III.

LECTURE deeds, these lofty aims, these self-sacrificing lives. Yea, we deny it not: lovely, noble, grand, these lives; but this is not religion; this can be no preparation for that eternity wherein the love of God is the sole joy and motive of the saints in light, wherein to awake in the likeness of God is the saint's perfection.

Page 15. et

seq.

Do you doubt it? Then answer, What is the end of man's salvation but to serve God for ever in the courts above? What makes that service possible but the attainment of the likeness of God? And can that life be a preparation for heaven and heaven's service which, closing the heart against Him Who first loved us, can, without stint, give the dearest affections; can, without grudging, offer the most unwearied self-denial; can, with heroic powers, perform deeds of the highest nobleness to or for all but God? Yea, answer, Can any duty fulfilled on earth, however lovely and of good report, be registered in God's book of life, which thus practically ignores God and blots out His name from John xvii. 3. under heaven? Nay, "this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent."

Deut. x. 12,

13.

This, then, my brother, is the final answer to that all-important question with which we started, "What did God make me for ?" at least, I can find no other: "What doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, to keep the commandments of the Lord, and His statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?"

PART II.

DUTY TO GOD.

EXODUS XX. 1-11.

GOD SPAKE ALL THESE WORDS, SAYING,

I AM THE LORD THY GOD, WHICH HAVE BROUGHT THEE OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT, OUT OF THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE.

I.

THOU SHALT HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME.

II.

THOU SHALT NOT MAKE UNTO THEE ANY GRAVEN IMAGE, OR ANY LIKENESS OF ANY THING THAT IS IN HEAVEN ABOVE, OR THAT IS IN THE EARTH BENEATH, OR THAT IS IN THE WATER UNDER THE EARTH: THOU SHALT NOT BOW DOWN THYSELF TO THEM, NOR SERVE THEM FOR I THE LORD THY GOD AM A JEALOUS GOD,

VISITING THE INIQUITY OF THE

FATHERS UPON THE

CHILDREN, UNTO THE THIRD AND FOURTH GENERATION

OF THEM THAT HATE ME; AND SHOWING MERCY UNTO

THOUSANDS OF THEM THAT LOVE ME, AND KEEP

MY COMMANDMENTS.

H

III.

THOU SHALT NOT TAKE THE NAME OF THE LORD THY GOD IN VAIN: FOR THE LORD WILL NOT HOLD HIM GUILTLESS THAT TAKETH HIS NAME IN VAIN.

IV.

REMEMBER THE SABBATH DAY, TO KEEP IT HOLY. SIX DAYS SHALT THOU LABOUR, AND DO ALL THY WORK: BUT THE SEVENTH DAY IS THE SABBATH OF THE LORD THY GOD: IN IT THOU SHALT NOT DO ANY WORK, THOU, NOR THY SON, NOR THY DAUGHTER, THY MAN-SERVANT, NOR THY MAID-SERVANT, NOR THY CATTLE, NOR THY STRANGER THAT IS WITHIN THY GATES. FOR IN SIX DAYS THE LORD MADE HEAVEN AND EARTH, THE SEA, AND ALL THAT IN THEM IS, AND RESTED THE SEVENTH DAY: WHEREFORE THE

LORD BLESSED THE SABBATH DAY, AND HALLOWED

IT.

LECTURE IV.

JEHOVAH REVEALING HIMSELF AS THE LAWGIVER.

EXODUS XX. 1-3.

"And God spake all these words, saying,

"I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me."

IV.

THE object of these lectures being to represent LECTURE religion as the "duty of man," or, as it has been well termed, "the art of practical godliness;" we have, in the first part of the work, viewed "duty" under its two-fold aspect of "fear and obedience." In so doing some general principles have been examined, and some land marks erected, which I trust may guide us in the work we have before us.

We now follow the duty of man into its two great divisions, of duty to God and duty to our neighbour. The Decalogue was originally written on two tables of stone, indicating this two-fold division of duty, and consequently when our Saviour was asked, "Which is the great commandment in the law ?" He answered, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy Matt. xxii. heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

37-40.

IV.

LECTURE This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

We shall, in this, the second part of the work, take up the first table of the Decalogue, which embraces the first four commandments, and lays down our duty to God. It may here be as well briefly to review the ground we have already passed over.

I have, then, in the first of the three introductory lectures, endeavoured to show, that God created all things, animate and inanimate, for some special purpose, that He assigned to each of His creatures some peculiar duty; and that the performance of this appointed duty is the perfection of the creature; that man, like other creatures, was made for a special end, - had something special given him to do,-which is called his duty; that in so far as man agrees in nature with other creatures, is he bound by the same laws; but, seeing that of all earthly creatures, man alone is endowed by God with the gift of choice between Rom. ii. 15. actions as morally good or evil; he alone possesses "a conscience accusing or excusing" his thoughts, words, and actions; that, as a consequence of this power of choice, and the possession of a conscience, which is his moral sense, man was made subject to a higher law than any other of God's earthly creatures, this law being called, the moral law of God,-the law which takes cognizance of actions, as morally good or evil. That it is in the performance of this law, under the ministration of the Spirit, man attains to his