profession of religion, in which the heart and affections have no concern! It will be in vain to plead, that you have eaten and drunk at his table-that you have worn the garb of Christianity-that you professed yourselves belonging to his household. Your Master's business has been left undone-the property he entrusted to your care wasted, and that precious time given you to work out your own salvation, employed in the service of his great enemy, the Devil.

Be not deceived-" His servants ye are, whom you obey." Nor can there be a greater mistake under heaven than to suppose that we have a right to dispose of our time, our talents, or our property as we please ourselves; for "Know, O vain man, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment." He made us, and not we ourselves-he formed us for his glory; and, above all, he redeemed, us at a costly price, even by the precious sacrifice of the Son of his love. And for what purpose? For what end did he, the eternal Son of God, thus die and suffer? "That we should no longer live unto ourselves, but unto him who died for us and rose again." And was it that by our service we might add to his glory, or increase his felicity? Oh no; but that he might thereby secure our present and

eternal happiness-that he might restore to us our forfeited inheritance-and that, by the exhibition of such an expenditure of gratuitous love, he might win our wayward hearts and alienated affections back to God, and thus prepare us for the enjoyment of that kingdom of glory and blessing that his own free grace had provided for us.

And as I trust I address many here who have, through the influence of God's Holy Spirit, been led to consider the value and importance of the redemption thus effected for them, I would beseech them to consider the obligation they are laid under to live not unto themselves, but unto their Divine and gracious Master. Let me intreat you, my brethren, to give up your hearts, your time, your all-all that you have, and all that you are, to his service and to his glory. Think not to reconcile the ways of the world with the ways of God. Think not to reconcile the pleasures of the world with the pleasures of religion—the indulgence of sense, and vanity, and dissipation, with the religion of that Saviour, who declares, that "He came to redeem a peculiar people unto himself, zealous of good works"-a people who should "renounce the pomps and vanities of this sinful world," and "who should follow him through both good and evil report"—" counting not their

lives dear unto themselves, so that they might finish their course with joy."

It is often, however, urged by many persons, that the standard of religion is raised higher by those who maintain the necessity of separation from the ways and pleasures of the world, than even reason or Christianity require; and especially that they rigidly and austerely speak against what are termed gay and innocent pleasures with a severity not to be found in Scripture." But these objectors do not seem to understand (says one who thought much and deeply on these subjects) the true genius of Christianity. They do not consider that it is the character of the Gospel to exhibit a scheme of principles, of which it is the tendency to infuse such a spirit of holiness as must be utterly incompatible, not only with customs decidedly vicious, but with the very spirit of worldly pleasure. They do not consider that Christianity is neither a table of ethics, nor a system of opinions-it is not an exhibition of rewards to allure, nor a scheme of restraints to terrify, nor merely a code of laws to restrict; but it is a new principle infused into the heart by the Word and Spirit of God, out of which principle will inevitably grow right opinions, renewed affections, correct morals, pure desires, heavenly tempers, and holy habits, with an

invariable desire of pleasing God, and a constant fear of offending him. A real Christian, whose heart is once thoroughly imbued with this principle, can no more return to the amusements of the world than a philosopher can be refreshed with the diversions of the vulgar, or a man be amused with the recreations of a child. The New Testament is not a mere statute book-it is not a table, where every offence is detailed, and its corresponding penalty annexed-it is not so much a compilation as a spirit of laws-it does not so much prohibit every individual wrong practice, as suggest a temper and implant a general principle, with which every wrong practice is incompatible. It did not, for instance, so much attack the then reigning and corrupt fashions, which were probably like the fashions of other countries, temporary and local, as it struck at that worldliness which is the root and stock from which all corrupt fashions proceed.Christ and his disciples, instead of limiting their condemnation to the peculiar vanities of the world, embraced the very soul and principle of them all, in such exhortations as the following: Be ye not conformed to this world' If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him' The fashion of this world passeth away.'

"Our Lord and his apostles, whose future unselected audience was to be made up out of various inhabitants of the whole earth, attacked THE EVIL HEART, out of which all those incidental, local, peculiar, and popular corruptions proceeded, by the universal precept, to avoid "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life.' They have prepared a lasting antidote against the principle of all corrupt pleasures, which will ever remain, equally applicable to the loose fashions of all ages, of every country, to the end of the world."

To you, my brethren, who have made choice of religion as your chief good, and who have through grace been enabled to surrender yourselves to him who died for you-we would say (in the language of Moses)-Go forward -go on to abound more and more in the work of the Lord; and while you do so, endeavour to persuade others to go along with you-endeavour by the mildness of your characters, the courteousness of your manners, and the sobriety and kindness of your whole deportment, to persuade all around you that there is nothing gloomy, nothing disagreeable in religion; but that "its ways are ways of pleasantness, and all its paths are peace." Show that you neither wish for nor require the pleasures or amusements of the world to