Christ? As far as the immortal soul excels the organized clay that forms our mortal bodies, so far should our gratitude for and our aspiration after the blessings of redemption transcend the affections we set upon the pleasures and accommodations of this earthly abode. At the head of all our mercies, let us set the propitiatory sacrifice, the preciousness of which hath obtained to us the means of grace and the hope of glory. Let us look unto Jesus in thankful admiration of his mercy and power to "heal all our infirmities, and to forgive all our iniquities;" and if we truly repent and believe in him, to redeem our souls from everlasting death. Let us look unto Jesus in that holy mystery which represents him as the lamb that was slain for the remission of our sins. By regular attendance at his sacramental table, and by realizing views of his wounded body and his flowing blood, let us excite and maintain in our hearts sentiments of the tenderest devotion to the man of sorrows, who delivered himself up to unutterable agonies and ignominious death, "because he loved us and gave himself for us." But alas! how inconsiderable a portion of our congregations are they who by this sacramental test approve their remembrance of redeeming mercy, and their faith

in the merits of the Redeemer. The same graceless disrespect which our Lord experienced on earth from the nine objects of his healing mercy, he experiences from Christians to his most sacred ordinance; for in the proportion generally of the single Samaritan to the nine Jews, are the comparative numbers of the devout worshippers who remain to give glory to God in the holy eucharist, and of the bulk of the congregation who go their ways refusing to pay this respect to the person, the sufferings, and the command of our Lord Jesus Christ. But let those who duly attend on this and every ordinance of public worship, remember that these rites of our religion are means only to an end, and that to obey is better than sacrifice, inasmuch as the end is more valuable than the means, the obedience of our lives than the service of our lips. The principle of this obedience, as inculcated by the tenour and scope of this discourse, is gratitude; nor can a surer foundation be laid than in a grateful heart, for the virtues that most adorn the man and the Christian. The terrors of the divine judgment may produce a temporary religion; but the sense of obligation to the divine mercy shed abroad in the heart will not fail to produce a sincere, a permanent, and an universal obedience.

"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God." Let the faculties he has given you of body and of mind be employed in his service, to whom you are under such inexpressible obligations. "Gratitude," says an ancient and venerable luminary of our church, with whose apposite argument I shall conclude this discourse: "Gratitude in an ingenuous person obliges to a solemn duty when love fails, and fear is dull and inactive, and death itself is despised. But the man who is hardened against kindness, and whose duty is not made alive with gratitude, must be used like a slave, and driven like an ox with goads and whips, but must never enter into the inheritance of sons. Let us take heed; for mercy is like a rainbow which God set in the clouds to remember mankind; it shines here as long as it is not hindered; but we must never look for it after it is night; and it shines not in the other world."

SERMON XVIII.

LUKE, c. 8. v. 8.

Take heed therefore, how ye hear.

THE duties of the christian ministry, as in their nature the most important, so are they of all others the most arduous and difficult in execution. They are co-extended with the sphere of human action, and interwoven with all the branches of moral obligation. Whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report, the christian teacher must explain, inculcate, and enforce, with the combined powers of argument and of persuasion. He must also exhort and rebuke with all authority: with the word of God he must probe the conscience of his hearers, and diligently search out, and faithfully reprove, their secret and their open sins. In a word, he must preach a doctrine which is not of this world, and with which, by a necessary result,

this world must be at enmity. We need go no further to assign the great cause of the inefficacy of preaching. For every one that doeth evil, hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. In vain does our doctrine "drop as the rain, and our speech distil as the dew," upon understandings warped by wilful prejudice, and hearts corrupted by sensual lusts. We confess indeed with all humility, as the ministers and stewards of God, that we have his treasure in earthen vessels, and that our personal infirmities and deficiencies are chargeable in some degree with the inefficacy of our preaching; but at the same time we have the warrant of our Divine Master for declaring that in the great work of our ministry the excellency of the power must be of God and not of us, and therefore the conversion of the sinner must depend less the talents of the preacher than upon the "preparation of the heart" in those that hear him. To establish this important point was precisely the design of our Lord in the parable of the sower, where, under the similitude of seed sown by the way-side, on a rock, among thorns, and upon good ground, he instructs us that the different reception and effects of his preached gospel proceed from the different tempers and

upon