him an acceptable service? would you praise him with grateful hearts? would you live in holy friendship with him, and enjoy the blessed fellowship which he bestows? would you possess unspeakable glories at his right hand? Come to Christ Jesus, as your atoning Priest, for pardon and salvation. Would you escape the wrath to come? would you be preserved from the gnawing worm and the endless flame, from the sorrows and the pains of an eternal separation from God? In Christ crucified is your hope of safety. There will be a separation, a cutting off, and a casting out in the great day of judgment. As the Jews who were defiled, and did not present their offering, died without mercy, so the men who rely not on the atonement of Christ Jesus will die without remedy. They will be cut off from God and from life for ever. Would you, then, escape? Trust in Christ Jesus as your atoning Saviour, and you shall be cleansed, be freed from condemnation, and be exalted unto life eternal.

2. Let me observe, that pardon and life received through the atonement lead unto holiness. The necessity of holiness is fully set before us. The tabernacle itself was a holy place for the habitation of the thrice Holy Name: the vessels were washed, and ever cleansed. The priests were men without defect, and perfect in bodily form. They were continually to wash and to anoint themselves, and to be ever clean. The victims for sacrifice were without blemish. The offerings were the best of their kind. Two of them symbolized the truth, that the people were wholly given up to God, and were ever to bring forth boly fruit. The frontlet on the mitre betokened the whole character of men brought near to God, "Holiness unto the Lord." Is it not equally so under the gospel? Does not Christ redeem his people, that they may be a peculiar people, zealous of good works?

You perceive then, believing brethren, your calling. It is a holy calling. If you profess to have faith in the atonement, your life must prove the truth of the profession, or it avails you not. If you are unholy, if you love some sin, if you are insincere in your devotedness to God, if you are fruitless in good, you too will be cut off from the visible communion of God's saints, to perish with the unbelieving. The requirement of your calling is, that you love the Lord your God with all your heart; that you make the glory of God the grand controlling desire of your mind; that you give up all you are, body, soul, and spirit, to Christ; and all you have, property, talents, time, nay, life itself, to his disposal; and that you seek daily to be full of self-denying acts of mercy, and to become daily holier in affection, in word, and in deed. The eternal God will only dwell among the holy. He has purchased men from death by the amazing ransom of Christ's blood, brought men in Christ near to himself, and poured out his Spirit upon them that they may be holy. The end of the dispensation of grace is, that the church may resemble the Redeemer, and be subject in all things unto God. Seek then, brethren, to fulfil the high purpose of redemption, and to adorn the doctrine of Christ crucified. Live in the Spirit. Draw grace from Christ, the fountain of grace. Using diligently all those helps and means which God has given, seek to have Christ ever dwelling

in your heart by faith, that in Christ you may attain unto that "holiness without which no man shall see the Lord.”

3. Let me observe that the state of true believers is altogether blessed. It may, indeed, be that some are weak in faith: it may be that some are very imperfect: it may be that some do not always stand upright. Still, if they are vitally united unto Christ, and their hearts are given to God, they are blessed with those most strong in faith, and those most perfect.

Brethren, are you not truly blessed? You are cleansed from your grievous sins in the fountain of your Saviour's blood. You are beloved in him, and entitled, through the merits of his life and cross, to everlasting glory. You find him a sym. pathizing, faithful High Priest, presenting all your services to God for acceptance, interceding with deepest earnestness and power for you, that you may be kept from evil, and be saved. Is not this blessed? You are blessed, in being called to devote yourselves to God, and to live daily to his glory, and in having holy fruits of righteousness to produce, and self-denying labour to perform; for all this service unto God is "perfect freedom." You are blessed, in the anointing which is upon and in you, to consecrate you as a dwelling-place for the Most High, to qualify you for the works before you, and to adorn your soul with graces corresponding unto those which are in Jesus. And you are blessed, as the last Mosaic sacrifice bas shown, in a life of peace with God, in the holy intercourse you have with him, in the sweet fel lowship that now exists between your soul and the glorious Trinity, and in the sacred feast of love and grace and mercy to which he now invites you. You are blessed; for this, your present state, is but the beginning of an endless blessedness which will be yours when Christ our great High Priest shall return to take you, to himself, and to bring you, with all his people cleansed in his blood and wholly sanctified, into the Father's presence: it is but a draught of that pure stream of which you will drink for ever. It is but a foretaste of that rest, joy, honour, peace, and life, which will be perfectly obtained when God dwells in you as his temple throughout eternity.

