ocean waft it to the main, that the "kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ!" And what

ascriptions of honor, what mighty thunderingsof praise; in one grand concert of the millions of the redeemed, with the millions of the unfallen, like the sound of many waters, will pour forth their sublime and unceasing hallelujahs to God and the Lamb!

Thus desirable is it that the will of God should be done on earth, as it is in heaven. And now, in our application of this subject, let our

First reflection be, the sentiment of sympathy for this a

apostate and ruined world. When we see what this world might become; how blissful how exalted-how conspicuous in usefulness and joy"how"crowned and glorified, and how subservient fouthe glory of its great Author! and when we survey it, and see what it is; how vile and abject

how dishonored and accursed-and how, instead of displaying abroad his glory, it brings shame and reproach on its mighty Maker; our "eye affecteth our heart." It is a world fallen by its iniquity, and under the wrath and curse of God. It is a mass of loathsome and corrupted wretchedness, and covered with the pall of death. It is a world prostrated by its own degradation and wickedness, and sunk in pollution and guilt. Survey the char-acter and condition, the abjectness and misery, of men, as they rise before you even in the present state of existence. What indifference to Godwhat practical atheism-what polytheism and idolatry and what subversion of religion and moral order overspread the nations! What sottish ignorance-what deep degradation-what disgusting habits-what revolting and horrid rites and ceremonies-what depraved passions and shocking

immoralities what unnatural cruelties what obscenity and blood-and what consequent wretchedness and woe disfigure the aspect, and mar the form of human society! And then lift the veil and look into eternity. "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not enter into the kingdom of God?"Ah! what miseries are entailed upon such a race of offenders, beyond the grave! How forlorn, solitary, and desolate their condition! How bewildered and hopeless! What.gloom and terror! What an existence replete with agony! What devouring: fire! What weeping, wailing, and -gnashing of teeth! somet

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It is affecting to look back upon the history of the world, and measure the centuries that have gone by since God gave up the heathen to a reprobate mind. Although, since the incarnation of his Son, the Gentile nations have been the peculiar objects of his love, yet even now, eighteen hundred years after the apostles were expressly and divinely directed to preach the gospel to every creature, six hundred millions of immortal and accountable beings are living and dying without God and without hope. "Darkness covers the earth, and gross darkness the people." O it is the shadow of death! It is a deep reflection from the dark world of perdition. Some spots there are refreshed with heavenly verdure, but they are "few and far between," and the wearied eye seeks them almost in vain. Romanism, Mohammedanism, and paganism, constitute the religion of four-fifths of the human race. Even in Europe, modern, enlightened, christian Europe, that "garden of knowl

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