ters of God upon this earth-and kings and priests to God -this no less is the design of the Holy Scriptures, and their fruit to those who obey them. Know them, and upon the knowledge act, and all meanness shall forsake your conduct, with all hypocrisies; and all the struggles of passion with interest, and of interest with duty; and your character shall come forth in the strength and beauty of holiness, to the honour and glory of your Creator.

Then you walk with God, and his favour shall compass you around-you are in the way of his commandments, and the great peace which is in the keeping of them shall be your portion-you are living by faith on Christ, and the spirit of Christ shall be in you-you are walking in the Spirit, and no condemnation remaineth for you. The sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, shall put your enemies to flight. The in-dwelling of the Spirit shall move your soul to divine attainments, and the world's hindrances shall not hinder you from running the race for the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus.

I know nothing able to restrain or limit the perfection of the meanest man who will submit himself to the word of God. Hard labour may wear you down, but as your day is, so shall your strength be. Your own evil nature may hold back, but the Spirit is powerful over all carnal affections. Temptations may delude you; God will not suffer you to be tempted above what you can bear. Whatever man has been enabled to reach by divine grace, I see not but man, every man, by the same grace, may still attain; therefore adventure, under God's management, to any reach of holy and heavenly life. Put no limitation within the bounds of God's revelations. It depends not on station, it depends not on natural knowledge, it depends not on fortunate accidents, all it depends on is the craving desire to know, and the assiduous endeavour to attain. God is not loath to do his part, nor the word of God difficult to comprehend. Nought is wanting but the desire to be instructed, and furnished to every good word and work.

But if you rather prefer the fortune of the brutes that perish, to look upon the light of the sun, and eat the provision of the day, to vegetate like a plant through the stages of life, and, like a plant, to drop where ye grew, and perish from the memory of earth-having done nothing, desired nothing, and expected nothing beyond:-If this you prefer to the other, then have you heard what you lose in the present; hear now what you lose through eternity

You lose God's presence, in which all creation rejoiceth. You lose God's capacity to bless you with his manifold blessings, which the cherubim and seraphim can speak of better than a fallen man. You lose the peace and perfect blessedness of heaven, which from this earth we can hardly catch the vision of. Have you suffered spiritual oppression and drowning from fleshly appetites, freedom from this you lose. Have you groaned under the general bondage of the creature, and called for deliverance, this deliverance. you lose. Have you conceived pictures of quiet and peaceful énjoyment amidst beautiful and refreshing scenes, the realities of these you lose. Have you felt the ravishment of divine communion, when the conscious soul breathes its raptures but cannot utter them, the eternal enjoyment of these you lose. What Adam and Eve enjoyed within the unblemished Paradise of Eden with the presence of God, you lose. What Peter and John felt upon the mount of transfiguration, where they would have built tabernacles and remained for ever, you lose. Can you, brethren, think of this world's fare with contentment? If you are wicked, how do your sins find you out, or overhang you with detection. If you are holy, how your desires outrun your performance, and your knowledge your power; how you fall, are faint, are backsliding, are in darkness, are in doubt, are in dismay. You are not content with this world's fare, you long after something higher and better; hence the perpetual cheering of hope, and instigation of ambition, and thirst after novelty, and restlessness to better your condition. When man cometh to wish, to expect to labour or care for nothing higher or better than his present condition, he is supremely miserable. God hath left these witnesses within our breasts out of whose mouth to convict us. He will say, "Ye strove after something happier. 'Twas the labour of your life to reach it. I let down heaven's glory to your eager eyes. You put it away; therefore be it put away from your habitation for ever. Oh, ye who labour by toil and trouble to exalt your condition, will ye not exalt it far above the level of thrones or principalities, or any name that is named upon the earth."

Would that like St. John in the Apocalypse I had seen, or like Paul in the trance I had felt, the glories of heaven, that for your sakes I might unfold them. I have spoken of the removal of earthly disasters and embarrassments, which cleave to the lot of the religious in our kind, and to the lot of the wicked in another kind. But the removal of these is

nothing. I have spoken of the gratification of all Nature's hungerings and thirstings after truth, knowledge, goodness, and happiness. But this is nothing, these distresses, these desires pertain to a weak and fallen creature. It behoves to

speak of the enjoyments and desires of angels-of their fervours, their loves, their communions. But who can speak of them?

