your hearts be filled with love to God and man: let it be your desire to advance the glory of your Redeemer, and the happiness of your fellow creatures; and thus to "look for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, unto eternal "life."1

Finally, I would exhort you to study with diligence and with earnest prayer, the service appointed by our church for this solemn occasion; a service which, I hesitate not to say, stands superior to any other human composition of the kind. Examine whether you are prepared, from your heart, to join in that service. Beg of God to shew you how the matter really stands in this respect. Let this be your employment during the ensuing week; and if you feel that you can truly enter into that service, then let no unnecessary impediment keep you back; but at the approaching solemnity, present yourselves at the table of your Lord, there to commemorate his love. If doubts still arise in your mind, ask counsel from your minister, or from those who are able and willing to advise with you. But let not the matter be carelessly deferred, to the dishonour of your God-to the discouragement of those who labour among you, and who long

' Jude 21.

for your salvation, and to the injury of your own souls.

May the God of all mercy teach you so to prepare for this and all his ordinances, that they may indeed be profitable to you; and that by means of them, you may be fitted to feast for ever upon his love, in his everlasting kingdom in glory.

11

SERMON VII,

THE GLORY, HUMILIATION, AND SUFFERINGS OF THE LORD JESUS.

2 CORINTHIANS viii, 9.

For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye, through his poverty, might be rich.

IN perusing the sacred writings, we cannot fail to be struck with the fact, that whatever duty is there urged upon us, the motives by which it is enforced, totally differ from those which are the offspring of mere human reason. In endeavouring to deter men from vice, we may depict its evil consequences in the most glowing colours; or in our attempts to allure them to correctness of conduct, we may dwell upon the excellence of virtue, and upon its tendency to promote either their own indi

vidual happiness, or the comfort of mankind in general; but if we stop here, we fall lamentably short of the motives, which ought to influence the conduct of the professor of christianity. We do no more than has been done by many a teacher who never had the book of God, as the source of his instructions. A motive is there set before us; such, indeed, as human wisdom could never have devised; yet still such as must be supremely efficacious on the mind of every one, who duly appreciates the blessings offered to us in the gospel of Christ, and who is duly sensible of his obligations to him, from whose love all his hopes of a participation in those blessings are derived. Love and gratitude to the Redeemer-a desire to do his will and to promote his glory, are the motives to action which are peculiar to the true christian. And when such an one hears the Saviour say, "ye are my friends, if ye do "whatsoever I command you," when he listens to his declaration, "I have given you "an example, that ye should do as I have done

to you;" he will feel that he wants no stronger inducements to abound in every good work, with whatever circumstances of selfdenial or difficulty his obedience may be connected. Accordingly, we find that the sacred writers continually recur to motives drawn

from the love of our Saviour Christ, when they would excite us to the practice of any of those duties which we owe to each other. The whole passage, of which our text forms a part, affords us an illustration of this remark.

At the time when St. Paul wrote this epistle, the christians who resided at Jerusalem, were in circumstances of much outward poverty and distress; while those at Corinth, on the contrary, seem to have been in general greatly prospered in the world. St. Paul, therefore, wishing to induce the Corinthians to impart of their abundance, for the relief of their poor brethren at Jerusalem, gave them a variety of admonitions and directions upon the subject; and enforces them by the striking appeal contained in our text;" Ye know the grace "of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he "was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, "that ye, through his poverty, might be rich." Such was the plea by which the Apostle endeavoured to lead the Corinthians to the practice of an enlarged munificence. And the same motives, my christian brethren, should lead you habitually to exercise a willing liberality, in relieving the sufferings, supplying the necessities, and augmenting the comforts of your neighbours; and in promoting, as far as in you lies, the great object, for which the Saviour was con