ness unto God.” * So strongly is this point insisted on in the sacred volume, that we are chargeable with filling God's Temple with filthy and disgusting idols whenever the laws of purity and temperance are violated.t

Nor can we be said to honour God, when we are reckless of the life and health of our bodies. If through ambition, vanity, sloth, or avarice, we needlessly expose ourselves to death, disease, or injury, we do not put that value upon these gifts of God, which he requires. Do we not feel dishonoured when a valuable loan or important trust is carelessly exposed to detriment or destruction? And does it appear as though we looked upon our bodies as held in charge, when we bestow no care or wisdom in their preservation? Moreover, corporeal vigour, strength, vivacity, facility of exertion, are all to be made tributary to the cause of God. The hand, the foot, the eye, the tongue-all are in requisition-all are to be sanctified to the Lord — all will receive impulse and direction from a devoted mind. How desirable that holiness should thus be written even upon "this vile body." How has it been hallowed when "offered upon the service and sacrifice of the faith" and good of others! And how far better that it should thus ascend as a "sweet smelling savour to the Lord," than to descend to the grave an indulged and pampered, an idolized, slothful and useless form!

Time is one of those talents respecting which our Lord has said, "Occupy till I come." To place no upon time is so far to dishonour God as virtu

value

* Rom. vi. 12, 13.

K

† 1 Cor. vi. 19.

ally to accuse him of having no end and no meaning in its allotment. It is practically to maintain that it is the result of caprice—an arbitrary contrivance, without object or wisdom, perpetuating and repeating its own unmeaningness in the whims and freaks and follies of men. It behoves us to believe that God has an end in all our time. None of it are we at liberty to destroy. To throw it away, is to be dishonest. It is God's. It is not to be wasted. The fragments of time are to be gathered "that nothing be lost." The very interstices are to serve some purpose. Even those portions of time which seem less available, are to fit us for the more energetic and efficient use of the rest. Time is all gold. smallest dust is precious.

Its

Beyond all computation has been the value of some mere moments-moments rich in blessing! What discoveries have they brought! What transformation! What hope! What bliss! What glory! The despiser and waster of time "is blind not seeing afar off."

He

looks not back to the goodness and wisdom that appointed it; nor forward to the vain regrets, the hopeless anguish, the self-gnawing and self-cursing remorse, which its abuse will bring. Kill time; and Eternity, armed with the wrath of God, will be its avenger. The wilful and habitual destroyer of time must expect to reap bitter fruits of that divine displeasure he creates, whilst even the Christian cannot trifle away portions of life without corresponding loss and damage to himself, as well as disobedience and dishonour to God. But time is not only to be employed. It must be wisely, fitly, and worthily employed.

There should be proper selection, propor

tion, disposal, subordination of the parts and periods of time. The primary objects must not be crowded. into the scanty, and least available portions of time, whilst inferior interests enormously absorb the bulk and prime of our days. Is it decent that the Infinite God shall have the remnants of time, whilst the world and man shall engross the mass? Is it becoming that the will, the grace, the ways of the Eternal, should have mere snatches of our time, whilst the petty interests of sense swallow all but the whole of life? Is not this unseemly disproportion given to inferior objects, a slight, an habitual contempt offered to God? It may perhaps seem as if the largest portions of time must of necessity be given to the things of this life. But it should be remembered that there is such a thing as "redeeming the time," even thus employed. We may hallow our secular affairs and consecrate the common businesses of life, by cherishing spirituality of mind; by carrying with us a devout spirit; by preserving purity of motive ; by being "in the fear of God all the day long;" by craving the guidance and presence of the Lord; by watching against surrounding evil, and by guarding against undue worldly influence. Time is not well used unless made subservient to eternity, nor temporal things, unless subordinate to spiritual. There is a “secret” in this subject, which is "with them that fear God." “But this I say, brethren, the time is short: it remaineth that both they that have wives, be as though they had none; And they that weep as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not; And they that use this

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world as not abusing it for the fashion of this world passeth away."* Caring for the things of the Lord," and "pleasing the Lord," are the great considerations on which these directions turn, and by which these seeming paradoxes are explained.

One of the most frequent methods of destroying time is to procrastinate. God gives the present. It is arrogant to calculate upon the future. Nor can we anticipate delayingly, the distant time, without sinking the intervening space. And when we have reached (if indeed we reach) the promised point, we repeat the same fallacy, and carry forward new expectations, till the habit of postponing the moment of action becomes as fixed and inveterate as any of our other habits; and life is thus worn away by a series of ungodly deceptions. This applies awfully to the first and great care-that of repentance. And it applies lamentably to many things affecting the duty, improvement, and happiness of Christians. We are trifling with God-we are shifting off the obligation -we are unworthily flinching from the service of God-when we do not now, what he commands now to be done. A purpose of performing a duty at a future period, does not take away the disobedience of not doing it at the present time. Our disregard of the divine will stretches from the present moment up to the moment of compliance. Punctuality and promptitude have in this light a new and solemn importance.

Property must be brought under the command of the same great law of doing all things to the glory

* 1 Cor. vii. 29, 30. 31.

† verse 32.

of God. When its numerous and important bearings are considered; when its instrumental power of good or evil-its connexions with the state of the mindits availableness for usefulness, and its possible subserviency to mischief-are duly contemplated; the desirableness of its being submitted to an adequate and constant control, palpably appears. "Honour the Lord with thy substance," is the all-guarding and directing requisition which is to hinder the injuries and secure the benefits of property.

The first step in this appropriation of our substance is to understand well the tenure by which we hold it. To exclude the Great Proprietor by forgetting that we are but stewards, is the great source of mis-use and misappropriation. If this is lost sight of, we mistake our path at the very outset. We start wrong, and our race therefore will be devious and distant from the proper mark. Wealth must be received in subjection and trust-and occupied as a charge. We must perform fealty. So long as we do not regard it as the Lord's, we deny his sovereignty. So long as we think it our own, we seek only our own will in its appropriation. "The silver and the gold are mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills, saith the Lord.” "Blessed be thou Lord God of Israel our father, for ever and ever," responds the man of God. "Thine O Lord is the greatness and the power, and the glory and the victory, and the majesty; for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all. Both riches and

• Proverbs iii. 9.