or, like the leaves in autumn, may drop into the grave-health may depart-the langour of disease and the fell grasp of death may paralyze your faculties; but whatever you may have to encounter from the attacks of enemies without, or suffer from within, endeavour never to allow the ardour of your love to cool. So long as it is in vigorous exercise, it will bear you up over every calamity. You will not hesitate to suffer for Him who did so much for you. Seek then to have your love fed with the holy oil of heavenly influence, that you may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled with all the fullness of God." Then shall you evince the reality and intenseness of your affection to your Saviour, and prove your fidelity to him. And as his love to you was not cooled by the indignities he endured, the agonies he suffered, or by the grave in which his sacred body for a while lay entombed; so neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.'

2nd. The exhortation calls on Christians to be faithful in their adherence to all the doctrines of revelation.-Correct views of divine truth are essential to the formation of the Christian character. "The truth" is the great instrument which the Holy Spirit employs in regenerating and perfecting believers, and for fitting them for the services and enjoyments of the blessed on high. Divine truth is the lamp of heaven, by which the dark soul is illuminated, and the footsteps of the Christian pilgrim directed in his way to the promised rest. The Bible is the mirror in which the moral deformity of our hearts is most strikingly reflected, and the beauty of holiness most attractively displayed. The doctrines of revelation well understood, and cordially believed, influence every spring of moral action, and give an impulse to right conduct. To insinuate error into the mind is like casting poison into a fountain. The streams which issue from it become pestiferous, and impregnated with death.

It must be of vast importauce, then, that you form accurate views of those doctrines which the Spirit of the living God has unfolded, and whose truth he has demonstrated by the most splendid miracles, and by other evidence no less satisfactory. To estimate lightly the worth of any truth taught in the Bible, is to betray an utter want of respect for the authority of Christ, and of fidelity to his cause. Those who would persuade you that you ought to attach no importance to the articles of your creed, provided you keep strict watch over your conduct, are to be avoided as poisoners of the very springs of moral action. They do every thing in their power to infuse into the soul one of the most certain elements of spiritual death. Their own crude opinion, when once embraced as a practical principle, proves fatal to all correct morality. It is indeed possible for a man of bad principles, occasionally, to do an outwardly good action, but it is impossible that it can be so estimated by the Searcher of hearts. Though thousands of his fellows applaud, the righteous

Judge will condemn him. But as a general maxim it holds true, that as a tree is known by its fruits, so are a man's principles by his conduct, and the converse of this statement is equally certain. Be not then indifferent to any one doctrine of revelation. Hold fast the form of sound words which are contained in the oracles of truth; contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints. You cannot surrender the smallest portion of divine truth without hazard to your spiritual welfare. And if through ignorance or unbelief you neglect, overlook, or abandon any of the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, the consequences may be awfully fatal. You must not shape your religious principles by the prevailing opinions of the world, but by the word of God. To give up in complacency to the enemies of Christianity, or in courtesy to the spurious liberality of the age, any of the doctrines of the gospel, is to prove a traitor to Christ. You must be decided in your adherence to every truth contained in the Bible, and be determined to hold it fast though you should stand alone. Consistency, safety, and fidelity require this of you-you must never be ashamed even of those doctrines against which the wit of the scoffer, the reasonings of the rationalist, and the contempt of the profane are most vehemently directed. You must take your stand at the foot of the cross, grasp it as the standard around which you must valiantly fight, and take as your war-cry the words of inspiration, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world."

The text calls on Christians,

3rd. To be faithful in maintaining the royal authority of the Saviour, and his Headship over his church. Jesus was foretold by the prophet as a priest on his throne, intimating very forcibly that he would unite in himself the offices of a king and of a priest; that while he would come in all the meekness of a lamb to be slain, and in all the compassion of our great High Priest, to offer up himself a sacrifice, and to bear the infirmities of his people, he would come likewise in all the majesty and authority of a king to legislate for his church, and to throw over her the shield of his own omnipotent protection. These laws are contained in the Bible, which is the only statute book of the church. They are plain, perfect, and easily understood. They are of universal obligation, and bind as firmly the greatest monarch on earth as the lowliest individual. Every man is commanded to study them for himself, and to judge for himself. The commands-prove all things-hold fast that which is good-let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind—are addressed indiscriminately to all to whom revelation comes. No man, no class of men-no council, assembly, or parliament-can, without daring arrogance, issue an authoritative interpretation of any passage of sacred Scripture, and enforce it upon the conscience of another. To your own Master you must stand or fall every one of you must give an account of himself to God. "One is your Master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren."

