= is not a vain thing for you, because life.

HE honoured servant of God, whose ere selected, was favoured with health nabated force of all his faculties, at a anced time of life: and, so far from cl privilege of relaxation from labour, he death approached, to have redoubled his In order that the Israelites might have t which he had taught them in perpetua brance. The hoary head is indeed a glory, when thus found in the way of n ness: and "blessed is that servant, v "Lord when he cometh shall find so doin Among other methods of durably impro minds of the people, Moses was directed pose a prophetick song; as poems are

learned with greater eagerness, and remembered more easily, than other compositions: and at the close of this sacred song he thus addressed the people, "Set your hearts unto all the words, which " I testify among you this day, which ye shall com"mand your children to observe to do, even all "the words of this law. For it is not a vain thing " for you, because it is your life; and through "this thing ye shall prolong your days in the " land, whither ye go over Jordan to possess it." Having given this earnest admonition, he was directed to ascend mount Nebo, that he might die there: a circumstance which could not fail to add peculiar energy to his concluding exhortations.

The nation of Israel had spiritual blessings proposed to them by types and shadows; and Canaan represented the everlasting felicity of heaven, the inheritance of true believers. We live under a different dispensation, and enjoy peculiar advantages. "God, who at sundry times, and in di

vers manners, spake in time past unto the "fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days "spoken unto us by his Son." -" Therefore we " ought to give the more earnest heed to the things " which we have heard, lest at any time we should "let them slip: for-how shall we escape, if we "neglect so great salvation?" The words of the text are therefore at least as applicable to us, as

:

Heb. i, 1-3. ii, 1-3.

I. Let us consider the subject, which i

to be no vain thing.

Moses, no doubt, spoke this concer gion: but numbers would agree to the as thus stated, who would object to it w particularly explained. For it is eviden prophet was not speaking of natural r that religion which man in his present can discover or attain, by the exercise tural powers without any assistance fro tion. Alas! the history of the human ra that this is indeed a vain thing, and utt ficient to direct us into the knowledge o to make us partakers of happiness in hi and favour. But that religion, which taught Israel, was given by immediate from God, and was exclusively inten

om God declares to us his own e, by which he is distinguished ts of idolatrous worship; it disglorious attributes; his infinite ;e, wisdom, and greatness; his ent, unchangeable, and incomy; but, above all, his consummate truth, goodness, and mercy, as rcised in his dealings with his , and comprising the full perfecadorable and excellent.

aches us our relations and obliorious God, as our Creator, from our being and all our capacities; e, and move, and are," and, “who ings richly to enjoy;" and as our Judge, to whom we are in all rele. It further assures us, that ortal; that our bodies will rise dead; that after death is the

The same message from God makes kn his holy law, in its extensive, spiritual, sonable requirements, and awful sanct the rules of his providential governmen structs us in the malignant nature and 1 sequences of sin; and gives us a general in of the manner in which this destructive e ed into the world: though it does not s curiosity by fully explaining that myster ject, the difficulties of which are not p any religious system. But it far more and clearly instructs us in the way, by may be saved from sin and misery, wh speakably more conducive to our advant The scriptures are indeed more especia sage from God to us, concerning the p salvation of Christ. "This is the record "hath given to us eternal life, and this "his Son. He that hath the Son hath li