they may see how men of like feelings and passions with themselves have been enabled to walk in their MASTER'S steps, and so may take courage and follow them as they followed CHRIST.

But if any, casting aside her helps, or rather the assistance of GOD dispensed through the Church's instrumentality and in her ordinances, come short of the glory of God, who is to blame? Surely they who neglect and destroy their own souls.

Mark the melancholy instances of unprofitableness, of ungodliness, that disgrace the Christian name, and you will invariably find that the means of grace are more or less neglected by these persons. How then, can it be otherwise with them? If men forget to pray; or if they come to church for mere form's sake, and that they may be seen to make some kind of profession, and so be saved from the reproach of open apostacy; or if they come not to worship GoD, nor to become one with CHRIST in Holy Communion, but with itching ears seeking to please themselves; or if they come, under the pretence of worship, with unrepented sins upon their heads, without any steadfast purposes of amendment, how can they expect their souls should prosper ? How can they do otherwise than fear lest the Patience of GOD should be wearied out, and as they have trifled so long, and so often refused His call, that the door should be closed for ever against them? The promise that they shall find, is to them that seek; but these careless Christians seem to think that their salvation is safe without an effort. The healing Mercy of GOD in CHRIST is for them who thankfully submit to the treatment HE prescribes, but these proud sinners seem to think they may choose their own remedies, and do their own will; and when they do from any motive draw nigh to the Presence of GOD in His

own House, under some transient feeling of their real condition, they appear like Naaman to think that HE Whose help they desire will surely come out to them, and, as it were, strike His hand over the place and recover them without obedience, and an earnest seeking on their part.

Beloved, let me hope better things of you, and things that accompany salvation. Seek CHRIST in all His holy ordinances, and seek HIM with your whole heart. Sanctify the LORD GOD in your hearts. Live by the rule of those spiritual services by which the Church, as CHRIST's Spouse, ministers to you in His Name, and you shall renew your strength, and mount up with wings as eagles. GOD will make you holy, He will make your righteousness to be, in the language of Bishop Taylor, not a little knot of holy actions scattered in your lives and drawn into a sum at the Day of Judgment, but a state of holiness. You shall find that pearl of GOD which passeth all price; you shall experience in yourselves and make plain to others, that the path of the just shineth more and more unto the perfect day. And showing forth through the power of the HOLY SPIRIT working in you, that Holiness which alone becometh the House of GOD on earth, you shall in the end be partakers through the Merits of JESUS CHRIST, in the glory and blessedness of the Temple of GOD in Heaven, the Holy Jerusalem, where HE Whose Name is HOLY shall reign for ever and ever, surrounded by an innumerable company of the Holy Angels, and of Holy Apostles and Prophets, the Spirits of the Just made perfect, and where he that is holy shall be holy still."

W. J. D.

SERMON LXIX.

THE END OF MAN.

Sixth Sunday after Trinity.

ROMANS VI. 4.

THEREFORE WE ARE BURIED WITH HIM BY BAPTISM INTO THAT LIKE AS CHRIST WAS RAISED FROM THE DEAD BY THE GLORY OF THE FATHER, EVEN SO WE ALSO

DEATH:

SHOULD WALK IN NEWNESS OF LIFE.

THERE are hours in the existence even of the most thoughtless, in which they feel a certain lassitude and disgust with life, however prosperous their fortunes may be. All have at times sensations which convince them that there is something beyond and above their present manner of life that can alone afford them satisfaction. I am not now talking of religious people; I mean all men, especially when some opportunity occurs which calls forth their powers of reflection. There are some worldly natures indeed that are so eaten up with the cares of this world that they scarcely ever experience this feeling, or if they do, they drown it in more intense application to their employments; but even these last, if circumstances, such as failure in their business, or overwhelming sickness or the like,

should for a time abstract their minds from their besetting cares, will at times feel a sort of hankering after indefinite future good, and a dissatisfaction with their present life. Now all this feeling in itself is not good-it is only natural; but because it is natural it is also symptomatic. It is an evidence of something beyond this life of some unknown object towards which the soul while perfect had affinity-of some end for which, in short, man was made. Now I do not say that the persons who feel this lassitude and unsatisfactoriness will recognize this evidence. Rather the contrary. They will more probably suppose that they require some new excitement, and they will plunge into some energetic course of action either of pleasure and toil: they will not reason on the subject at all possibly, but they will act unconsciously, thus in their conduct evincing the truth of the principle of their nature, while they fail to recognize it themselves. How many of the crimes, and noble deeds, and revolutions, and conquests, and fortunes of nations and individuals, may be attributed to this? be attributed to this? A principle of man's nature unsupplied leaves a void-the void creates satiety and disgust—and this last drives man into action always energetic, sometimes sinful.

Now what is this principle of man's nature, so full of consequence to him under every condition? It is, that man was originally formed for one particular purpose, and so constituted, that except in tending to that purpose he would not fulfil the end of his being. Man was made for the service and glory of GoD, and peculiarly formed so as to fulfil that end. He was endowed with a soul formed in the Image of GOD, and therefore intended to love the same things that God loves, and to take delight in the same objects that He does.

Moreover he was clothed upon with a body so beautiful and useful, as to be deemed worthy to be seated on the right hand of the throne of GOD in the humanity of our ascended SAVIOUR. He was made in the very constitution of his nobler part, a type of the Blessed TRINITY, having in one soul three powers, memory, will, and intellect. He was gifted with original righteousness, a perfect innocence of thought and intention, an inclination to justice in short, he was so framed and fashioned that he was fit but for one purpose, and that the highest-the service of GOD. All the varied powers of his nature tended to this one end-each faculty had some peculiar object in this perfect service -the will selected the law of righteousness - the understanding apprehended the sacred attributesthe memory pondered the Divine testimonies. All was a beautiful harmony. Body and soul together combined to be a pure offering to the ALMIGHTY. Man was employed in what he was made for, and because so employed he was happy. "THOU hast made us for THEE, O LORD," says St. Augustine, "and our heart is restless till it rest in THEE."

But how different is the aspect of the present world from this even the Christian world. The face of it is changed, and only enough of the old system may here and there be traced to show that a convulsion of nature has taken place-that a mighty disturbing power has come in on a resistless world, sweeping before its destructive course all the lighter and ungrounded parts of its fabric, and leaving only those portions of it which have clung to the immoveable objects of faith, as evidences of what once was there. Man's nature is now corrupt and abominable, but some traces of his former excellence still remain. He is