your To all of you God is saying, "Arise, get thee out of this land, and return to the land of thy kindred." While you remain in the world, let your affections be set on things above; and when the hour of departure shall arrive, go without reluctance and without dismay to the house of your father. This world is a strange land to you; you have another spirit than that of its children, and you regard its follies with contempt, and its pollutions with abhorrence. Its fairest attractions have lost their power over your hearts; for you have seen and felt their vanity, and you have found in the scenes which seemed most innocent and safe, temptations perilous to your virtue, and sorrows which wounded your hearts. But the better country is the land of your kindred, and your best friends are there. If you have friends on earth who are unwilling to part with you, and with regard to whom it is painful to you to think that your death will be to them a grievous loss, reflect that you have friends in heaven longing for your arrival, that the Friend whom you value supremely, is praying that you may be with him to behold his glory, and that your helpless and sorrow ing relatives will find in him strength and consolation which no human heart or hand could ever have yielded. In that land of your kindred no absence shall interrupt your intercourse, nor shall it ever be embittered by any evil passion, or by any disastrous incident. The spirits of the just will acknowledge you as their brethren, and the friends whose departure made this world to you a dreary land, under whose burdens they can no longer assist you, and from whose evils they can no longer protect you, shall meet you in heaven in per fect love, and feel in their first embrace the blessed assurance, we shall never part more." And the time will come when your dead bodies shall arise, and, united again to their spirits, shall dwell for ever in that land of the living where every countenance is that of a friend, where every song is salvation, and where every feeling is pure and happy. ADDRESS II. RUTH i. 16, 17. "Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following af ter thee; for whither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God shall be my God. Where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me." THESE words express the choice you have made, and the holy purposes which you have formed, and which you are now to renew in partaking of the symbols of the body and the blood of the Lord. Ruth had been made acquainted with the character and laws of the God of Israel, during her connexion with the son of Naomi; and though she had no prospect but that of poverty in a strange land, she determined to live and to die among the true worshippers of Jehovah. Her resolution breathes the spirit of "an Israelite indeed,” and the choice she here expresses is marked by various characters which may assist you in examining the nature of your attachment to religion, and may animate you to cleave to the Lord with purpose of heart. This choice is full and unlimited. The God of Israel is the object of her choice, as the Lord whom she was willing to serve, and the God whose blessing could alone render her happy. His people she chooses as her companions, and in every path which they tread she resolves to accompany them. And have you made an unreserved choice of Jesus and his ways? If we are willing to take the Lord for our portion, but will not submit to Him as our Sovereign; if we are disposed to associate only with those of the saints who are high in station, and if there are parts of duty which we cannot be brought to practise without the utmost reluctance, and which we avail ourselves of every pretext to shun, we are strangers to the spirit of genuine piety. Whatever bears the traces of God's image it loves, and to all that is stamped with his authority it bows. There are some objects and scenes in religion which may appear more attracting than others; but there is none which the pious heart does not love, there is no service which it seeks to avoid, and no requirement which it wishes expunged or mitigated. And are you now saying, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ?" To me thy whole will is sacred and dear. Whatever it calls me to perform, I will attempt, and whatever it requires me to suffer, I will bear. There is something peculiarly delightful to a pious mind in obeying the severest requirements of religion, from the consciousness which is felt of our thus proving the power of our attachment to those whom we love above all, and from that divine strength and comfort which is always proportioned to the difficulties of our condition and duty. This choice is affectionate. The language of Ruth is not that of carelessness, or of dissimulation, but we see in it all the eagerness and fervour of holy love. And the choice which the pious soul makes of religion is not like that of the formalist, who yields to it only bodily service, and who feels, amidst his professions of complacency, that it is an irksome task; but it is the dictate of enlightened and supreme affection. It is an indignity to religion to take hold of it with an averted look, or with a reluctant sigh. The pious soul has seen the divine excellence and beauty in such a light as fills it with rapturous admiration, and to possess the image of such a being appears the brightest glory of its nature, and to have an interest in his regard seems the summit of its happiness, both for time and for eternity. The pious soul sees something to charm it in the meanest dwellings of the good, for God is there; in their most dreary and rugged paths; for the way of the Lord is strength to the upright, and in their death, however agonizing; for the latter end of the perfect man is peace. "I am a stranger," This choice was determined. as if she had said, " to the covenants of promise; but though God should slay me, yet will I trust in him, I am an alien to the commonwealth of Israel; but though they should frown upon me, I will cleave to them. The journey may be tedious and exhausting, through want of necessary support, and from the difficulties and the dreariness of the path; yet I will accompany thee. Thy habitation may be poor and comfortless, yet it shall be my rest; and though thy grave shall be far from the burying place of my fathers, in it shall my body be laid. I have considered the matter in every form, and I cannot leave thee." Is your choice of religion as determined? If it is made in any other spirit than this, it will not abide the jest of the scorner, the solicitation of corrupt passions, nor the afflictions of the Gospel. The jest of the scorner will make you ashamed to avow it, or to act up to it; the sophistry of vice will strengthen the impressions which made you hesitate; and, under the reproach of Christ, you will go back, and walk no more with him. If it is made under the influence of the spirit of power, and of love, none of these things will move you; and as your Saviour undertook your cause, and fulfilled all his engagements, with a firmness which no threats could shake, and a constancy which no agonies could subdue, let the same mind be in you which was also in him, and add to your faith fortitude. a season. This choice is final. It is made for life. Its spirit is this, "I may be solicited to serve other gods, but this God is my God for ever. Nature may raise a sigh for mine own people, and my father's house, but the joys of religious fellowship I will not forego; and even when thine eyes are closed, and I am left alone. I will neither quit the land, nor the worship of Israel, I will die in thy hope, and I will sleep in thy grave.” The choice we make of God and his ways is not for Some are serious only in the time of affliction, they will then solicit the counsels and prayers of the pious, and declare their purpose to be holy; but returning health effaces these impressions, and they consider them as a weakness of which they may be ashamed. The enthusiast, whose affections are kindled into a fierce and momentary blaze, makes loud profes sions, and urges his plans with great vehemence, but he soon falls away. But the pious man stands fast in the Lord, and there is not a scene of his life, nor a moment of his being, in which he would consider himself safe without the influence, or happy without the comforts of religion. He will have no other Saviour than Jesus, and no other course than moral goodness; and his language is, " till I die I will not remove mine integrity from me; my righteousness I hold fast, and I will not let it go; my heart shall not reproach me so long as I shall live." The God of Israel may leave him to walk in darkness, yet will he wait on him; his people may be neglected and contemned by ungodly men, yet will not he abandon them; if they are scat |