summit of excellence in beings formed and des tined for eternity? Morality without religion, like faith without works, is dead; the body of precept without the soul, laws without power or sanction, a structure built upon the sand. The doctrines of the gospel are the mighty levers which, resting on the rock of ages, lift and support man above himself, above the dominion of appetite, above the assaults of temptation: It is the christian faith which, teaching him to think and act as the adopted heir of eternal glory, exalts his understanding while it purifies his heart, trains him to a steady magnanimity in virtue, and a generous beneficence and humanity, and elevates his nature to the highest pitch to which it can attain in this imperfect state, while he is aspiring to rise in a future world to the perfection of his nature in the society of heaven. But, my brethren, it is a mortifying necessity which compels us to seek for illustrious examples of christian virtue in the primitive ages of the world. Morally speaking, indeed, "there were giants in those days:" christian heroes whose faith and piety, soaring high above the virtues of the heathen, reached the "measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ," and demonstrated by an evidence scarce less convincing than that of its miracles,

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that the gospel was the power of God. We are unhappily fallen upon times of prevailing unbelief, and consequently of prevailing degeneracy. But amidst the overflowings of ungodliness we have our consolation in the divine assurance, that its bounds are set which it shall not pass. And blessed be God, there is still a generation of the righteous who shine as elevated lights in the dark world around them, the brightest ornaments of humanity, the truest glory of their country, and its best security against the threatening evils of popular infidelity and licentiousness. "A Christian" then, is, in the words of the poet, "the highest style of man."* The gospel it is that civilizes and dignifies the natural animal man, exalts him to his original rank as a rational, immortal being, and to a meetness for the inheritance of saints in light. By a necessary inference then, in proportion as the influence of the gospel diminishes, the human race degenerates; and in the total privation of this divine principle, man sinks to the lowest degradation of his being, prone to the earth on which he wallows in swinish sensualities, a barbarous, brutalized creature, superior to the brutes only in his more sagacious

Young's Night Thoughts.

powers of doing mischief, inferior to the brutes in his greater sensibility to pain.

As a theme for some practical improvement of the subject, I shall select one of the golden precepts, justly so called, which though of heathen origin deserves to be written on the heart of the Christian: "Reverence thyself." There is not a more improving exercise for the Christian than to be frequently meditating upon his own great and glorious privileges and endowments, nor any more effectual means of awakening in us an ambition raised above low objects and grovelling pursuits, than to value ourselves as heirs of immortal life. Christians! reverence yourselves as bought with the price of your Redeemer's blood, and glorify him in your bodies and in your spirits which are his surrender yourselves, with all the faculties of your minds and the powers of your bodies, to his governance and service, to do whatever he requires, to be whatever he appoints, and to further with their united efforts all the purposes of his glory on this earthly scene. Christians! reverence yourselves: when you reflect that your bodies are the members of Christ and consecrated by baptism as temples for the reception of the Holy Spirit, let it be your anxious concern that they may be, not only nominally,

if

but really so, and renounce all fellowship with those works of darkness which drown the soul in perdition. Christians! reverence yourselves, and reflect in your daily walk on the transitory continuance of the objects of sense and appetite, consider how soon the things you enjoy and the bodies by which you enjoy them shall return again to their dust; then set your affections more habitually on things above, and attend more earnestly to the interests of your neverdying souls, in the full assurance of faith, that you shall have borne the image of your Lord and Saviour in virtue and holiness upon earth, you shall bear it in beauty and glory in his heavenly kingdom. Lastly, what is man that God is mindful of him? The most exalted and the most ungrateful of his creatures upon earth. "The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib," brutes leave ingratitude to man, who, loaded with the divine benefits, requites them with daily and insolent provocations; cherishes disaffection in his heart and in his conduct; rebels against the mightiest and best of beings, and yet he is spared and surrounded with blessings on every side; the hand which might justly fall in judgment on his head, is stretched out still in unwearied forbearance and parental con

cern to reclaim and save. If duty cannot bind, nor threatenings awe, our stubborn hearts, may the goodness of God lead us to repentance. The love of God in the heart is the purest and most abiding principle of religion; let us, my brethren, cherish, confirm, and strengthen this principle, by daily calling to mind all our temporal and spiritual comforts and blessings in acts of grateful praise and thanksgiving. As a model of such devotion left us by the holy Psalmist, I shall conclude in the language of his most evangelical and comfortable hymn: "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases, who redeemeth thy life from destruction, who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him: for he knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are dust. Bless the Lord, all his works in all places of his dominion. Bless the Lord, O my soul."