prepared to stand with the world and fall with the world; for "the friendship of the world is enmity with God," and his unerring word is pledged, that "the wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the people that forget God." If, on the other hand, you will come out and be separate;" if you are willing to be as the word of God describes the people of God, "a peculiar people, zealous of good works," "the world being crucified to you, and you unto the world;" the word of God is equally strongly pledged that you shall be received and acknowledged, loved and directed, guided and supported here, and "kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation."

Believing these to be the plain and positive injunctions of holy writ, and at the same time knowing them to be most foreign to the feelings of the natural man, how, as the ministers of God, are we to act towards you our hearers? Are we "to prophesy smooth things?" Are we to say-" It is true that you promised in your baptismal covenant to renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil,' but this only alluded to gross enormities; the pleasures of the world can only become dangerous from excess, and with regard to its 'pomps and vanities,'

the measure of them which you enjoy is extremely harmless: be content, therefore; remain where you are; God will not require so painful a separation; continue the double service in which you are engaged; and while your heart is partially engrossed by the world, give to God all that you can reasonably afford Him of your time, your affections, and your talents, and he will require no more?" Can we speak thus, my brethren? Ought we, if we love your souls, to hazard, for the sake of a little short-lived popularity, these jewels of inestimable value? No; better, far better that we should become your enemy by speaking the truth; better that we should become, with the apostles before us, "as the offscouring of all things," than that we should jeopard one soul committed to our charge, by modifying the terms of that message with which our divine Master has intrusted us.

The present is an age of great religious profession; it is no longer considered discreditable as it might have been some few years since, to be seen scrupulously attending upon all the divine ordinances, or even to be known to read the Bible, and to pray in private. Thanks be to God, the increased and increasing growth of these things has compara

tively silenced the scoffers; and a man may now serve God, if not without the secret contempt of the ungodly, at least without their open ribaldry and scorn. All ranks and all classes have, in this favoured country at least, felt the powerful effects of that "little leaven" which is slowly but certainly leavening the whole mass, and preparing for the bright display of that meridian sun which will, in God's good time, throw its quickening beams into the darkest corners of this dark world of ours.

But while this is matter of real and heartfelt gratitude to every sincere follower of our Lord, it is not unaccompanied by its peculiar dangers and temptations. Many who, when a profession of vital godliness was more proscribed and ridiculed than at present, united with its enemies, and reechoed the vapid joke, or joined in the empty sneer, are now found swelling the ranks of its nominal admirers. It is therefore more incumbent than ever upon ministers to state clearly, and beyond the possibility of misapprehension, what the Gospel really requires of its followers upon this point; and it is as incumbent upon the true and sincere friends of the Gospel, by their entire and visible and decided separation from the world of the ungodly, by their habitual conformity to the example

and image of their divine Master, to evidence to all men that "they are not of the world, even as He was not of the world.”

You will not, my Christian brethren, even now be enabled to do this consistently and conscientiously without exciting the remarks and, it may be, the censures or the ridicule of the foolish, the ungodly, and the profane. And although persecution is too strong a word to apply to the species of opposition to which you will be called, be assured there will be still much to prove your resolution, to try your faith, to exercise your love. You will sometimes find difficulties and opposition even from those to whom you are the most closely connected, and from whom you reasonably expect to receive approbation and encouragement; but this must not be permitted to arrest or to deter you. When Abram first proposed to his relatives and friends his projected departure from the scenes of his childhood, the associates of his youth, the friends and counsellors of his maturer age; when he declared that he was about to turn away, and for ever, from all that interested and gratified those around him, what do you imagine must have been the feelings of his auditors? When he told them that he was about to seek a country of which he

knew not even the name-in fact, of every particular of which he was utterly ignorant, except that the Almighty had pledged his word to conduct him thither, and that his own dependence upon his God assured him it would be worth his labour;-do you not think there must have been many an incredulous smile, many a secret sarcasm, many an open remonstrance? And in what manner was Abram able to meet these trying circumstances? He could avail himself of no argument to combat the objections of his friends, of no representations of worldly aggrandizement to silence their scruples, for he knew comparatively nothing of the enterprise in which he was engaging: but this he did know, that "He was faithful who had promised,' and upon that simple dependence he acted, and would have been content to act, though a world in arms had opposed his progress.

So must it be with yourselves. It is vain to talk of giving up the world, of separating from its follies, of renouncing its sins, until you have, as the apostle expresses it, "obtained like precious faith with him, through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." Without this, every step will be difficult and laborious, and in the end futile and disappointing. But once acquire, through