from their sins in his own blood, and made them priests and kings unto God." The golden chain which binds us to Christ would bind all men to each other.-Nor let any one venture, as to himself, to regard this statement as a matter of mere speculation. If you love not the family of God, be your other pretensions what they will, you are not the child of God. "If any man,' says a judge who could not be mistaken, "love not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen ?" The love seen?" you feel for the Saviour you are to shew to those who are his visible representatives upon earth. You are to act now upon the principle upon which your everlasting destiny is suspended: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me."

VII. But, finally, filial love will shew itself in a hearty ENDEAVOUR TO RESEMBLE OUR HEAVENLY FATHER. "Be ye followers of God, as dear children."-Affectionate children, in their eager desire to transfer to their own character the qualities of those they fondly love, are found sometimes to catch even their deformities. And, where restrained by prudence from this extravagance of imitation; yet how anxious are they to appropriate those excellences which have won their own affections, and shed a sunshine over their own lives! It is thus with the child of God. "Born of God," he remembers his original, and feels that he must strive every day to live more worthy of it. He contemplates the "beauty of holiness" in the Object of his supreme reverence and affection, and thirsts to be "holy even as God is holy;" to be "perfect, as his Father which is in heaven is perfect." And he finds, in the

pursuit of this high object, every encouragement in the Gospel. There he has no longer to search out a "God who hideth himself:" there he beholds, in the Son of God, not merely the "express image" of the Father, but that image reduced to an imitable form. And thus, "with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, he is changed into the same image, from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord." As he gazes, with wonder and admiration, upon the image of God in the unveiled face of the Redeemer, the Spirit of God transforms him into the same sacred image; raising him from day to day through all the gradations of holiness, till he reaches "the fulness of the measure of the stature of Christ." Follow such a man into the offices of life, and you will find him carrying along with him, in his spirit and conduct, many indubitable evidences of his alliance to the family of God. You will see much of heaven brought down to earth. You will discover him daily casting off his pollutions, and assuming an increased "meetness for the inheritance of the saints in light." If you yourself, my Christian brethren, are thus "renewed in the image" of your Father, your religion will no longer be equivocal. It will need neither a loud and ostentatious profession nor an affectation of petty and useless singularities, to reveal it to the world. On the contrary, every action will have a voice; and your alliance to God will be seen and felt in the ten thousand incidents of daily life; in every circumstance and act by which God may be honoured and a fellow-creature may be comforted or blessed.

But, my brethren, let us now bring these ob

servations to a close, by considering some of their practical consequences.

1. In the first place, then, is there not much in the text to alarm the careless and the worldly ? Does God offer us the privilege of an admission to his family, and can we reject the invitation with impunity? What is man," was the question of David, "that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man, that thou so regardest him?" What are we indeed, that we should be permited to aspire to the immeasurable distinction of adoption into the family of the King of kings? And yet are not multitudes of those so invited trampling on all the offers of Divine mercy, forgetting their lofty destiny, and bowing down a spirit designed for intimate and eternal communion with God, to all the follies and impurities of a perishing world! "If I be a Father," asks the Lord, "where is mine honour?" And if we are sons, where are the qualities we have been contemplating_to-day? Where is the love of God and of the Redeemer-the genuine sorrow for sin-the delight in approaching God-the obedience, the resignation, the brotherly affection, the general resemblance to your heavenly Father? Where are the marks by which we are at once to recognise your holy descent and alliance, and your capacity for the joys of angels, and the presence of God? What! a child of God, and prostrate to the flesh or to the devil? a "joint heir with Christ," and yet fastened down to this miserable world, as though it were your all? called to a throne in heaven, and yet incorporated in your habits and spirit with the children of perdition? By all the mercies of God, by all the terrors of

your circumstances, let me call upon you to "awake," and "arise from the dead," that "Christ may give you light"-"Awake," and "arise," lest, although surrounded with invitations for heaven, you sink into the gulf of everlasting ruin.

2. But, lastly, is there not much in this subject to encourage the lowly and timid? Though earnestly seeking all the qualities on which we have touched to-day, do you find yourselves in complete possession of none of them? Nevertheless, my Christian brethren, be not dismayed. The conquest of sin, the grafting on the wild and corrupt stock of human nature the graces of the Spirit-the imparting to slaves the character and qualities of the children of God, and heirs of eternal life, are not likely to be the works of a day, or the result of a few wishes and prayers. The question to put to yourselves is not," have I actually apprehended?" but am I " pressing towards the mark?" It is not, Are these qualities come to perfection? but have I the elements of them in my own character? Do you regret your deficiencies? are you washing away your guilt in the "fountain opened for all uncleanness?" Do you aspire to better things? would you gladly sacrifice every other distinction to be invested with those of the children of God? Then fear not; for these cravings after holiness are at least the rudiments of the Christian life and character. They are, as it were, the seedcorn of the harvest of eternal life. To you, I would say, "Follow on, that ye may know the Lord," Seek the presence of that Redeemer who never spurned a single supplicant from his feet. Call upon God and he will "send forth

the Spirit of his Son into your hearts;" will "manifest himself to you as he does not to the world." Call upon him, and he will not " give you stones for bread, or a serpent for a fish;" but the real and "living bread,”—the “ bread which cometh down from heaven,”—the bread of which he who eats shall hunger no more," neither in the wilderness of life nor in the paradise of God. Thou art "no more a servant, but a son." May your heavenly Father see you when afar off, fold you to his bosom, and give you a rich and unfading inheritance among the saints in glory? And when any spirit around the throne shall inquire into the cause of the new songs of angelic joy which rend the concave of heaven, may the Redeemer of sinners point to yourself, and say, "Behold, my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!"

SERMON XX.

THE PURSUIT OF PEACE THE DUTY OF A CHRISTIAN.

Heb. xii. 14.

Follow with all men.
peace

THE trials and afflictions of life, even when they do not destroy the faith, are apt to injure the temper. And the Apostle, having in other