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NATIONAL PREACHER.

No. 1, VOL. XXVIII.] JANUARY, 1854. [WHOLE NO. 325.

SERMON DCXIII.

BY REV. SIMEON NORTH, D.D.,

PRESIDENT OF HAMILTON COLLEGE.

DILIGENCE IN BUSINESS.

"I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day; the night cometh when no man can work."-JOHN ix. 4.

IN these words we find an embodiment of the conceptions of obligation entertained by Jesus Christ, relative to the true end and mission of his life upon the earth. On another occasion, he is represented as saying, that he came not to do his own will, but the will of him that sent him. So here, when he was about to perform one of those miracles of healing, which so remarkably distinguished his ministry, he gave utterance to a similar statement. His language not only expresses a sense of obligation, as if he was truly alive to the necessity resting upon him; but it also bespeaks his conviction, that in order fully to meet its high claims and responsibilities, he must make use of the most diligent and persevering effort. He had a mission to perform-a mission,, too, appropriately designated as a work, because it was destined, to task the highest energies both of his mind and body. He carried with him ever, a consciousness of his responsibility to God, the Father, in whose service it had been undertaken; and the earnest promptings of his mind were hence, to unceasing diligence and effort, until it should be accomplished. "I must work," says he, "the works of him that sent me while it is day the night cometh, when no man can work."

This language embodies a true conception of the proper end and design of human life; and we hence make use of it as giving

expression and enforcement to a lesson of high and universal import. It teaches that life should be spent in diligent effort for the fulfilment of those purposes of obligation and of duty, which GOD has appointed us to accomplish.

This statement implies, first, that God has appointed for every man a work to accomplish in life; and, second, that for its accomplishment, diligent effort is necessary.

I. God has appointed for every man a work to accomplish in life.

It may be appropriately described as a peculiar work; because in a very important sense, it stands related to the position and capacities of each individual man. As in the bodily structure, which, during the time of our sojourning upon the earth, God has made the dwelling-place of the soul, each member has its own peculiar place and office, and accomplishes the end of its being by fulfilling the functions assigned it; so in the social organization, of which individual men are but constituent parts, each has his appointed place, with its corresponding and appropriate work. It is assigned him, not so much by the will of man, as by the Providence of God. He may be expected to attain to it, not indeed without the exercise of his own wisdom and sagacity; but still more, in humble reliance upon the wisdom of God; and by following the guidance of those providential events, which indicate the will of him, whose it is to direct the steps of his creatures.

But, as each man has his own position and work in life, and these in some sense peculiar, so his success and efficiency in that work, must depend greatly upon the aptitude of his own character and capacities, to its accomplishment. Such an aptitude may indeed be in part the gift of nature; but it must, in no small degree, be the result of cultivation; and that man evinces the highest practical wisdom, who best understands the position which God has assigned him; and who most diligently applies himself to the business of preparing to meet its demands and exigencies.

Nor do we find any exception to this truth in those cases in which the work assigned to men, is found among the allotments of common, or even humble life. Whatever may be his position, or his sphere of activity, marked out by God's Providence, every man has his work; and every such work has its individual peculiarities and features, by virtue of which, for the time being, it is made his work. This was as true of Moses when he was a shepherd in Midian, as when he was a leader and law-giver in Israel. It was as true of Jesus Christ, when he was known only as the carpenter's son, as when, in the consummation of that work, which has since become the wonder of men and of angels, he achieved the redemption of our race.

There are those, who seem to overlook this grand feature of human life. They can see, indeed, that every man's work has its peculiarity; but what is individual and special in their own work, they can recognize only in ideal pictures of coming greatness and distinction. They can find in themselves, no fitness for doing that which is at hand, and within their reach, and which God's Providence has manifestly made their work; but they are waiting until the wheels of that Providence shall have again revolved, and brought up new devolopments, and discovered new aptitudes between their own capacities and the works of greatness and magnificent enterprize which are about to be accomplished in the world. It is a most fatal mistake which such men commit: nay, it is a reckless disregard of the obligations imposed upon them by God's authority, and indicated by God's Providence. They spend life, not in doing the work assigned them; but in finding ont what is the work which they are fitted to accomplish. They realize not for themselves and for others, the blessed fruits of industry. With them, life is a continued series of disappointments; and when its hours are gone, they find, in the retrospect of its wasted opportunities, that even while yet in the world, and on probationary ground, they have realized the fabled retribution of Tantalus-having been ever grasping for good, which has forever eluded their grasp.