But though these statements are as reasonable as they are scriptural, they have been sadly overlooked, both by individuals and churches. The authority of Christ has been set aside by human enactments, and

the sacred territory of conscience invaded. His own blood-bought church has been torn from under His own almighty protection, and put under the patronage of man, whose breath is in His nostrils. The wall of fire which the Redeemer has reared around his own Zion, is not deemed sufficient for her safety, but the visible arm of earthly power is sought as a substitute. As the sworn subjects of the Prince of Peace, you are bound to vindicate his insulted honour, and assert the supreme authority of your King. It is treason to Jesus to allow a usurper to enter his sacred province, and dispute with him his authority, or claim a homage which is exclusively his due.

The conduct of all the worthies of former generations loudly calls on you to imitate their heroic example. The cruel threatening of an arbitrary despot-the alluring influence of voluptuous music-the showy pomps of an idolatrous worship-the prostrate knees of sycophantish multitudes-the burning fiery furnace, seven times heated, combining, as they did, all that is alluring on the one hand, and appalling on the other, could not shake the courage of the Hebrew youths, nor secure their ignoble compliance with what they regarded as sinful. Daniel chose to be cast into the lion's den, brave the loss of worldly honour, and encounter the rage of a despotic king, rather than offend his God, and wound his conscience. Reverence for the royal authority of Jesus led many, in former days, to the scaffold and the stake. Scotland, too, has had her martyrs in the same noble cause. Our natal soil has been saturated with sainted blood. The individuals who call it their own, and claim kindred with those who resisted every human encroachment on the authority of Christ, and yet tamely surrender their religious liberties, and allow men to legislate for the church, dishonour the cause with which they claim alliance, and are traitors to the Saviour. Whatever, then, it may cost you, maintain the exclusive authority of Christ over his church, and over the consciences of his followers. Be faithful unto death."

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But your loyalty to Christ must not stop here. While you contend for his prerogatives, you must yield yourselves up wholly to his service. He has instituted ordinances to be observed, and given laws to be obeyed. His authority attaches alike to every one of them. To neglect the one, or disobey the other, is to forfeit all claim to the character of a Christian, and to incur his righteous displeasure. His will must be your rule-his glory your end-his ordinances your delight-his favour your life, and his smile your heaven. Then, when He comes, bringing his reward with him, to give to every man according as his work shall be, he will say of you, Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gate into the city.'

The exhortation requires you,

4th. To be faithful in paying your solemn vows.-Many of you have come under the most solemn obligations to devote yourselves to the service of God. His vows are upon you. They are registered in the book of his remembrance, and you never can deface the record, or recall the sacred transaction. It shall remain indelible till it be exhibited before an assembled universe, and read in the hearing of

countless multitudes. Whatever may have been the character of these transactions, whether in the shape of resolutions, promises, subscribing with the hand unto the Lord, or seating yourselves at the communion table, they are for ever binding upon you. Whensoever they may have been made-whether when you were first awakened to see your guilt and danger as a sinner, or when the earthly house of your tabernacle seemed dissolving, and you had the near prospect of becoming an inhabitant of eternity, or when surrounding the sacramental table, with the affecting symbols of a crucified Saviour in your hands, or when your hearts burned within you for benefits received, and mercies enjoyed; it matters not what may have been the time or circumstances in which you vowed to be the Lord's; his claim to your services is unquestionable. You cannot set it aside. You are bound to glorify him in your bodies and your spirits, which are his.

