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amusement? Let him ask how many of his precious moments are actually devoted unnecessarily to sleep, to sloth, to the gaieties and pleasures of life? Let him ask what is the result of his entire absorption in the business of the world? Is it barely a competent and comfortable livelihood? Is it not wealth, more than enough for the supply of every reasonable want? Can he shew this result of his occupied hours and days, as that which dire necessity obliged him to secure? Can the eye of reason, can the eye of God be imposed upon by the display of useless treasures, as proof that no time has been wasted? And to place the enquiry on its true ground, does he honestly believe that he has a real desire for the duties of devotion? Is he well satis fied, had ample time been furnished, that he should have found himself attracted to communion with God by prayer and devout reading and meditation? Would it not even then have been a tasteless occupation; and after all, is not the real reason that he has found no time for devotional exercises, that he wished to find none? Surely in all these cases, (and it is believed that none can be found, which are not virtually comprised in them,) the plea of necessity drawn from the occupations of life must be utterly unavailing. No man who knows what it is to use this world as not abusing it, can say without a blush, that he has no time for intercourse with his God.

It might be shewn indeed, that as dependant on the divine bounty for every degree of wordly prosperity, we can devote no portion of our time to the object with better advantage, than to thank him for the past success with which he may have crowned our efforts; and to supplicate his guidance and his blessing on our future toils. He is the being whose goodness lengthens out the brittle thread of life, and draws around us our circle of blessings: he is the being whom we have offended, and whose mercy we need; he is the be

ing without whose care, we sink to hopeless perdition, without whose promise, our hopes for eternity vanish in empty dreams; without whose power creation dies. How preposterous, how impious then the plea, that the cares and business of time, leave no moments to devote to the great purpose of learning his will and of seeking his mercy and his grace.

Finally, it only remains to enquire, whether the necessary business of the world, can be pursued under the constant influence and control of religious principle. It is easy to see how a direct reference should be had to the will and glory of God, in acts of religious worship, but how this can be the constant state of the mind, in the ordinary and necessary business of the world, is of more difficult apprehension. The compatibility of religious principle with the ordinary business of the world, as that business is actually pursued by the great body of mankind, may be doubted. If the business in which we are engaged be unlawful in itself, if it be pursued by unlawful means, if the loose maxins of trade which are prevalent, and which are real maxims of dishonesty, are adopted; if our object be to overreach by falsehood, or decoy by deception; if we are aiming to secure a large portion on earth as our highest good, and using every advantage in our power to reach the object of our desires, then it must be confessed, that our business is utterly incompatible with the purity and dominion of religious principle. But if we are willing in the business of life, to use the world as not abusing it, if we are willing to pursue a lawful calling by lawful means; if we are as willing to be governed by the principles, as to enjoy the reputation of strict honesty; if we are willing to limit our desires, to be moderate in our pursuit of the world, then why may we not yield ourselves to the influence of holy motives? There are not a few who must labour for a subsistence and who must, for this purpose, devote by far the greater portion of their

ry; then shall we glorify God, not only when in the sanctuary, not only when we bow our knees before him in the closet, but while occupied in the common business of life. And is this impossible? Does the very nature of worldly avocations preclude all thoughts of God? Can we keep constantly on the mind, our own worldly interest or reputation, or the wishes of an earthly parent or friend, and do nothing inconsistent with this end of our conduct, and is it utterly impossible to regard in like manner the glory of our heavenly Father, the pleasure of an Almighty Friend?The plea is vain. It is a practicable duty, it is a reasonable service that we should always move about under a controling influence of the will and glory of that God who is always with

time to worldly concerns. Not a few submit to their lot as a mere matter of necessity, and go through with a daily course of honest toil, from no higher motives than to supply their wants, to procure the humble comforts of life, or to improve their earthly condition. Why may not a similar course be pursued from higher and purer motives? If God has made it not only a matter of necessity but of duty, that we should be diligent in business, then surely when occupied in that business, we may serve and glorify him. As saints and angels in heaven, by the circumstances of their condition, are called to glorify God in songs of adoration and praise, so too may the husbandman, the mechanic, or the servant glorify God in his humble and laborious calling. Each performs in such a case the duties of his condition, and no less truly does he who keeps in view the honour and glory of God in the ordinary concerns of life, act under the influence of religious principle, than he who unites in the songs of heaven. It is not the nature of the employment, by which the question whether God may be glorified by it, is to be decided, but the fact that he has or has not made it our duty. It is not that in the business of the world we propose to ourselves our own well-being as a subordinate end, that duty towards God is not performed; that we do not propose his glory as our ultimate end, and yield to it as our governing motive. Let the aim, the ultimate object, be something beyond all that sense or worldly prudence, or selfish feelings, or natural affection, would suggest; let there be that habitual regard to the will of God, which shall lead us in all suitable measure to practice self-denial, and to act as we should not act merely for our own gratification; let us propose an end above that of worldly men, even when the action as distinct from the principle might be the same; let us be ever looking to God for support, thanking him for success, acting always under his eye, as bound to consult his will, and to promote his glo

us.

