way, must therefore be salutary. In this world of the senses, where many things conspire to efface from our minds the sentiments of religion; where the cares of our several callings claim so much of our thoughts, and pleasure so often engrosses what business leaves, we need something visible to recall us to a sense of the reality of our obligations and faith. We cannot long make the life and character, and more especially the death of Jesus, the single object of our thoughts and prayers, without finding a desire of imitation mingle with our admiration and gratitude. They lend a practical influence to the great truths of religion. And it is scarcely possible that we should solemnly gather round his table, and unite in lifting up our voices to the Witness of all hearts, that we may be enabled worthily to obey the dying request of our Saviour that we should then take the symbols of that body which was broken, and that blood which was shed for us—it is scarcely possible that we should do this sincerely, and then go away, and not find that our passions have lost something of their power, and that the world has lost something of its undue attraction, that our faith is in some measure strengthened, our fear of sin made more profound, our charity enkindled, our hope elevated, and our good resolutions quickened and confirmed.

SERMON XXVIII.

TO HAVE CHRIST IS TO HAVE LIFE.

HE THAT

HATH THE SON HATH LIFE; AND HE THAT HATH NOT THE SON OF GOD HATH NOT LIFE. 1 John v. 12.

THERE are many passages in the New Testament in which the whole substance of Christianity is expressed in a few simple words; and our text is one of them. Though all such passages bear essentially the same meaning, and point and lead to the same result, yet new views are offered by different terms, each view possessing a beauty and value of its own, and assisting the mind to a more definite and comprehensive understanding of the whole. In the text, Christianity, or Christ- for in this connexion and others similar to it, some name of Christ is used to denote his religion—is represented as giving life. To have the Son is to receive, own, and obey him. Not to have the Son, is to refuse, disown and disobey him. To have him, is to have Christianity,

to be religious, or to be a Christian. Not to have him, is to be without Christianity, or true religion, and consequently not to be a Christian. To have Christ, or the Son, is to have life; not to have him is to be destitute of life. Or, to use a still shorter form of expression to signify the same great truth, a Christian is alive, a sinner is dead.

To illustrate this proposition is my object in the present discourse. We may be said to have or receive the Son, in these three modes, as a teacher, an example, and a Saviour; and in each of these he gives or is life to those who have him.

I. Christ is life in his instructions. He is so, because his instructions are truth, and truth brings life. Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word which comes from the mouth of God. The words of Jesus were the words of God, because he spoke in his Father's name, and by his inspiration, and with his authority. The meat which perishes sustains the body which perishes; and spiritual food supports the life of the soul. Truth is that spiritual food; and Christ is truth, even as God is truth. He is, as he declared to the people who followed him, after he had performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes, the bread of life, which came down from heaven; or, as he varied the expression on the same occasion, "the bread of God,

which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world." He puts himself for the doctrine which he brought, which was heavenly and divine, proceeding from the Spirit of truth, and infusing life into every open and receiving breast. The word of Christ, then, is divine truth, and truth is spiritual life. It nourishes the soul, and causes it to grow and be strong. It enlarges its conceptions, satisfies its reasonable desires, and teaches it the use of its immortal powers. Being from heaven, it inspires heavenly life, elevates the soul above the heavy and irrespirable damps of earth, and lifts it into the presence of its Creator, where it may breathe purely and freely, in the air not only of a high but an eternal world; for God is eternal, and heaven where he dwells is eternal, and his truth is eternal; and therefore the life which the divine word imparts is eternal, and its breathings are of eternity — that eternity which is here, ever surrounding and enveloping the soul which seeks to be instructed, to be improved, to be made familiar with all those" things of the spirit," those objects of spiritual perception and gratification, whose nature and whose influences are life.

In another, and yet a kindred sense, is Christ life by his word. He teaches us how to live, and for what ends. Honor, happiness, respect, love,

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usefulness, those things without which life is only animal, or worse, are most easily and completely to be secured by adopting the principles and obeying the precepts of the Gospel. How pure is the morality of the New Testament; how beautifully adjusted to all the duties, trials, sufferings, occasions of life, are the teachings of Jesus. The life which is ordered according to them, may well be called life. It is life, by eminence, to live temperately, soberly, justly, kindly, peacefully, doing good actions, exercising good affections, gaining good opinions. It is the only proper life of a moral, intellectual, accountable creature of God countable, because he knows himself to be a creature. He then lives as his Maker would have him live; lives most acceptably in the sight of heaven, and most profitably to himself and to the world. He lives, answering the best purposes of life; contributing to the means of human advancement; making his actions to be counted in the sum of human felicity. In a moral sense, he protracts his life, because he employs it, fully and well. He shows that he is alive, that his soul liveth, by his alertness in the cause of virtue and holiness, which is the cause of the ever-living God. If we regard the life of the body alone, who can say that moderation and temperance are not life, that peace and