achievement of the will. It is the innocence of childhood, not the virtue of a man.

Or, are we driven, or allured, to many actions, and many courses of action, not entirely from unthinking disposition, but from conscious choice?—— choice of advantage in preference to disadvantage; a prudent calculation of the bearings and results of conduct; a perception of the misery which vice brings generally in her train, and of the various benefits of respectability, of advancement in the world, of ease of body and mind, of quiet and security-which goodness usually confers? This, too, is well. O that there were more of it! O that men would look before them and around them! 0 that they would open their eyes to the irreparable mischief, and therefore the egregious folly, of sin; and be honest, be sober, be industrious, be chaste, be quiet and subordinate, for their own sakes! But still, this is not morality. It is but shrewd and calculating prudence-it is but keeping a profit-and-loss account-it is but insight to perceive, and strength to act according to, that natural connexion between virtue and happiness on the one hand, and between vice and misery on the other, which God has established even in this present world, and which he makes to work more generally and uniformly than the self-willed man will recollect, or the unobservant will perceive.

to

But further, are we won higher principles and motives still?

excellence by

Has the love

Do we feel

Do we long to

of approbation been developed in us? the influence of human sympathy? stand well in the judgment of those around us, and to gain that meed of praise which makes the eye to glisten and the cheek to glow? This again, is well. For he who is indifferent to the opinion of his fellow men must be but too indifferent to his own. The judgments of others are valuable as reflecting and intensifying our judgment of ourselves; and in the smile or the frown of the world we often read what should be the smile or the frown of our own conscience. Yet still, even this standard is often low, defective, variable according to the humours and the fashions of the day. It is conventional manners, it is social propriety; but it is not morality.

Nay, what if we have discerned and worshipped the grand ideas of the fair and good, and cultivated Virtue for Virtue's sake, and sought for nothing but the inward consciousness of self-subjection to her laws, and lived not merely to our natural disposition-not merely to our interest—and not merely to the opinion of the world, but to the high, the pure, the honourable, and the beautiful within us? This truly is Morality. This is that following something out of self, and out of the world,-and unaf

fected therefore by the passions of self, and by the fluctuations of the world;—that reverence of the absolute and the unchanging; which only

constitutes a true and lasting virtue. But yet this, even this, is not religious morality-not Christian excellence not that sacred and peculiar character to which the worshipper of God is called when it is said, "Be ye holy, for I am holy !"

For all Holiness is, by its very name and notion, consecration. It is the being given up into the power, and set apart to the peculiar service, of Almighty God: it is subordination to Divine authority-reverence for unseen might-the bowing of the soul before the High and lofty One whose name is holy. All religion centres in dependence, submission, adoration. And nothing, therefore, can be properly religious-not the speculations of the mind, nor the aspirations of the moral feeling, nor the determinations of the will-which is not perfused with this characteristic element of dependence and submission. The idea of the Supreme must be present in our several thoughts and purposes-must give them life, must sanctify them. Christian morality, therefore, is the love and the pursuit of virtue-not from natural temperament merely-not from due regard to our self-interestnot for the meed of human approbation—not even from delighting in the excellent and comely for its

own sake; but from the love of God-devotedness to God-submission to the authority, and adoption of the will, of God. And consequently all holiness is, in Scripture, invariably spoken of, not in the abstract terms that human Ethics delight to usestill less in the language of the market, which the modern votaries of Utility employ; but as something having reference to God, deriving all its worth, its motive, and its object, from the all-pervading thought of God. It is, to notice some of the many Scripture phrases which describe it, the "doing the commandments and the statutes, and the judgments which the Lord our God commanded us." It is the "walking in the law of the Lord." It is the "walking before God and being perfect." It is "the fear of God"-"the service of God"-the "glorifying God" - the "obeying God's voice"the "walking worthy of God." It is the giving up ourselves a sacrifice to God the becoming like God-the living to God. It is to do "that which is right and good in the sight of the Lord." It is to "fear the Lord our God, to walk in his ways and to love him, and to serve the Lord our God, with all our heart and with all our soul; to keep the commandments of the Lord and his statutes which he commands us, for our good." It is, in a word, as our baptismal vow has pledged us, "to keep GOD's holy will and commandments.” Dear

Brethren, remember always, as the ground and principle, the motive and the life, of all true moral excellence, that you are God's children;-comprehended in his love-ransomed by his Son-called by his grace-accepted through his free compassion-consecrated to his service, all that you may henceforth not live to yourselves, but to your God. All that is merely earthly must decay and perish. All that is of the world-its highly prized advantages, its pomp, its pleasure, and its praise-must vanish as a dream. All that is found in yourself alone-nay, and in the whole wide sphere of created things, must sooner or later disclose to you its vanity. But God is alive for evermore. God is all and in all. God is with you and around you. God is your Creator, your Father, your Friend, your Preserver, your Shield, and your exceeding great Reward. And therefore all your advantage, all your joy, and all your excellence lies in living to God: not confessing him only-not listening merely to his truths-not trusting in his promises, but living-LIVING to God;-your whole will actuated by his Spirit-your whole character moulded into accordance with his image. This is the nature of Christian holiness. O that we may understand it by experience, and not only by words!

But now I go on to remind you, in the second place, that as the Nature of Christian holiness con