be to play and to trifle with what is intended to awe, to soften, to win, and to purify. Our knowledge, if rightly aimed, will have a direct, and practical, and living reference to its object. We shall feel at every new discovery, this is He, "with whom we have to do." We shall inquire after Him, that we may speak with him, that we may pay him homage, that we may transact affairs with him, that we may know his mind, that we may please him, that we may have a place in his regard, and that we may enjoy him. When our inquiries have led us to these objects and engagements, there is found full, and endless, and appropriate employment for all our powers, in immediate subserviency to the glory of God. What materials for thought? What objects of interest! What occasions for effort! What calls for care, for caution and for diligence! What exciting scenes! What spirit-stirring prospects! What room for wise calculation, address, holy management, system, and forecasting! What openings for reflections the most profound, for exertions the most stretching, for hopes the most aspiring, for feelings the most intense! This is the proper field for mind; where it may ever spend, and ever recruit; and where lengthened toil will never produce exhaustion, but ceaseless recreation and immortal strength.

But it is part of the divine plan in reference to our world that mind should act, not only for itself, but for others. It has two provinces; one, its own region of responsibility, character, and interests; the other, the field of social instrumentality, instruction, and influence. Let it not be supposed that the view which we have given of the personal thought and

care in reference to God, leaves no room for this reative agency. We hesitate not to say that the more one excels in the appropriation of his mental powers to the service of his own individual godliness, the better fitted is he for devoting his thoughts and feelings, usefully and successfully, to the advantage, improvement, and recovery of others. The stores he has gathered alone in his own private labour, are all ready and available for the use of others, without hinderance or detriment to himself. The deep views of God, the weighty impressions of eternity, the sense of awful responsibility, the holy power of truth, "the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left," the treasury of Christian feelings, the rich joys and consolations, the celestial hopes, which he himself has attained, prepare him eminently for useful influence, and may be made to bear with vast advantage, upon the consciences, and hearts, and lives of others. And truly there is something very noble and very exhilirating in the thought of thus employing our minds. The Infinite Mind acts benignantly and mercifully upon our minds; and our minds, in humble imitation, are employed, benevolently and wisely, upon the minds of others. Thus we become "followers of God as dear children,” and seek to "be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect." Blessed alliance, to be "fellow-workers together with God!" "He who seeks knowledge truly, does not seek a couch whereon to rest a languid spirit; nor a terrace for a variable mind and wandering feet to walk up and down with a fair prospect; nor a fort and commanding ground for strife and contention; nor a shop for self-interest; but a rich

store-house for the glory of God, and the relief of

But even in those mental exercises, efforts, and attainments of which God is not the immediate object, yet is he to be acknowledged. He is lost sight of when we give an undue portion of thought to secular matters-when we surrender an unreasonable proportion of the intellectual territory to the world— when we allow such an occupation and absorption of mind by earthly cares or pleasures, as well nigh to exclude the rightful owner. Then it is we glorify God, when we "are careful for nothing, but by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, we make known our requests unto God, and the peace of God, which passeth understanding, keeps our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."t

And all our pursuits of knowledge too, are to be regulated by a primary regard to God. Far be from us the narrow notion that no information is to be sought, but that which is strictly divine. Nature may be studied. But it should be to the glory of God. We should make all our acquaintance with creation, an introduction to our fellowship with the Creator. We should behold, adore, and praise God in all his works. We should commune with the Infinite Spirit who pervades the visible universe→ whose glory suns show forth, whose goodness the earth preaches, whose presence the storm proclaims, and whose wisdom we trace in the leaf, the blade, the pebble, and the insect. History too, in the universal, national, ecclesiastical, and individual aspects

in which it presents man, may be studied; but we should follow in it, the footsteps of the Deity as he moves forward in the accomplishment of his great designs. Indeed, few are the branches of study which may not be made subservient to piety, and few the attainments which may not be turned into a channel of improvement and usefulness. Those studies which cannot be made to bend either to holiness or benevolence - either to advance our personal excellence, or to promote the welfare of others—and which moreover are not needful for the common purposes of life, may well be suspected as lying beyond the range of a wise, laudable, and allowable appropriation of our faculties. To say nothing of the false and the polluting, is there not much of the frivolous and empty and useless, from which it is needful to turn, if we would save these minds formed for Eternity and for God, from an abuse and profligacy of their powers-from a waste and extravagance of their treasures? And what a fearful expenditure would this be! What could be expected to follow but bankruptcy and ruin? What poverty, what sorrow, what wailing, await such spendthrifts! The slothful and unfaithful servant hid his Lord's money. this is to throw it away in utter contempt-to trample it down in dirt and filth from sheer wantonness. A Christian will shrink from this utter debasement and desecration of those high and immortal powers which God has given him to be improved, augmented, enriched and adorned.

But

We dishonour God when we so use our minds as to indicate that we either undervalue or overrate them. If we lose sight of their immortality, of their

accountableness, of their capabilities of spiritual improvement and happiness, of the provisions of grace for their benefit, of the care of God for them, of the price paid for them, and of their eternal destinies ; we dishonour God by not attaching to them that worth and importance which God himself does, and which he requires us to do. On the other hand, if

we claim for them an independent end and will — if we overlook their fallen, defiled, and helpless condition-if we depend on their power of discovering and discerning truth, and thus "lean to our own understandings "if we are proud of their purity, wisdom and strength; we rise out of our proper place, and enter upon an unhallowed and presumptuous contest with God. We cannot thus indulge without lowering his claims, disputing his account of our real condition and character, and seeking to frustrate his whole method of treating us.

But we must move on to see in what manner this requirement extends to our Bodies.

We fail to honour him who wonderfully and fearfully made us, unless we sedulously keep in subjugation all bodily appetites. "This is the will of God even our sanctification.” * If base lust is allowed a dwelling in us, we mar, we degrade, we defile, we desecrate the work of God. "Sin must not reign in our mortal bodies that we should obey it in the lust thereof." "Neither must we yield our members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin; but yield ourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and our members as instruments of righteous

* 1 Thess. iv. 3.