Give up, then, my dear friends, the sins you vowed to forsakeabandon the company you resolved to shun-whatever sacrifice this may cost you, do not hesitate for one moment to make it-present pleasure, secular advantage, worldly friendships, are less than nothing when put in the balance with the salvation of the soul. Give yourselves cheerfully to the work of the Lord-enter with holy ardour and stern resolution on that course which appeared to you so desirable from a communion table or the borders of eternity; let your language be, I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."

But if you, in opposition to all your engagements and professions, abandon the Saviour's cause, how dreadful must be your eternal condition, and how terrible your doom! Does it not now make your blood run cold and stagnate at your hearts, to conceive it possible that, instead of rising from your graves with joy, to join the myriads thronging to take their place on the right hand of the Judge, you may be called out of your prison-house, to be dragged as perjured traitors, to receive the condemnation you have merited; and instead of obtaining the crown of life as the reward of fidelity, to be given over into the custody of death and hell, to be tormented for ever, with the devil and his angels, as cowardly deserters from the cause you had sworn to defend.

The text commands you,

5th. To be faithful unto death.-When you made a profession of religion, and enlisted into the army of the Captain of salvation, it was not for a short campaign, but for life. Having put on the Lord Jesus Christ, you are henceforth to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness-having set out in your way to heaven, you are not so much as to look back; you are to press on towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. You are not to use your religion as you do your sabbath attire. It must be worn as your habitual garb-you must be clothed with it. Alas! there are many who make a profession of religion who are utterly ignorant of its great principles, and have never felt its sanctifying

power; they put on a profession as an upper garment to cover the native deformity of an unregenerated heart, and to impose on their fellow-men. Hence it is that so many apostatize-they did not count the cost before they entered on their undertaking, and they are not able to finish. So inadequate are their conceptions of the real excellency and vast importance of religion, that they will not surrender a single temporary gratification to secure "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."

It is vastly different, however, with the genuine Christian: he knows the truth, feels the power and experiences the joys of religion; his attachment to it strengthens with time, and the more he knows of it the higher he values it; it incorporates all its benign influences with every faculty of his soul, and deepens the features of its own lovely image on his heart. The service of Christ is to him more delightful than all the vanities of the world. Rather than desert the cause of Christ he would cheerfully suffer the loss of all things. It is the power of religion and the presence of the Saviour that throws the serenity of heaven over the martyr's countenance amid the fellest blasts of persecution-the keenest tortures of the rack-the hottest flames at the stake-and the most cruel death. The same holy influences support the dying saint under the gathering infirmities of his decaying body and the struggles of dissolution. His pains increase -his strength sinks-his eye closes-his grasp of life relaxes-his pulse stops-his breath departs-the dews of death are on his claycold cheek, but his sainted spirit as it fled left fixed on his pale countenance the image of peace, and took its flight, attended by ministering angels, into heaven to receive "the crown of life."

II. ATTEND NOW TO THE GRACIOUS ASSURANCE.

"I will give you a crown of life."

Here notice,

1st. The gift.-"A crown of life." A crown is the highest object of earthly ambition, and the possessor of it stands on the loftiest pinnacle of worldly glory; to obtain it, no toils, struggles, or sacrifices are deemed too great. Rivers of human blood have flowed in the cause of ambition, and in forcing a way to a throne-and after its honours were secured, how transitory its possession, and harassing its cares! Its glories vanish when grasped, which dazzled at a distance, like the lovely hues of the rainbow, or like the meteor, which emits a temporary flash and is then quenched for ever. And yet with what breathless eagerness and incessant toil are such honours sought by the children of men! The competitor in the games of ancient Greece, submitted to a long period of previous training, before he presented himself as a candidate for the laurel crown, by which the conqueror was to be rewarded in the presence of applauding thousands of his countrymen. But between this crown of life, and all the glory and honour of this earth, there is no comparison. As eternity surpasses time, as heaven transcends earth, so does the celestial crown, which the Saviour shall place on the head of every faithful follower, infinitely surpass in glory all the riches and honours of the world.

It is a crown of life-and this is indicative of the pure, lofty, and endless enjoyments to which it introduces. It is when the struggles of