Since, then, you are thus blessed, you may well continually praise your God. Your heart and your life may well be full of gratitude. The melodies of thanksgiving may well be heard in your midst. Hymns and hosannahs to the Son of David, lauds and a magnificat unto the Saviour of the church, may well proceed in holy, solemn, and continual strains from your glad spirits; and this, in preparation for the eternal praise which will be heard in the living temple of Almighty God in glory. For soon the full truth of the peace offering will be realized; and, at that time when it is said, "Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them;" and, "The marriage of the Lamb is come; and his wife hath made herself ready;" then, because of it, the harmonious voices of ten thousand times ten thousand, and the innumerable company of angels, will commence their glad and endless hallelujah to the God who reigneth; and then the thrilling words of jubilee will burst forth from the intensely-loving hearts of the redeemed; and all will form one magnificent and glorious chorus of adoration and

Pharisees (for even these last might be inducements to some); he, therefore, warns them, in the most explicit terms, not to suppose that their professing and following hin would exempt them from the trials and sufferings of human nature; no; but that, on the contrary, they must expect such trials, and bear them meekly, if they would prove themselves his consistent followers. One would gladly have obtained eternal life, but not at the expense of his wealth and possessions; another would have followed, but wished first to go and bury his father: "let the dead bury their dead," was our Lord's reply to him, "follow thou me." An affectionate disciple, in a strain of generous attachment, professed himself ready to go to prison and to death with his Master, yet, alas for human natre! he was one of the first to desert and to deny him.

The instruction for us contained in these and similar instances is this, that nothing of worldly or temporal interest must come in competition with our fidelity to Christ. If one of the two must be given up, it must not be Christ nor our duty to him. These examples are brought with edification to the Christian; they amount to a very plain proof that, without the crosses, afflictions, and disappointments incident to human nature, we could not exhibit any imitation of Christ's example. Next, they instruct us that, hear as we may, and delight ourselves as we may with the gracious truths and promises of his gospel, we cannot give proof of our highest affection to him, nor obedience to his law, without patient submission to the ills and trials of the present life; without taking up our cross and following his meek example, as well as professing his illustrious name.

This duty of self-denial and resignation, this perfect acquiescence of the human will, is not to be accomplished at once. Human nature cannot but feel; and, while the heart is hot within us, the fire will kindle and the tongue will speak. Blessed, therefore, be Almighty God that he is not extreme to mark what is done amiss through the infirmities of our nature, but will, if called upon in humble prayer, assuage the conflicts of our wills by the mild co-operation of supernal

grace.

The next particular for our consideration is the constant necessity of this duty, "Let him take up his cross daily." Therefore doth our Saviour most kindly warn us not to add the solicitudes of futurity to the burdens of the passing day: "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." It is not yours to renounce family, friends, and country for the cause of religion; it is not yours to endanger your

health and life in spreading the tidings of salvation; but still you may take up the cross of Christ, without parting from all that you hold dear, nay, without stirring a step from your homes and your occupations. And it is your duty to bear your cross in the daily trials to which you are exposed; for not a day passes but submission to God is the duty before you, in denying your appetites and passions; in denying your anger and illtemper; in denying your hearts their covetous evil desires and unsubdued propensities, and your tongues their gratification to depress by slander the pretensions of your neighbours; your very labour is a cross; your poverty is a cross; and, by means of bearing both of them meekly, it is in your power to improve your hearts in piety and submission to your heavenly Father, and to work out a greater meetness for his eternal kingdom. He who goes with the stream, and suffers his heart to follow all its natural inclinations without stint or control, may well wonder to hear so much said about the duties of mortification and self-denial (to such a person the very names of these duties may seem like the words of an unknown language), but he who is in earnest in seeking first the one thing needful, by disciplining his heart and inclinations to holiness of life, will soon discover his cross, and be satisfied to take it up, though he may not directly bear it so cheerfully as he could wish: he will find that there is a great deal to be done in stemming the tide of a corrupt nature, in wrestling with headstrong appetites, in baffling the onset of a violent temptation, or the sin which doth so easily beset him, in subduing a spirit of revenge, and in training the heart and temper to the meekness and patience, to the gentleness and charity of the gospel: he will have to deny himself from conforming to the world in some instances which customary practice, and great popular examples may have made current, or which the ties of friendship or society might seem even to excuse he will find that he has infirmities of his own to correct, as well as of others to bear with—that he has injuries or insults from others to put up with or to withstand; but the way in which all this is done makes the whole difference between the man of the world and the man of the gospel; and he will have to add to these a patient continuance in well-doing.

