good thereby? Are you temperate in your meat and drink? I do not, of course, mean this, as opposed to indecent excesses; for these are altogether out of the present question: but do you measure your liberty, by this standard, that you should be as fit for study and for prayer, immediately after your meals, as at any other time? And, lastly, do you set God always before you? Do you live in the spirit of prayer? Are you frequently before a throne of grace, supplicating for the Holy Spirit, for the mind that was in Christ Jesus, for the image of God upon your souls, for all the fruits of humility, purity, and love?

Examine yourselves, closely and faithfully; bring all to the law and to the testimony, and to the light of Scripture: and, when your own wisdom fails, and your own strength is weakness, throw yourselves on God. Ask, and ye shall

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have; seek, and ye shall find."

In conclusion, "I beseech you, brethren," young and old, rich and poor," by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies, a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." And Oh! let us all resolve, that as a year has departed, so old things shall pass away, and all things become new. Let us unite our prayers to God, that the coming year may arise

upon us, with healing in its wings; that if, before its months are over, we are numbered with the dead, we may, through a Saviour's merits, ascend to those happy realms, where no suns go down, no fruits decay, no years wax old and fail : or if, through mercy, we survive the commencing year, on earth, we may so pass it, and all the other waves of this troublesome world, that, finally, we may come to the land of everlasting life.

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SERMON II.

EXODUS XX. 5.

"FOR I, THE LORD THY GOD, AM A JEALOUS GOD."

WHERE human affections are, in any passages of Scripture, ascribed to God, I am aware, that such ascriptions must be meant and understood, in a high and peculiar sense. But still, where God has been pleased to reveal himself, it is not for us, to refine away the plain terms of the revelation, by notions, which we ourselves may form, of the divine counsels, or the divine nature. We shall best, perhaps, receive the impressions, we are, in such instances, intended to receive, when, to the utmost of our power, we divest whatever quality God condescends to attribute to himself, of every imperfection or alloy; and then feel and act towards God, as one in whom that quality actually resides. If God, then, says that he is a jealous God; let us not be wise, above what is written. Let us not grope in the depth of the incomprehensible mind, to find how this can be: but let us contemplate only what is most elevated and tender, in that temper of the soul; and then remember,

that the Being, on whom our highest interests depend, is, in that sense, a jealous God.

God's jealousy appears in this, that he will not give his glory to another.

It is according to the order and constitution of things, that greatness should command and receive the homage of respect. And even where the distinction is merely human, those who wear it, feel that tribute to be their right, and resent the refusal of it, with high indignation. And, in truth, to earthly greatness this homage is, in general, most amply yielded; not, merely, with that manly and cheerful submission to the powers ordained of God, which the Scripture everywhere enjoins, but with a certain prostration and servility of soul, often felt most keenly by those, who keep the secret best from others-nay, who conceal it even from themselves. The brilliancy and splendour, the thousand nameless marks of conscious superiority, which wealth can purchase, and greatness throw around it, have an almost magical effect upon the natural mind. Many men boast of independence, merely because they are mortified, at their own exclusion from these envied prizes. Others rise up early, and late take rest; put genius, talents, time, and labour, all upon the stretch; satisfied with a life of toiling and clambering up the hill, if, peradventure, at the close of

evening, they may reach the shining eminence. Such is the general passion. Thus do all people, nations and languages, however disunited in other respects, fall down, and worship the golden image.

This moral apostacy from God, is easy to be accounted for. Admiration is a passion, originally implanted in the soul. Like every other appetite, it seeks, with restless anxiety, for its connatural food. But it can range only within the circle of its own experience, and select only amongst those materials, which are presented to its view. If our minds, then, are bounded by this present scene, its artificial lustre must intensely and powerfully engage them. Nothing can give to admiration its right direction; nothing can convert it, from a feverish distemper, into an ennobling principle of the soul, but that which can outshine the dazzling lights of time; namely, the sober dawn of eternity. Let faith once remove the veil; and the soul will recognise, at a glance, the real purposes, for which God had formed her with such lofty aspirings, and such high ambition. Like one who, amidst the lingering dregs and faded lamps, of some mingled scene of mirth and heaviness, draws aside the curtain, throws up the window, and lets in the pure breath and blessed light of nature: so faith opens another system to the mind;