Yet if emblems can assist you, then do you join in your imagination the emblems and pictures of heaven. What is the conditions of its people? That of crowned kings. What is their enjoyment? That of conquerors triumphant, with palms of victory in their hands. What their haunts? The green pastures by the living waters. What their employment? Losing their spirits in the ecstasies of melody, making music upon their harps to the Lord God Almighty, and to the Lamb for ever and ever. For guidance, the Lamb that is in the midst of them, shall lead them by rivers of living waters, and wipe away all tears from their eyes. For knowledge, they shall be like unto God, for they shall know even as they are known, For vision and understanding, they shall see face to face, needing no intervention of language or of sign. For ordinances through which the soul makes imperfect way to her Maker, there is no temple in the city of their habitation, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple thereof. There shall be no night there, and they need no candle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them light, and they shall reign for ever and ever, nay, the very sense hath its gratifications in the city of God. The building of the wall is of jasper, the city of pure gold like unto clear glass; the foundation of the wall garnished with all manner of precious stones. Every one of the twelve gates a pearl. Now what means this wealth of imagery drawn from every storehouse of nature, if it be not that the choicest of all which the eye beholds or the head is ravished with—that all which makes matter beautiful and the spirit happy-that all which wealth values itself on and beauty delights in, with all the scenery which charms the taste and all the employments which can engage the affections, every thing, in short, shall lend its influence to consummate the felicity of the saints in light.

Oh, what untried forms of happy being, what cycles of revolving bliss, await the just! Conception cannot reach it, nor experience present materials for the picture of its similitude; and, though thus figured out by the choicest emblems,

they do no more represent it, than the name of Shepherd does the guardianship of Christ, or the name of Father the love of Almighty God.

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Then, Brethren, let me persuade you to make much of the volume which contains the password to the city of God, and without which it is hid both from your knowledge and your search. And if in this volume there be one truth more prizeworthy than another, it is this, that Christ hath set open to you the gates of the city, and that he alone is the way by which it is to be reached. He hath gone before to prepare its mansions for your reception, and he will come again to those who look for his appearing. For his sake be ye reconciled to God, that ye may have a right to the tree of life, and enter by the gate into the city.

Thus, by the combined considerations which have been set before you in succession-by the awfulness of God's presence in his word-by the necessity of listening to it-by the terrific issues of disobeying it and now by these, the present and eternal gains of obedience-have we pleaded at length for the oracles of God, being convinced, that, until they be taken up and perused and obeyed, under the solemn impression of such feelings, they will never have their proper place in the minds of men, but continue, as they are to most, a book purchased, but little read; esteemed, but little acted on. It is shameful to men of talents and power, that they should allow themselves such indecision upon the subject of religion, which, by its effects upon the world, is more entitled to preference in their consideration, than science or literature, or policy or arms. It proves the grossness rather than the refinement, the bondage rather than the liberty, of their minds, that they should be so engrossed with fame, and wealth, and power, and the other rewards which wait on eminence in any profession, as to have no thoughts to spare upon revelation and futurity, but go to their graves as ignorant, and undecided, and uninfluenced, in these matters, as if they were living in the ages before the birth of Christ. I have more respect infinitely for one who having dealt with the subject of the Scriptures finds a verdict against them, than I have for those who have not soul enough to see in the subject aught worthy of their thoughts, although they take up with the merest novelties in fashion and politics, and arts and science, pluming themselves upon the high walk of human interest which they are taking. Would they know, would they think, would they come to a conclusion, would they justify their neglect of God's great commandments, by a manifesto

of reason, or feeling, or interest, showing that it is silly, ignoble, or useless, to give heed to the Almighty, then they would acquit themselves like men; but it doth bespeak in them a frivolity of mind and a lightness of heart, of which the age and country may well feel ashamed, that they see no good in that heartfelt vital godliness, which hath written its blessed fruits in every characteristic page of our history, and in almost every article in the charter of English rights. No wonder that venality and factious self-interest should come to play in public affairs such leading parts, and that the names of principle and virtue should be smiled on with sceptical scorn by public men, when thus are cast away the fear of God and the expectation of heaven-the fulcrum upon which magnanimity and disinterestedness in former times did rest, when they poised up rooted corruption and arbitrary power from their ancient seats.

Would mathematical science thrive, if Euclid and the Principia were to cease from the studies of our youth? Would the public watchfulness of the people over their rulers thrive, if they were to refrain from perusing the daily intelligence, and conversing of public affairs? Will religion thrive, if the word of God be not studied, and its topics conferred on? If, at that season when our youth of first family and ambition are preparing their minds for guiding affairs, by courses of early discipline in public schools, and those of second rank are entered to the various professions of life, if then no pains be taken to draw their attention to the sacred writings, and impress principles of piety and virtue upon their minds, how can it be expected that religion should even have a chance. One cannot always be learning: youth is for learning, manhood for acting, and old age for enjoying the fruits of both. I ask, why, when the future lawyer is studying Blackstone or Lyttleton; the future physician, Hippocrates and Sydenham; the future economist, Smith and Malthus; the future statesman, Locke and Sydney; each that he may prepare for filling a reputable station in the present world -why the future immortal is not at the same time studying the two testaments of God, in order to prepare for the world to come, in which every one of us hath a more valuable stake? If immortality be nothing but the conjuration of priests to cheat the world, then let it pass, and our books go to the winds like the Sibyls' leaves; but if immortality be neither the dream of fond enthusiasts, nor the trick of artful priests, but the revelation of the righteous God; then let us have the literature, and the science, and the practice, for the