sin, and to save us from that dreadful end, and that he invites all to come to him and have rest and peace; then, we are inspired with a sure confidence, and are made, through God's grace, "willing rather to be absent from the body, and present with the Lord." (2 Cor. v.)

Now is our time for becoming heirs of the kingdom of God, or rather for securing to ourselves the portion in it which was made ours at baptism, but which we have squandered on sin and folly during the journey of life. And shall we then throw away the pearl of great price, thus mercifully held within our reach, in order to snatch the unsubstantial trifles which elude our grasp, and leave us baffled and outwitted, when it is too late to follow a wiser course? "When the silver cord shall be loosed, and the golden bowl shall be broken, when the dust shall return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it," then, at length, will the trifler and lover of pleasure rather than of God; then, at length, will the grave man

of worldly wisdom, who thought more of adding pound to pound, and acre to acre, than of "adding to faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness;" then, at length, will such persons be compelled to acknowledge, that all they have been pursuing was vanity of vanities: all was vanity. Let us remember, that however lawfully we may be attached to this world, and however indispensably we may be occupied with its engagements, a time is not far distant when we shall receive an authoritative summons which we must obey, and which not all the ties of the fondest affection, not all the distractions of the world with its business and its pleasures, will enable us for one moment to avert. Christ will speedily summon us hence; we must at length stand before his judgmentseat, and there we shall appear naked and friendless, stript of all that had rendered the world sweet to us.

None of those

who have loved, or protected, or served, or esteemed, or flattered, or amused us here, shall attend us before the awful bar of eternal justice. Christ will summon us, and we must obey. We must follow the signal when it strikes our ear, whether we be in the midst of the endearments of social life, or distracted with the thoughtless revelry of the banquet, or immersed with important concerns of the gravest interest. O may we all be prepared! O may we all be doing the Lord's work, so that, when He comes, He may find us watching for his arrival!-AMEN.

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SERMON IV.

THE OBLIGATION TO GLORIFY GOD.

1 COR. vi. 20.

"For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.'

MAY the Spirit of God be present with us this day, to excite in us a lively attention to the truth stated in the text; and may we be led from its consideration, to draw the same practical inference with St. Paul! May the knowledge that we are no longer our own, but that we belong to him who bought us with a price, cause us to withdraw, not only from the commission of sin, but also from the exclusive pursuit of mere worldly interest

or pleasure, in order to devote our lives to his peculiar service! May a sense of the benefit which changed our condition from slavery to freedom and adoption, and which transferred us from an old to a new master, enable us to appreciate the privilege of spending and of being spent in that Master's service; and may gratitude for his goodness produce in us a habit of strict watchfulness over every movement of our hearts, lest we should prove thankless to him, or do aught to grieve his Spirit !

We are naturally led to arrange our consideration of the text under two divisions: I. The truth which is stated, "We are bought with a price;" and, II. the inference drawn from this truth, "therefore glorify God."

I. "We are bought with a price," and this suggests the following inquiries :

1. From whom were we bought, and from what condition did this purchase remove us?

2. By whom and how were we bought?