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LECTURE I.

THE DUTY OF MAN.

ECCLESIASTES xii. 13.

"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear LECTURE

God and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man."

"THE duty" of man is the debt due from man to God, and consequently expresses what God set him in this world to do what He made man for.

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My brother, did you ever ask yourself the question, What did God make me for? What did He send me into this world to do? Why am I here at all? If you have never yet asked yourself this question, it is time that you should; if you have asked the question, or now desire to ask it, here at once is the answer, "the conclusion," the ending, the summing up, of "the whole matter," the last and only answer that your Maker gives: "Fear God and keep His commandments; for this is the whole duty of man." Mark, not a part, not a very important part, but the whole duty of man. "Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all Col. iii. 17. in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him." Again, "Whatsoever ye Ib. 23. do, do it heartily as to the Lord, and not unto men.”

LECTURE
I.

1 Cor. x. 31.

Gen. i. 31.

"Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." Men, then,-you and I, my brother- -were made by God, were sent into this world for nothing else but that we might live to Him, and do all for His glory, that we might "fear Him and keep His commandments." Now, in order that we may clearly understand the nature and character of man's duty, let us consider,

I. That the unreasoning creatures of God, each and all, have assigned to them a peculiar duty, the performance of which is their perfection.

II. Wherein man's allotted task differs from that of the unreasoning creatures.

III. That man's special work in the Gospel kingdom is to recover, by grace, that image of God in which he was created, the attainment of which is man's perfection.

IV. In what sense religion is the duty of man, and his "whole duty."

This is the order which I shall adopt, and may God, for Christ's sake, bless our thoughts.

I. The performance of the peculiar task allotted to each, the perfection of the unreasoning creatures.

God did not make any thing for nought; every thing was created to perform some part of its own, had some peculiar duty assigned to it in God's great scheme, in order that each and every creature, in their several places, might set forth the majesty and love of God, and complete the glorious whole. God beheld His creation, and in every particular pronounced it to be "very good." All creatures, then, from the meanest

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worm to the highest archangel, from the grass be- LECTURE neath our feet to the brightest star shining far above us, all were sent to do something,-had some specific task allotted to them.

And, with the exception of those intelligent beings who are now on their trial, or those who have failed when tried, all created things are doing what God meant them to do when He first made them. Indeed, with such unerring certainty are the unreasoning creatures of God performing His will, that man has learned to speak of the "laws of nature," and accurately to define them; and he sets about his daily work with full confidence in the undeviating exactness and stability of these laws. And what are these laws of nature but the "commandments" of God fulfilled by His creatures? And what does the fulfilment of these commandments express? What but the work God gave each of His creatures to do -the end and purpose for which He made them? What, then, is the perfection of these creatures? Is it not obedience to the will of the All-wise and All-good? For example:

1. The sun, moon, and stars were made "to give Gen. i. 14. light upon the earth, and to divide the day from the night, and to be for signs and for seasons, and for days and for years; "that is what they were made for, as regards this world. And there are those bright lights in the heavens above us just as when God made them, shining on and on in one order and course for ever. "Such as creation's dawn beheld them" generation after generation of men behold them still, "rejoicing as they run their course." Among them there are

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LECTURE those mazy wanderers of our system, coming, going, sweeping along in endless ever-varying circuits, each one acting on the rest, yet all in obedience to one universal law of force, combining with the impulse received in the beginning from their Creator's hand, to preserve them in their marvellous paths. Such, indeed, is their obedience to the laws imposed upon them, such the unerring exactness of their paths, notwithstanding their amazing intricacy, that these glittering spheres serve as hands to the vast dial of the universe, not only indicating days, and nights, and years, and seasons, but enabling men to calculate with certainty, even for centuries, backward or forward, the hours, minutes, and seconds in time's great cycle, for

"From the great days of heaven,

From old eternity's mysterious orb,

Was Time cut off, and cast beneath the skies :
The skies which watch him in his new abode,

Measuring his motions by revolving spheres;
That horologe machinery divine."

The sun,

That was what they were sent to do. moon, and stars do not break their order, they fulfil the will of God, they keep His commandments in the most minute particular, and this is their perGen. 31et fection, this makes them "very good." "The heavens

i.

Ps. xix.

seq.

declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork; one day telleth another, and one night certifieth another. Their sound is gone out into all lands, and their words into the ends of the world."

2. Again, we sow our fields and gardens, and the

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seed shoots and grows, and the blade comes up, and LECTURE the ear follows, and then the fruit ripens, and we gather it and partake of it for food; and why? Because God said, "Let the earth bring forth grass, the Gen. i. 11. herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth.' And thus with unreasoning confidence we commit the

seed to the ground, and, as the Apostle tells us, "God 1 Cor. xv.38. giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him, and to every seed his own body;" so that the wheat seed does not produce barley, and barley seed does not produce wheat. That, the Apostle assures us, is God's working; and how is it so? Because it was for these purposes that He made these things,-this was what He sent these things to do,-to produce their like, "whose Gen. i. 11. seed is in itself upon the earth: to sustain man and

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other animals, "Behold, I have given you every herb Gen. i. 29. bearing seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed, to you it shall be for meat." Every grain of corn, therefore, every seed, every tree and fruit, every flower and blossom, every blade of grass, the giant of the tropical forest, the lichen of the arctic regions, is doing what God sent it to do; fulfilling His will by telling forth His glory, beautifying His world, and feeding His creatures.

3. So with regard to all the living world of animals: they also were sent to tell of God's glory, to minister to the wants of man, to be under his "dominion," to feed other animals, and man the lord of all; and these also are all doing what God sent them to do.

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