covetousness let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints."

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Lastly, are men evidently satisfied and indifferent respecting their present spiritual state? Hear the voice of the Lord in his gospel. "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness." Work out your salvation with fear and trembling." "Give diligence to make your calling and election sure." "Let us therefore fear lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should ¡ seem to come short of it."

Thus have I exhibited, though imperfectly, what Christ requires of his disciples -for let us not suppose that these passages of scripture merely recommend as becoming that which is not necessary to salvation. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. This is the gospel of repentance, not that we should succeed, on

pain of eternal death, in subduing all evil; but that our spirit being made like unto Christ's, we should hate the sins, even the smallest, which beset us, and maintain active unceasing warfare against them. Attention, therefore, to these precepts, and hearty exertion in pursuance of them, is absolutely necessary, if, being included amongst the people of the Lord Jesus, we would be saved by his blood. I will now conclude by reviewing the arguments which I have laid before you. We have seen that of mankind Christ chooses some to be with the angels, a happy and everlasting society, called his church; we have acknowledged that if we be not members of that church, we perish. We allow that notorious offenders are excluded, and I have, in addition, explained what is the character required of those who would become members thereof. Does that character apply to the generality of Christians? Do the greater part of the world govern their hearts and conduct by the lessons I have so copiously quoted? They do not: the inference cannot be turned aside, that

they fail to show themselves members of the church of Christ, and they are on the broad way that leads to the gates of death. Astonished that so many, and those perhaps amiable, correct, and useful in society, should be rejected from salvation, you cry, "Who then can be saved?" "Those who in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit, some an hundred-fold, some sixty, and some thirty;" those who, instructed by the word of life, make continual supplication for the Spirit, that they may become new creatures, and "be found in Christ," that they may dwell in him and he in them, that every day in this their time of trial may witness some spiritual improvement that may prepare them for their place in the New Jerusalem. Are Christians of this character rare amongst us?—so were they always : "Because straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." The stronger is the warning not "to follow a multitude to do evil." The more need that we early learn and stedfastly maintain

our determination not to live in this world "as strangers and foreigners, but as fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; built up upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone."

SERMON X.

THE CHRISTIAN RACE.

1 CORINTHIANS, ix. 24, 25.

Know ye not that they which run in a race, run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run that ye may obtain.

And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things; now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible.

IF, as assuredly is the case, it is a fearful thing to undervalue and to disregard the grace of God in our redemption through Christ Jesus-no less fearful and fatal is it to abuse that grace by using it as an excuse for licentiousness and unholiness of living. Happily, the number of professed