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most grateful sensibility, and warm our hearts. "We have known and believed the love that God hath to us ;" and "We love Him, because he first loved us." He has created, redeemed, and sanctified us. We are restored to his image, and nurtured by his grace. His blessed Son is our Propitiation; and the Holy Spirit is our Comforter. We cannot love him too much; because He alone is infinitely amiable: and if we are insensible of this truth, we are unworthy to be called his servants. How, indeed, can we rely on his blessing on our external circumstances, if his good gifts do not excite us to love, and fear, and thankfulness; and thus promote the work of our salvation? Or how can we expect his blessing on our souls, if our love to Him does not act within us as the governing principle? Unless we love Him, our knowledge of Him will be dangerously defective; but if we do love him, that knowledge will be correct, and will continually increase, so as to make us worthy of his especial favour.

The virtues which in themselves are called moral, but which, in a religious sense, are considered as graces of the soul, have the nature of habits, and may either be improved by attention, or lost by neglect. That the habit, therefore, of holiness may engage our utmost care, our Divine Teacher exhorts us to "be perfect, even as our Father which is in heaven is perfect." He signifies that there is, if we seek it diligently, a point of perfection, at which, even in

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our fallen state, it is possible for us to arrive ;-and, at the same time, without stating in what degree of excellence that perfection is placed, he has pointed out to us an example, which invites us to employ all our means, and all our opportunities, for continual improvement.

"As he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation." If we would, in all our actions, please God, and would endeavour to "perfect holiness in the fear of him," we should set him continually before our eyes. Our thoughts will then be fixed habitually on those amiable perfections of His nature, from which all the hopes of man's happiness are derived; and we shall take for our example, the love and mercy, the long-suffering goodness, and the purity, of Him who hath called us to glory and virtue. By this process are the "spirits of just men" exercised to the gradual attainment of such perfection as will qualify them for everlasting blessedness. A sense of their unworthiness will attend them at every step: for "the highest flames are the most tremulous; and the holiest and most eminently religious persons are those who beyond others are impressed with modesty, humility and awful fear." They will acknowledge to God their deficiencies; and will be justified in his sight, through the merits of his adorable Son.

The purpose of all our worship,-the benefits that we receive in the holy sacraments,-the intention of

*Taylor's Life of Christ, Part 195.

our studying the scriptures,—the end of all the means and aids that are afforded us by the Divine Spirit, are that we may live so as to "adorn in all things the Doctrine of God our Saviour," and may be prepared for our everlasting inheritance.

O Thou, whose glory surpasseth all understanding, look down, we beseech Thee, from thine abode of mercy, and visit us thy servants. Be thou our Guide in the way of life; and make us to know and to follow Thee, that we may be Thine for ever.

SERMON XVII.

WALKING BY FAITH.

2 COR. v. 7.

For we walk by faith, not by sight.

THE ministry in which St. Paul was engaged, as an Apostle of Jesus Christ, subjected him to the most laborious exertions, and exposed him to many persecutions and dangers. The perseverance, with which he sustained these trials, is the most brilliant and remarkable feature in his character:-and we cannot investigate his history with greater profit to ourselves, than in the endeavour to ascertain what was the principle that supported him with so much constancy. It was not a reliance upon his own strength, for of that he always speaks with the utmost diffidence. It was not a confidence in his natural abilities-great as they undoubtedly were ;-for he uniformly mentions them with an abatement, that shews how little he presumed upon them. It was nothing that bordered upon arrogance or blind pre

cipitancy; for he was a pattern of self-denial and of prudence. It was a fervid and religious dependence on the veracity, the mercy, and the favour of God, through Jesus Christ.

The subject with which the text is connected, is a proof of this. He is speaking of his ministerial labours, and of the motives that urge him to pursue them. His own words are "Seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not; but have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but, by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God." (2 Cor. iv. 1,2.) Here we may notice both the integrity and the confidence of this illustrious Apostle ;-his integrity, in disclaiming every artful and and sinister motive; and his confidence, in making God and man the judges of that integrity. He goes on to say, "But if our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost in whom the God of this world hath blinded the eyes of them which believe not; lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them." As if he had said,-If there is any veil of obscurity on the doctrine that I preach, it must be a veil to those persons only, who are in a state of perdition, and whose understandings are wilfully darkened by the deceitful power of sin; so that what is to other minds clear and evident, is imperceptible to theirs. "For," continues he, "we preach

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