say not that they would honour us, the servants of the Church, but they would honour Him, whose servants also we are; they would love their Master and Saviour Jesus Christ, instead of the base and mean things of this world, which seem almost exclusively to exercise their care,a thing the more to move our wonder, seeing they possess so little of them. The miser loves his wealth and worships gold; but these serve their poverty. The Church calls them both morning and evening to her services; she invites them to the Holy Sacrament at short and frequent intervals; and happy are they who attend her call, and blessed are they who duly accept her invitation. O that all men would consider these things within themselves; that they would consider, and learn to act prudently and aright: so should they find a blessing indeed following upon their labours, even the blessing of a joyful and peaceful mind; so should they learn that devotion prospers a man's worldly calling, and can never interfere with its duties; so should they come to begin and end each day with prayer, and ask God's blessing upon every day in the week. Yet still would Sunday above all other days be reckoned by them, as it hath ever been by all good Christians, for the day of prayer, of reading and of hearing God's Word. Six days in the week men serve God by doing well all that they have to do, i.e. the proper business of their several callings, whatever they may be; the seventh, by withdrawing from their worldly business, and taking part in the public worship of God, and

meditating on God's Word, and holding cheerful and pious converse with their family at home. And this sanctifies the whole by the spirit which actuates it and which is nourished and increased by it. This spirit begets care for the future, and watchfulness for the present, and charity and goodwill towards all. We become more and more anxious to be found worthy of possessing the glory and happiness that is to come; more and more watchful over our own selves that we do nothing to forfeit our claim to it; and more charitable towards others, which is the fulfilling of the commandment. Purified in the sight of God by the Blood of Christ in whom we believe, to us "all things are pure." We may pursue our worldly business with confidence, and enjoy the good it brings with thankfulness, provided we bear the evil also with patience. "Not slothful, but fervent" in spirit, being active and industrious, we should serve the Lord: and if we bear this in mind, and make the will and service of God in all things our ruling principle, then the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus; to whom be glory, thanksgiving, and praise, now and for evermore.

SERMON XVIII.

The Christian Life.

COL. iii. 3.

Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." HE text is taken from the Epistle for Easter

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day, which refers to the hope of Christians that they may be partakers together in the resurrection of our Lord, and shews to that end the necessity of our dying unto sin now in this present life first, and, if we fail in that, the wrath of God that shall break forth on the children of disobedience, i.e. all who disregard the warning, and think little of the promises of the Gospel of the death and resurrection of His Son.

The Apostle in the Epistle to the Colossians addressed himself to persons in the same situation with ourselves, men who had embraced the Gospel, and had been baptized, not only with the baptism of repentance, but in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, i.e. in the faith of the crucified Redeemer. No longer "dead in trespasses and sins," they were rather dead to sin and being dead to the world though living in it, they lived not as persons who were of or belonging to the world. With this view the Apostle says they are dead; meaning

that death unto sin into which they were buried with Christ by baptism. Dead as to the effect and punishment of sin, sin itself being done away and the punishment remitted by the Blood of Christ, (as it is said, "They that are dead are freed from sin,") they lived by faith, doing the things that are commanded, and depending upon the things that have been promised. But the Apostle says, "Your life is hid with Christ in God;" that is, the true life of the believer is not yet manifest; it is concealed and appears not, as the life of them who are yet in the grave; for we remain for a season in the flesh, and walk in the midst of a world, which lieth wholly in darkness. But our life is hid with Christ in God." He knows the sincerity of our profession; He knows His own, and will make them manifest in the last day; so it is written, "It doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him."

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Upon this the Apostle founds an argument well worthy our most earnest attention. says, that as we are buried with Christ by baptism as in a death unto sin, so are we also risen with Him through faith in that power and operation of God which hath raised Him from the dead; and that God having forgiven us our trespasses, hath " quickened us together with Him, unto newness of life." And then he argues thus: "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth." You

will observe that the death of which the Apostle speaks is a death in the Spirit unto sin, and the life of which he speaks is a life in the Spirit unto God. And so much must of necessity be the effect of our faith now, for otherwise "Christ is

risen in vain."

Upon this foundation I shall endeavour to set before you, as by the help of God I may be able, a picture of the life of faith, and I shall contrast it with that of the natural man in all its stages, that ye may see how far yourselves are pursuing and advancing in that to which ye were born again in baptism; and in that ye do well, may be comforted with the assurance of a good hope, and in whatsoever ye may unhappily be doing ill, may be moved, by the fear of that judgment which no man shall escape, to seek, while ye yet may, a way and method of reconciliation.

We will suppose our childhood, then, to be that state of dependence, discipline, and instruction in which the future man is formed, rather than as forming itself a part of that period of probation in which not men's actions only, but their motives and objects i. e. the mind with which their actions are done, shall be called to an account. Yet may children, by their impiety and their wickedness, become abominable before God; and they may suffer the effects of His wrath, either as belonging to wicked and rebellious parents, or for their own delinquency. When God in judgment upon the presumptuous sin of those who, uncalled and unordained to the holy office, would have taken the business

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