With these waves he has not, we cannot but fear, the strength to buffet. And if not, in the midst of them, he will go down for ever.

None, then, as I have said, can to any purpose which God intends, love his neighbour as himself, but he who loves the Lord his God with all his heart. He who loves God is taught from above to know the value of his own soul. Happiness, spiritual, immortal happiness, has dawned upon his mind. He has tasted the powers of the world to come; he has seen the borders of the promised land; and that blessedness which he prizes for himself, above ten thousand worlds, he desires, anxiously desires, for his brother also. He loves his neighbour as himself. But it is his soul he loves. And to save souls from death, to convert the sinner from the error of his ways, and to turn many to righteousness, is consequently, his chosen occupation, the subject of his prayers, and, wherever he sees success, the crown of his rejoicing. And though these efforts be, as they sometimes will be, repaid with unkindness, or repelled with scorn, he still goes forward in his labour of love; satisfied with reproaches, if by any means, he may save some; and willing to suffer evil, if peradventure, he may overcome evil with good.

Taught from above to love every child of man,

he is instructed, from the same source, to love the children of God, with a special, sacred, and peculiar affection. Separated, perhaps, from their daily converse, by a thousand causes which he cannot control, his heart is with them. He feels for them more than a brother's tenderness. He wishes them good luck, in the name of the Lord. He rejoices when they fall in with him, on the road of their earthly pilgrimage, and anticipates, with joy unspeakable, that blessed Sabbath, that endless day, when they shall dwell together in the mansions of one common Father. This animates the Christian's hope; it confirms his faith also. For if we feel that kindred tie to all who love the Lord Jesus in sincerity, we know, from Scripture, that we are born again. "We know," says the beloved disciple, " that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren."

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SERMON IV.

JEREMIAH, Xvii. 5.

"THUS SAITH THE LORD; CURSED BE THE MAN THAT TRUSTETH IN MAN, AND MAKETH FLESH HIS ARM, AND WHOSE HEART DEPARTETH FROM THE LORD."

THESE words require no preface. They are of universal application; and are ushered in with a solemnity, which forms their best introduction, with an authority, from which there is no appeal: "Thus saith the Lord." Nor shall I, in the present discourse, enter into any nice distinctions, but shall consider these two particulars, namely, "trusting in man,” and “making flesh our arm,” or strength, as meaning, in substance, the same thing. If we do this, and if, as its inseparable consequence, our "heart departeth from the Lord;" we are exposed to the wrath of God, and lie under the curse of heaven.

The question, then, for you all to consider, and, after due consideration, to answer, is, in whom do you really and practically place your confidence, in man or in God? Or, to put the inquiry into another form, does the world, in general, place its dependence most on God or

man? And are you, in habits and tempers of mind, so far separated from the world, as to be of another interest altogether, or so involved with it, as that you must share the fate, whatever it may be, that awaits it?

I fearlessly assert, then, and I undertake to prove it, that the generality of those around ustaking in the great mass of respectable, as well as disreputable characters-that, alas! all but a little flock of true believers, and faithful soldiers of Christ, put their trust in man, and, in their heart, depart from the Lord.

Now, to ascertain whether men place their confidence in the one or in the other of these two, we are not to judge merely by their professions. No; there is a far surer criterion. Which are men most anxious to please, and most ready to serve, God or the world? If we can find out this, we shall then know in which they really put their trust.

If we wish to please a person, we are anxious to appear well to him, and to uphold and maintain a good character in his esteem. Now, it may be said, that we all act our part in life before two witnesses. The eye of God and the eye of man are both upon us.

They are both forming their opinions of us by what they see and observe. We are continually moving and displaying our

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selves before both. But there is this distinction in the case: God contemplates us in a different point of view from what man does. These two witnesses, these two inspectors, are making their observations upon very different parts of us: man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart." It is, then, by the outward appearance that we uphold our character with men, and by the heart that we uphold our character with God. About which of these, I ask you, are people, in general, most anxious? In comparing, however, the outward appearance with the state of the heart, I do not take into consideration those inward temptations, those evil thoughts, which are often suggested to good men, but which they feel as their burden, and, through divine grace, banish from their minds. But how, I say, would men in general, tremble with horror, at openly declaring before their fellow-creatures the thoughts which they freely and without compunction indulge within them? And why? Because, if they spoke out their thoughts, these thoughts would become part of that outward appearance on which man is looking; but, while merely kept to themselves, they belong only to that region of the heart on which God is looking. It is surely in the estimate of impartial reason, a most horrible contempt put upon the Divine