Here, then, is a wide field for the daily exercise of self-denial; and such is the Christian's cross.

To follow the world, in the full unqualified sense of the expression, is to follow all its corrupt, profitable, or vicious practices, alike regardless of conscience and religion-to walk

in the broad way of destruction or spiritual death. To follow the world, in a somewhat restrained sense, is at least to disregard the calls to religious submission, to leave all our troubles and our trials unsanctified, and by consequence to suffer our souls to remain unimproved by the vicissitudes of our pilgrimage here, neither enlightened by the dispensations of God's providence, nor strengthened under the discipline of his chastisements. But to follow Christ is, in the first place, to set our face as a rock against all sin: it is to make his gospel the groundwork of our moral resolutions: it is to make the love of our Creator, his will, and his glory the prevailing considerations and ends of our practice: it is to exalt the atonement of our Redeemer, and to make his love and example our guides.

Whenever this comes to be the settled persuasion of our souls, that we are sent into the world to do the will of him who has placed us in our respective stations, then may we hope that the sway of passion, and the irregularities of inordinate self-love will, with the aid of divine grace, correct themselves by the light and guidance of so superior a principle.

Neither must the present fruits of self-denial be left out of our views, since they are no mean recommendations of the virtue in regard only of our temporal interests: it is easily seen what a power, what a dominion over ourselves does an obedient, self-denying spirit confer-how it serves to promote our peace in our daily intercourse, and to prevent the sallies and outbreakings of passion, and makes our appetites obey instead of ruling, as they do in the intemperate and wilful. Every individual among us may yield his will to the law of Christ: he may still be mortifying the flesh, and be gaining fresh victories over the powers of darkness, and a deeper conviction of the superior power of the Christian religion, by a more generous adoption of its doctrines and its consolations; in a word, he may perfect what remains to be done in his spiritual progress.

It remains to be noticed, in the last place, that of those who followed Christ some were induced to do so by the prospects and promises of his glorious rewards: "they had respect unto the recompence of the reward", so to follow Christ while on earth, that, where he is now, thither they might also follow him hereafter; and, blessed be God, though such considerations are confessedly interested ones, we are allowed by the terms of the gospel to be interested in them: the Christian religion is not at variance with the original law of our nature if the law of that nature allow us to cherish a reasonable self-love: the God of

grace being one and the same with the God of nature does not forbid it; consistently with which the gospel warrants our persuasion that we do not serve God for nought. He will abundantly reward all those who seek him in faith patiently: God will be no man's debtor: he will abundantly make up the cost and the crosses which we may have faithfully borne in seeking his heavenly kingdom; for "eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive the things which God hath prepared for them that love him."

THERE is much in the circumstances of the present day fitted to foster "fastidiousness" of taste. To judge by pearances, one would think that it and refinement to possess a fastidious taste, and was deemed us a mark of mental superiority that people were to be considered as refined and intellectual and fashionable in proportion to their difficulty of being pleased. To have the outward senses so exquisitely fine, to have the sight so microscopically keen that one can discover a hundred flaws and blemishes where a common observer exquisitely delicate, that one shall disdain the food sees nothing but beauties; to have the palate so and drink which the common palate relishes and enjoys; to have the hearing so exquisitely sen sitive and acute*, that one shall regard as commonplace the strains of music which have delighted others; to have the perceptions so keen, so exquisite, that one shall disdain as coarse and vulgar the conversation, the wit, the humour, the language, the manners, the address which those of

Men," advises them, above all things, to attend to the

* Thus, one modern Mentor, in his "Hints for young management of the voice in speaking; softening it, and mo

dulating it, and studying the musical cadence of it; adding,

as a reason, the favourable impressions of one's character, which a sweet voice makes upon the hearer. It may be mestioned, as a singular circumstance (or little at variance, however, with this gentleman's theory), that the most acute observer of life and manners which this world has for ages seen gives to the most thorough-paced villain which he has sketched a voice of singular softness and sweetness. I do not mean to deduce from this that a soft and sweet voice # any proof that a man is worse than his neighbours. Bat I do mean to infer from it that that gentleman's advice would have been much better if, instead of setting young men upon the most disgusting of all affectations, he had advised those for whom he wrote to speak in a manly, natural, unaffected voice, never thinking of such a piece of absurdity as the

sweetness or harmoniousness of their tones. General experi ence proves that some of the worst men that ever lived have untuneable voices. had the sweetest voices, and some of the very best, harsh and