of the falsehood and fraud of evil men, are apt to be the most severe in the opinions which they entertain of others. For such, their circumstances may be allowed perhaps to form some degree of apology. But if, in youth and prosperity, the same hard, suspicious spirit prevail; if they who are beginning the career of life, set out with all the scruples of distrust; if, before they have had reason to complain of the world, they betray the diffidence of a jealous, or the malignity of a censorious mind, sad is the presage which may thence be drawn of their future dishonour. From such, you have nothing to look for that shall be either engaging in private life or respectable in public character. To youth, it particularly belongs to be generous in sentiment, candid in opinion, undesigning in behaviour, and open to the most favourable constructions of actions and conduct. Throughout all the stages of life, candour is one of the most honourable distinctions of the human character: it is connected with magnanimity; it is justified by wisdom; it is suitable to the relation in which we stand to one another. But if reason and humanity be insufficient to restrain us from rash and uncharitable judgments, let that awful denunciation frequently resound in our ears, He shall have judgment without mercy, who hath showed no mercy.'

* Blair.

SERMON VI.

OUR BODY THE TEMPLE OF THE HOLY

GHOST.

1 CORINTHIANS, VI. 19 & 20.

"What, know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's."

In the views which we are most commonly apt to take of the Divine mercies, we look but for the most part to such as are external, without paying a sufficient regard to those silent, but nevertheless perceptible, dispensations, by which a right spirit is renewed within us, and by which we, "who were once darkness, are now become light in the Lord." The gifts and graces of God's holy spirit are commonly but too little considered in the light of gifts and graces. We are apt to look upon them rather as the necessary and unalienable consequences of our prayers, our piety, our devotion, than as the free gift of God, vouchsafed to that devotion, that piety, and those prayers. Without the assistance of the spirit, the Scriptures

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plainly inform us that we can do nothing; that "we have no power of ourselves," for it is "the spirit that helpeth our infirmities." "For we know not even what we should pray for as we ought: but the spirit itself maketh intercession for us, with groanings which cannot be uttered."

In all our religious meditations, it is really important that we should consider the graces which we derive from God, as among their most worthy objects. Because, unless we view ourselves as fallen creatures, as creatures condemned by law; as beings by nature perfectly corrupt and innately helpless, that is, utterly incompetent by any endeavours of our own merely, independent of the divine agency, to bring ourselves out of that state of bondage wherein we were held, until the purchase of a Redeemer obtained our ransom; unless "we look to the hole of the pit whence we are digged," and consider that we were "born in sin, and, therefore, stand in need of redemption," we can have no just views of our state. And it is solely upon the doctrine of our natural corruption, and consequent utter incompetency to burst the bonds of our "iniquity," and exalt ourselves "into the glorious liberty wherewith Christ has made us free," that the main doctrine of the Christian Revelation is to be maintained-namely, our re demption by Christ; that rock upon which the whole sublime structure of our religion rests; the foundation upon which all our hopes in eternity

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are built; the ark which bears us safely through the deluge of sin to the Ararat of God; the city of refuge, whither we flee for protection and peace from the perils of guilt and the trials of temptation.

To those, indeed, who have taken little care to consider their spiritual condition in this life, or how intimate a connexion they have, or ought to have, with the Holy Spirit, the words of the text may be very fitly applied. "What, know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, and that ye are not your own? for ye are bought with a price: therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's."

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Now, from these words, several very important considerations arise to us:

First-That our bodies are set apart and dedicated to the Holy Ghost, which comes to them from God.

Secondly-And by consequence, that "we are not our own, for, we have been bought with a price."

Thirdly We shall consider how these are motives for glorifying God in our bodies and in our spirits.

Throughout the whole of our blessed Saviour's discourses, where the influence of the Holy Spirit becomes the subject of them, we find, that the abiding of this Holy Spirit within us, is the only test of our sanctification, and, consequently, of our

fitness for salvation. In the following words it is unequivocally declared. "But ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the spirit of God dwell in you. Now, if any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his." The operation of the spirit within us, is further confirmed by St. John, "Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world." It will appear evident, then, that our bodies are intended for the habitation of the Holy Ghost. Whether or not he makes them his abode, will rest with ourselves. But it surely will be manifest, beyond a contradiction, that we rise up in daring opposition to the designs of His divine will, who first purchased our freedom from eternal death, and our fealty to himself, with his own most precious blood, where we exclude from his prescribed abode that divine director, which, according to his promise, he has sent to us.

Now, it will appear the more atrocious, that we should exclude him from that temple wherein he was designed to abide with us, by polluting it with those corruptions, arising from the unlicensed indulgence of our carnal wills and affections, when we consider, that he abides there, not only as our ruler and guide, but also as our comforter. "When the Comforter is come," says the Saviour, "whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father,