John: since that time the kingdom of God was preached, and every man pressed into it."

The most extraordinary events began with the baptism of John, and continued until Christ was taken up into heaven. His peculiar office was to announce the Saviour of the world as then present in it other prophets had spoken of him as to come; "but there standeth," says John, " among you one whose shoe-latchet I am not worthy to unloose." He was " the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord;" and whilst he was actually engaged in his commission, he was able to declare-"Behold, he standeth among you." His commission was high;-to reclaim an apostate people; "to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just;""to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." His career, too, was extraordinary, and his character and course marked and different from all others. Much of the wisdom of Providence appears in fitting the instrument to the work. The work appointed to John was to reclaim a nation from its departure from God, to rouse a people sunk in insensibility and impenitence, to preach repentance, to proclaim the approach of the kingdom of heaven, to usher in a higher economy, a new dispensation; and for all this he was admirably qualified. He was endued with the spirit and power of Elias. His spirit was undaunted and unyielding; he rebuked the pride of kings. He was indifferent and insensible alike to the charms of pleasure, the allurements of pomp, the smiles of

power, and the frowns of greatness. His whole soul was concentrated in his object :-he was superior to the world; its forms and fashions made no impression on his mind, and left no traces. He was austere in his manner, abstemious in his food, rustic in his apparel; he partook of the wildness of the wilderness in which he first made his appearance. "He had his raiment of camels' hair, a leathern girdle was about his loins, and his meat was locusts and wild honey." These are lively images of his work. "Then went out unto him Jerusalem and all Judea, and the region round about Jordan; and were baptized of him, confessing their sins."

His ministry finished the legal, and brought in the evangelical, dispensation. His voice was like the strong wind that bloweth-the whirlwind that maketh the earth to quake-the loud blast of that trumpet which was to wake the nations - the earthquake and the whirlwind which immediately preceded "the still small voice." His career was brilliant, and his success extraordinary. A large portion of the Jews became his converts, at least for a time even the Scribes and Pharisees listened to him. "He was a burning and a shining light :" the apostles themselves were many of them first his disciples, and received from him those instructions which prepared them for the coming of the Messiah. By the authentic historian, Josephus, he is spoken of in terms of the highest encomium. It is remarkable, above all, that he was the only prophet born of woman, who was himself the subject of prophecy.

As his course was short, so was his end violent and tragical. He fell a martyr to his fidelity, and the artifices of an intriguing woman. Having rebuked Herod on account of his incestuous intercourse with his brother's wife, he was sacrificed to her resentment. He disappeared soon: his course was hurried and impetuous; eager, as it were, to reach his destination, and to mingle his grand soul with its kindred elements in eternity. He was raised up for a particular service; and when that was accomplished, he was removed. He was not the light, but the harbinger of that light, the morning star that was to usher in the Sun of Righteousness. "He bore witness of the light, but he was not that light;" and no sooner did that light appear than he was withdrawn, that nothing might divide the great homage due to the Saviour, according to his own prediction-" He must increase, but I must decrease."

Having, perhaps, already detained you too long in contemplating the character and conduct of John the Baptist, I shall occupy what remains of our time, in illustrating and inculcating two or three practical observations, founded on the words of the text.

I. That there is a prescribed course or sphere of action, appointed to every individual by the Author of our nature.

We are not a race of independent creatures abandoned to live without control; we are not sent into the world to follow the dictates of our own will. We cannot commit a greater mistake

than to suppose that we are in any sense our own; we belong to another: even our limbs and faculties do not so much belong to ourselves, as we do to our Maker. To do his will, to conform to his pleasure, to keep his commandments, to fulfil his designs, to serve the end of his government, and to promote his glory; these are the great ends of our existence; and to attain them ought to be the fundamental law of our being: otherwise we live in vain, worse than in vain; and it would have been better for us never to have had an existence.

There is one great principle of a holy life, which is one and the same in all who live as they ought; and that is, conforming ourselves to the will of God, complying with his plan, doing every thing to please and glorify him. Thus our Saviour himself when in this world was devoted to his Father's will; this was his object constantly, even when observed by those around him. It cannot be better exemplified than in that beautiful saying of his, when he was requested to take refreshment at the well of Jacob-" I have meat to eat that the world knoweth not of; my meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work:" and it is doing the will of God from the heart, which implies a careful attention to all the manifestations of it, and a reverential regard to all the discoveries of it, with a fixed and determined resolution to comply with it whenever and wherever it is known. This, as I said, is the end of our existence, the business of our life; and we live to no purpose, or to a bad one, but as we conform to it. But, although this is

the universal principle by which all are to be actuated and guided, yet it admits of great and numerous variations in its practical application. The principle is the same; but when it comes to be acted upon by individuals, and embodied in the experience and conduct of men in the several conditions of life, it gives birth to an endless diversity. To do the will of God, and to promote his glory, is the proper object and end of all: but the manner in which an apostle, for instance, was called upon to do this, is not that in which an ordinary teacher is to do it; nor the manner of an ordinary teacher that of a private christian. The duties of a sovereign are extremely different from those of his ministers and officers of state; and those again, from the duties of inferior magistrates; and of magistrates, from those of private subjects. Of the rich it is required to do good and to communicate, to sustain the cause of God and truth in the world, to support public institutions of a charitable and beneficial nature, and freely to distribute of their abundance to the necessities of their fellow-creatures; of the poor, to be prudent, diligent, careful; and so on.

Thus the several conditions and relations of individuals have their respective duties, in which they are to do the will of God, in "fulfilling their course;" but in each and all, the same care and attention ought to be maintained, to the one grand principle of which we have been speaking: one