Thus such an impression, reduced to a settled principle of action, would sanctify all our conduct. It would set a sacred stamp of moral excellence even on the minutest parts of human action. In the bold imagery of the Prophet, "holiness would be written on the bells of the horses." In the industrious and active business of the world, in all the necessary relaxation from its toils, when we eat and drink or retire to rest, no less than in prayer and praise, all we do would flow from the purest and noblest motives that move the activity of angels, or the energies of God.

Thus between the true use of this world and the holy duties of religion, there is an exact and a divine coincidence. Say not, reader, to excuse your disobedience to the divine requirements, that propriety authorises this, law ulness justifies that, and necessity demands another thing, and that these are inconsistent with an habitual regard to religion; nothing is proper, nothing is lawful, nothing is necessary, from which religion must be, or is actually separated. Nothing is proper, nothing is lawful, nothing is necessary, which cannot be done, which is not done, to glorify God. There are no conflicting claims between God and the world, between

the well being of man here and his blessedness hereafter, except what a worldly heart creates. Learn the true end for which the world was made, and the proper manner of using it, and cherish a practical estimate of its true value, and all will be right. You will then go through the world, glorifying God in your body and spirit which are God's. You will be actuated by the same pure and holy principles that prompt the activity of those before the throne above, and thus prepared will at length, through the mercy of God in Christ, be admitted to their employments and their joys.

Were that view of the use of the world which has now been given, universally adopted, how greatly would it change the pursuits of men. Not merely would their employments in a great degree be changed, but still more their objects. How would it abate their ardour with respect to things now deemed of the utmost importance, and make them earnest in respect to objects seldom in their thoughts. The glory of God and with it the welfare of the soul, would engross those thoughts and affections, which are now given to the world. Instead of entering on the business of this world without a thought of the world to come, every morning would witness them prostrate before God, to ask of him right principles and a right frame of mind to carry them through the day. They would enter in to the business and events of the world as occasions of trial, in which their growth in grace was to be promoted Instead of sloth, and idleness, and worldliness, and fraud, we should find an universal activity prompted, by pure, and just, and holy principles. Instead of the conflicting interests of selfishness, which excite and nourish the worst passions of the heart, meekness, kindness, and beneficence would pervade and bless every community

Instead of time wasted in gaiety and ostentation, in vain pleasures and amusements, we should witness its consecration to communion

with God, and to the advancement of his cause. Instead of talents perverted to increase the guilt and miseries of men, instead of wealth squandered in luxury, or hoarded by avarice and pride, we should witness their application in the relief of temporal calamities, and in the flight of the messengers of grace to every heathen land. In a word, the anxieties and cares and activity of this would centre in this one object, the glory of God. God would rejoice, man would be blessed, and the groans of the curse be changed into the voice of praise te a reigning God and Saviour.

Finally, the subject furnishes solemn cautions against abusing the world, and powerful motives, to use it in conformity with the designs of its Maker. To abuse the world is to dishonor God, to forfeit the happiness of his presence and favour, and to incur his wrath. Consider man as accountable to the judge of quick and dead; qualified by his faculties to act here on earth in concert with God, and all holy beings in advancing the divine purposes and glory, and to rise hereafter to their society and their bliss; placed for a few days in this school of discipline and trial, where by using the world and the things of it, according to their obvious design, he becomes restored to the image of God and meet for an inheritance in his kingdom; passing on with the rapid moments of time to his final trial, and to unchangable retribution, and yet acting as if his present state were eternal, and cherishing no ideas of happiness beyond it; laying all his plans to acquire what the world can give; forgetting that he cannot secure the accomplishment of a single purpose, nor the enjoyments of another day; and thus perverting the world from the glorious end for which its Maker designed it, to the single purpose of present sin and eternal destruction!-Oh ye who thus use the world as abusing it, what estimate will you form of it when the fashion thereof shall have passed away? What will you think of that sensual

indulgence, that pride and vanity and avarice which govern your conduct when the light of eternity shall shew their results. If there be a future world, let this world be constantly used as the place of preparation for that; let this world never be regard ed in any other view than as connected with that which endures through eternal ages. So believe in the happipiness there to be enjoyed, as if the heavens were opened and the glories of that world beamed upon your sight: weigh the fleeting pleasures of the present state with the never fad ing joys of that which you may short ly enter. How would such prospects raise you above the vanities that here solicit your pursuit? What different feelings would they awaken under all the troubles and events of your earthly existence? How would the soul glow with love to God and ardent devotion to his will and his glory, how would such views purify the heart as God, as heaven and its joys are pure!-Thus will you use this world as not abusing it. Thus the world that pollutes, ensnares and ruins thousands of your fellow creatures, shall itself become the occasion of your sanctification, by the Spirit of all grace; you shall obtain triumph in death through him that destroyed the power of death, your entrance into eternity shall become the era of perfection in the likeness of God, and the great end of your being and the glory of God be unitedly secured in your meetness for heaven, and in the participation of its joys. T. W.