But the work assigned to men in life, is also a common work. I mean, that while in a certain sense, it is peculiar, because of its relations, and adaptations to them as individuals, it has also characteristics and ends which mark it as a work appropriate to all. Among such characteristics and ends, the following may be specified as worthy of special notice.

1. It is a work arising from the character and relations of men, as intelligent, active, and moral beings. The fact that it has been imposed, implies that they stand in certain relations of dependance and obligation to God, the Creator, who has given them their capacities, and who has prescribed the manner in which they are to be employed. As creatures of intellect, they are capable of self-knowledge and self-culture: they can understand truth, perceive relations, and discover the adaptation of means to ends in the accomplishment of any work which is assigned them. As moral and active beings, they cannot only feel the claims of duty, urging them to diligence and fidelity in their Master's service; but in the way of real accomplishment, they can fulfil his purposes. They can secure for themselves the rewards of virtue and of knowledge. They can extend to others the charities of a pure and sanctified benevolence. They can practically recognize their relations to God; and thus accomplish the ends of a holy and consecrated life. No such work has been assigned to the brutes, which inhabit the fields and the mountains: nor to the countless tribes of animals which people the air and the waters. God has given them their nature; but it is not a rational and moral nature. He has assigned to them their

sphere of action; but it is not a sphere of moral duty and accountability. He has appointed to them their destiny; but not, like that of man, a destiny of illimitable progression beyond the grave. The difference between mere animal perception and moral discrimination: between reason and instinct, does not present a wider contrast than the difference between their appointed work upon the earth, and the work assigned to man.

2. The work, of which I speak, is a work of self-culture and improvement. It arises, indeed, from the character and relations of man, as an intelligent, active and moral being: and yet the capacities which make him such a being, and by which he is brought into the relations which he holds to God and to man, are capacities capable of almost indefinite expansion. In their original state they differ from what they are susceptible of becoming as marble in the quarry differs from the well-wrought and perfect statue: as colors in the crude mass differ from the forms of symmetry and beauty which glow upon the painter's canvass. The process by which the transformation is wrought, is the combined result of many influences. God works in his heart, both to will and to do, when man rises from the degradation of his fallen state, as a moral being. So, the aid and co-operation of others may help him on, in his course of intellectual improvement, and in the process by which is effected a full and perfect development of his active powers: but neither the energies of divine grace enlisted in his behalf, nor the guidance of others who have gone before him in the business of moral and mental culture, can free him from the necessity of doing work for himself. He must labour in the business of moulding his own character and shaping his own destiny. He cannot hope to be either morally or intellectually great, without being in a most important sense the architect of his own greatness. Others may show him the way; but he must run and climb for himself. Others may give him encouragement, and in his struggle with difficulties, cheer him on; but in himself and in the strength which God has given him for his work, must he find the elements of successful perseverance.

3. The work assigned to man in life, is also a work of intelligent self-control. It may be accounted one of the high prerogatives of humanity, that such control can be exercised, under the guidance of reason, and in obedience to that law which God has appointed in every mind-the law of conscience. The same energies of a free will, which give to man his powers of action, and by which he is fitted to accomplish his appointed work in the service of God, give to him also an ability to govern his own mind and heart. The steady and determined exercise of this ability, no man may surrender who hopes for progress either in knowledge or in virtue, and who accounts it worthy of his position as a man on probation, that he should be mindful of his responsibility at the bar of conscience and of God. Does he hope for progress in knowledge? Then must he know how to direct

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