grieving the Spirit, pray for his more abundant influence, and your souls shall live with greater joy, and praise the Lord. To live by faith on the Son of God forms another principle of action to a lively Christian. You are sensible that your animal life cannot be maintained without its daily bread; nor can you be growing, lively Christians without constantly feeding, by faith, upon Jesus, who is the true bread that cometh down from heaven, and of which, if a man eat, he shall live for ever. As the natural bread you eat incorporates with your animal system, strengthening, satisfying, and invigorating you for the discharge of daily labour; much more so when you are enabled by faith to feed upon Christ, the bread of life, you happily feel an union with him in his person and grace, and are strengthened both to do and to suffer the whole will of God with cheerfulness and joy. Blessed is the man that eateth this bread in the kingdom of God!To preserve an abiding sense of your reconciliation to God, the complete pardon of your sins in the blood of Jesus, and an assurance of your justification in his allperfect righteousness, will most assuredly produce that joy, peace, and happiness which will make you lively Christians indeed! These great realities were formed in the heart of Paul; and whoever reads his life or his epistles will find, that from them he enjoyed the most abundant pleasures. The knowledge and possession of these blessings of grace were not peculiar to Paul only. All the disciples of Jesus possessed them in a great or lesser degree. They were all sinners in themselves, and so are you. The same God who bestowed such blessings on them, is as able and willing to confer them upon you, that your souls may live in assured peace and joy to praise his holy name; for you cannot be lively while you

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are conscious your sins are unpardoned. To experience a sense of your adoption, and to know and enjoy God in Christ as your everlasting Father, will most effectually raise the powers of your souls, and conduct you through the paths of life with joy. From your adoption you obtain a right to enjoy the invaluable privileges of the family of grace, and are enabled to maintain communion with God in private and public. On the exercise of this principle almost the whole of your comfort depends. While fear occupies your breast, whether God in Christ be your Father, it is not possible you should be either lively or happy: be therefore earnest in prayer for the spirit of adoption to bear witness with your spirits that you are the children of God. While I thus affectionately address you, I hope you are darting a silent peti tion to heaven

My Father! O permit my heart

To plead her humble claim,
And ask the bliss those words impart
In my Redeemer's name.

The last principle I shall now name, as producing lively exercises of heart, is a confidence, that die when or where you may, you shall inherit the eternal mansions of bliss in heaven. This is what Peter calls a lively hope; the possession of which cannot fail to make a lively Christian. Rejoicing in hope of the glory of God on earth and in heaven, made a considerable part of the experience of Paul, and had a happy influence upon his heart and life. Knowing in whom he had believed, he was cheerfully persuaded that neither death nor life, things present nor things to come, should be able to se

parate him from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord, and that there was a crown of glory laid up for him in heaven, which the Lord would give him in the great day. Blessed hope! in the possession of which may your souls live to praise the Lord.

I have now named some of the most important principles, the exercise of which can make you humble, lively, happy Christians. It becomes your duty to examine yourselves if they have a place in your breasts, and in what degree they are operative on your temper and conduct. Much may be said as to the natural texture of the mind; some are of a much more lively disposition than others; still, if we have those Gospel principles implanted by the hand of God, they will be found influ ential. If they are not so much as our hearts can wish, let the conviction lead us in prayer to God, who alone can revive his work, that our souls may live in the experience of his love, and be animated in his cause. In hope God may pervade our further meditations, I shall proceed, according to my promise, to follow the Christian through some few paths of his life, in order to ob serve the expressions of his vivacity.

IN THE FAMILY. Whatever be his relation or station in domestic life, the animating virtues of christianity will discover themselves, and, as a lively Christian, resolve, with David, to walk within his house with a perfect heart. While grace curbs and brings into subjection those tempers, passions, and vices which are so often destructive to social harmony, it will produce that humility, courteousness, sobriety, integrity, and amiableness which make the possessor happy in himself, and useful to all around. Such a person may be truly said to be diligent in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.

In his walk in the WORLD, the lively Christian is taken knowledge of that he hath been with Jesus. Integrity and uprightness preserves him from those temptations which are too often found in trade and in commerce.' Cheerful as well as just, he gives no one occasion to charge his religion with deceit, injustice, or moroseness. While he gives an industrious hand to the world, he preserves a warm heart for his adored Saviour; and when often he is employed in his station on earth, he has his conversation in heaven.-In the CLOSET he is no stran ger to himself, to meditation, examination, and sensible communion with his God. Here he contemplates his wretched, guilty state as a sinner, and is cloathed with humility, while he reflects on the free, rich, unbounded grace of God which saved his soul from hell. The sufferings of his Saviour in Gethsemane, and on Calvary, make such sensible impressions upom his heart, that they produce tears of gratitude and joy. In this secret chamber of prayer he gathers the heavenly manna on which his soul feeds, and is strengthened to pass the duties and the sufferings of the day. Being no stranger to himself or his God in private, no wonder that he bears his public profession with activity and zeal.-Follow him, therefore, in the HOUSE OF OUR GOD. Here the emotions of his heart are ardently engaged in prayer and in praise. He enjoys the sweets of communion with the Father and with the Son, by the aid of the eternal Spirit. By. faith he hears the word preached, and is profited. Though not captious in his temper, he forms a Gospel taste, knows the voice of truth, and approves things that are excellent. He dwells in unity with his brethren, and with a generous heart and hand strives to promote the good of all. Although we allow the lively Christian a

degree of that partiality which is attached to his own denomination, his heart embraces all who love and bear the image of his Lord and Saviour, ardently desiring to promote the spread of the Gospel and the comfort of Christians wherever he may find them. Nor will his lively, affectionate heart forget unhappy sinners. Of such he was himself. Pure grace has made the difference. He prays for them-he longs to see them flock to Jesus, as doves to their windows. Thus the love and benevolence of the animated Christian, like the beams of the sun, find their way among all ranks and orders of mankind, till they traverse from pole to pole.-In DEATH the lively Christian appears the most brilliant and happy. His knowledge and experience of the Saviour have assured him that death to him is without a sting; and in the black river of death he shall drop all the evils of life, and, like the Egyptian host, be seen no more. He shall depart in peace, and, with his expiring breath, address his Lord, Into thine hand I commit my spirit, for thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth.

Thus we have followed the lively Christian into his family, the busy world, the closet, the Church, and his dying chamber. The colouring of the character is taken from the Scriptures, and distinguished from that false zeal and rant which are, alas! possessed by too many; it is, therefore, not exaggerated. Many such have lived, and have passed into the regions of immortality; and, I hope, many such, in different religious denominations, are now to be found on earth. Let us then take the portrait of the lively Christian, and each one ask, "Is this my likeness? Do I feel-do I live-do I enjoy the high pleasures of christianity?" Alas! it is a possible case; though we may have sustained a public profession for