A SERMON.

JOHN vii. 17.-If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.

When our Saviour appeared, there were many who refused to receive him as the Messiah. The evidence by which he sustained his claim was ample. His miracles were unquestionable and frequent, and in all

things "the Son of man went as it was written of him." Why then did not the Jews believe on him? Because his character and his doctrines were such as did violence to their preconceived opinions, and arrayed against him the enmity of their hearts. "His kingdom he declares is not of this world, how then shall he give freedom to our nation and exalt us to universal empire? It consists not, he gives us to understand, in meat and drink, but in righteousness and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost; all figurative expressions which we cannot understand. He calls upon us to repent of our sins, upon pain of God's eternal displeasure, and to believe on him upon peril of perdition. He claims to be greater than Moses, and announces a dispensation which shall supersede his ritual, and introduce a mode of worship, which in every place and nation may be offered acceptably by such only as worship God in spirit and in truth. He has declared himself to be older than Abraham, and equal with God, and when we took up stones to stone him, instead of retracting his blasphemy, he attempted to justify it. No evidence can prove to us that such an one is the Messiah. His doctrines are mystical, uncharitable, absurd, and blasphemous. We know that God spake to Moses, but as for this fellow we know not whence he is."

They assumed the principle that the solution of all difficulties, which may appertain to a subject, is indispensable to the validity of evidence in that particular case; that no doctrine which cannot by its own inherent light place itself beyond the reach of mystery, or the embarrassment of difficulty, can be substantiated by evidence. In other words, that external evidence is unavailing until the light of internal evidence has rendered it superfluous. A principle as adverse to philosophy as to religion, and which adopted, would send the nations back to a barbarian superstition, to believe, in defiance of

evidence, things absurd and monstrous. Still, as in the case of the Jews, difficulties unsolved, would in their consequence become unbelief and ruin, Jesus was willing to lay open before them a plainer and shorter course to knowledge. He therefore declared that the blindness which had happened to them, was the blindness of their heart; that what in him and his doctrine seemed unreasonable, arose in fact from a criminal state of feeling in them. He therefore made the proclamation, "If any man entertains doubts concerning my character or doctrine, let him do the will of my father, and his doubts shall be dispelled, and he shall know whether my claims and doctrine are of God, or whether I speak of myself."

It is proposed to consider in this discourse, the condition, the extent, and the certainty of this gracious promise of our Saviour.

I. The condition is "If any man will do the will of God."

By the will of God is to be understood, his revealed will, particularly the moral law, contained in the ten commandments, and summarily in these two, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself;' and yet more summarily in that love which is the generic principle of all obedience, and which, including its nature, and certain consequences, is the fulfilling of the law. The condition of the promise then is; "If any man will love supremely the Lord his God, he shall know concerning my doctrine, whether it be true or false."

II. To what extent is the promise to be understood?

Shall knowledge as the consequence of love, be instantaneous, and without study and mental effort? Shall it be universal, rendering progress and difficulties alike impossible? And shall it be minutely infallible to the exclusion of errour in the least degree? None of these. It is not the purpose of God by his aid to release our faculties from their appropriate

employment. Every thing valuable demands effort as the condition of attainment. Those who would understand the Scriptures therefore, must "search them," and have "their understandings exercised by reason of use." Nor are we liable to exhaust the subject of divine knowledge, so as literally to "know all things," nor shall we conduct our inquiries under the influence of such perfect love while on earth, as to preclude mistake in any respect. The promise is not made to the first exercise of holy love, irrespective of what may follow, but to a continuance in doing the will of God. Nor does the promise guarantee this continuance. It only shows where our safety lies, and assures us of knowledge in proportion as we diligently seek it, under the influence of a right state of heart; that if our heart be perfect, our knowledge shall be perfect.

III. How does it appear that if every man will love supremely the Lord his God, he shall be able to know the truth?

A revelation was given to man for the purpose of being understood, and it is not to be alleged or admitted that God has performed his work defectively, so that where there is a right state of heart, and a faithful inquiry, the truth cannot be known.

Supreme love to God, includes an earnest desire of knowing his will, which will produce the requisite investigation. It is a filial affection which prompts to the inquiry "Lord what wilt thou have me to do," and which keeps awake the exploring eye to read and understand the Scriptures. It will secure also the exercise of candour and common sense in the interpretation of the Scriptures. He who is summoned to receive a doctrine as revealed, which he hates, is not likely to be a candid expositor of the bible. He will be liable to explore the the inspired passage, not to ascertain its obvious meaning, but to discover some way of escape from it. A man who is in reality honest, finds little difficulty in his dealings, in deciding in

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