of his sovereign grace. Surely, then, we are not our own, we are bought with a price; we are not called to impossible services, but to services for which strength has been provided. We are therefore without excuse,-yea, unutterably criminal, if we fail to glorify God in our bodies and our spirits, which are his. This is a work to which the honest inquirer shall be made equal; a service which shall be made his delight, and one in which there shall be no failure. Let us, then, call our obligations into frequent remembrance, along with the many facts which concur to make our duty our blessedness. We have seen in what it consists; we see to what it is opposed. Let the great maxim, then, never be forgotten, that where much is given, much is expected; and let not a trivial independence, in regard to a few particulars of present life, estrange us from a due feeling of dependence upon God, or from that fraternal reliance on each other, which nature, providence, and the gospel, concur to impose. Let us beware of vain excuses, if inclined to stand all the day idle, bearing in mind, that their vanity will be fully exposed at last; and let us watch, and strive against the creeping power of indolence, and its kindred vices, as we would against a mortal pestilence, against a disease stealing its way to the vitals. Neither let it be forgotten, that they are the labouring only who know what the sweetness of rest means; that they are the indolent only to whom time is ever a burden; and that God,

in his manifold wisdom and grace, has thus made the necessity of exertion to be, in no small measure, the necessity of enjoyment. It is manifestly the parent of health and firmness, whether relating to the body or the mind.

Above all, it will behove the unoccupied professor to reflect, that if he be useless he must be worse, much worse than useless. The penurious rich man must ever operate as a foul blight on the spirit of liberality around him. The selfish find an abundant excuse in appealing to his wretched example. It is the same when men of leisure refuse exertion in behalf of the church or of society. The occupied appeal to the conduct of such men, and deem their own negligence no longer censurable. It is true, the man of one talent ought not to neglect it, because the man who has a greater number is negligent; but the conduct of the greater sinner puts him into a state of greater temptation to do thus wickedly. As surely as we possess talents, whether in the character of our mind, in the shape of property, or in the command of time, we must become a signal blessing, or a signal curse, sending abroad the healthy stimulus of a Christian example, or diffusing the poison of its opposite-prime agents, in propelling others toward the abodes of the blessed or of the lost. The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.

CHAP. XIII.

THE CHRISTIAN WARFARE, AS CONNECTED WITH
-PROSPERITY.

-Little knows

Any, but God alone, to value right

The good before him, but perverts best things
To worst abuse, or to their meanest use.

MILTON.

OUR difference of judgment in regard to human life, is, in a great degree, the effect of a peculiar temperament, and is sometimes materially affected by our occasional feelings. At all times, the passions have much to do, in this respect, with the decisions of the reason. There are moments when we readily adopt the most gloomy estimate of present existence, and are prepared to sympathize with the strongest things that may be said as to its vanity and unhappiness. We regard the place of our sojourn as a vale of tears; we look upon it as a region of false hope-a scene where delusion and suffering are much too complicated to be described. In the language of one who knew it well, we say of it, Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. And there is a sense in which all this is true. The

world, considered as a means of enabling us to reach the true end and felicity of our being, is, indeed, an idle pageant, even at best.

There is a sense, however, in which such descriptions of our present dwelling-place, and of our present lot, are by no means accurate. The world, like the universe of which it forms a part, is worthy of him who made it; it is a noble object, and has been a memorial, through all generations, of his many attributes who gave it being and preserves it. Nor is the cup of human life made up of bitterness. The face of nature is not always veiled in darkness, nor always shadowed with a cloudy sky; and the reign of winter does not last for ever. There are the blue heavens, and the glorious sun; the animation of spring, the beauties of summer, and the abundance of autumn. Man is served by all these, and might be in a greater measure, did not his folly and his sin prevent. God crowneth the year with his goodness, and all his paths drop fatness. It is true, there are still sorrows, and sickness, and death; but it is equally true, that while it is appointed unto men once to die, in life there is more of health than sickness, and in all our ways more of natural good than of natural evil. How few are the seasons in which the body is the seat of suffering compared with those in which it is, upon the whole, in a state of ease; and in the experience of the mind a similar order of things might be shown as existing.

But it must not be supposed, from these facts,

that there is more of religious or moral good in men than of its opposite. The secret of this arrangement is, that God hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. Had he so done, the place of our abode must soon have lost its light, and beauty, and abundance; for men are sold under sin. It is the present state of their nature to be at enmity with God. None of them seek after him-no, not one. High as the heavens are above the earth, so great has the mercy of their Creator been towards them. His plan of mercy, in the hands of a Mediator, while filling their hearts with food and gladness, supplies them with the space, the motives, and the means, that should lead to repentance. Thus it is redeeming love which makes their days cheerful, their nights refreshing, their enterprises prosperous, opening all the sources of present enjoyment, as well as the visions of a better country.

In reflecting on the Christian warfare as connected with Prosperity, the sense in which this term is employed should be distinctly understood. The word prosperity is sometimes used as being of the same meaning with the term-success. Thus it is written, that the Lord made all that Joseph did to prosper; and another scripture states, that whatsoever such a man doeth shall prosper. The general application of the term, however, is to denote such a state of present circumstances as men have agreed to consider desirable. This