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charity loses it vagueness, and becomes a true exercise of faith, when he who ministers to his brother's wants, sees in the sufferer a ransomed creature of Christ, when he beholds him precious for the price at which he was bought, and knows that the Saviour who redeemed him, sends him as his own representative to all who have the power to relieve. "Verily, I say unto you, inasmuch as inasmuch as ye have done it to the least of these little ones, ye have done it to me.'

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May God grant that we may be greeted at the judgment day with this acknowledgment— that we may employ ourselves assiduously in the cultivation of a true and lively faith-that through its influence our works may become pure, and that from works so purified, our faith may increase in strength continually.Then shall we while we sojourn in this perilous world, find that its power over us is continually decaying, and, as we every day draw nearer to the grave, that we are every day becoming more prepared to pass through it. Then shall the holy dispositions which are to render us meet for Heaven, be daily becoming more pure and less encumbered-then shall all those passions which belong to earth, and which constitute much of its misery, be becoming more and more obedient to the heavenly prin

ciple which reigns in our hearts-and then shall we even here, in this world of sin, receive those messages of grace and love which God is continually addressing to all men, but which, where faith spreads out no shelter, leave the heart unvisited. Oh! thus, my brethren, could we, by receiving the blessings which God bestows upon us, raise up faith to the high ascendancy which it ought to possess, and make our works correspond with its blessed directions-thus, should we draw down upon this world such visitations of divine love, such refreshing influences of divine grace, such peace, such hopes, such happiness-that when we had passed into the regions of everlasting blessedness, we should find the change to consist in the perfection of the blissfulness we had enjoyed here-and that our passage was rather from glory to glory, than from sin and wretchedness to everlasting life. God grant, my brethren, that we may all be visited with such a faith, and that our lives may correspond that, believing, firmly as we do, the truth of the declaration, "The just shall live by faith," we shall also be influenced by the instruction, that even faith itself must cease to live, if it be withdrawn from that sphere of Christian activity in which it should be continually exercised.

SERMON XI.

46

Job v. 7.

MAN IS BORN TO TROUBLE, AS THE SPARKS FLY UPWARD."

THERE are few of us to whom, at one period or another, the truth of these words has not been brought home by melancholy experience. One of the first things which strikes the observing mind, in comparing the condition of the human species with that of the other animals, is, the singular degree in which we are placed in each other's power, and our respective happiness or misery made to depend on our mutual conduct. And we cannot seriously dwell upon this peculiarity, in the character and circumstances of our race, without discovering that the wise and gracious Lord has so ordered it, for the wisest and most gracious purposes.

Is this world man's abiding place? Does his destiny reach no higher than a sovereignty over this earth, upon which we tread? Go

what appears to be true, such belief may ge but a very short way in determining us to do what appears to be reasonable. And hence, the variance between profession and practice, between principle and conduct, which appears in the world. And hence, the necessity for some more pressing and operative motives than those of mere abstract reason and conviction, to compel such an attention to the truths of our divine religion, as may make its efficacy savingly felt, and give us experimental knowledge that the law of the Lord is pure, convert ! ing the soul, as well as that the testimony of the Lord is sure, and giveth wisdom unto the simple.

Our Christian duty may be briefly comprehended in these two commandments, to love God above all things, and to love our neighbour as ourselves. The first is at variance with every thing impure; the second. with every thing selfish. And if this world were so ordered, as that we could secure to ourselves uninterrupted happiness, by the gratification of our impure propensities, and the indulgence of our selfish affections, the simple consideration of our duty to God would have little practical effect upon our lives. But it is ordered otherwise. Man does not find uninterrupted happiness in those pursuits, which

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