miserable. He would not thus lift the veil that covers eternity, and show me himself and some of the glory that surrounds him, and then shut those glories up for ever from my view. As reasoned the wife of Manoah on his suggestion that because they had seen God they must die, "If the Lord were pleased to kill us, he would not have received a burnt offering and a meat offering at our hands: neither would he have showed us all these things, nor would as at this time have told us such things as these."

Thus every believer will argue, when he has evidence that he has experienced true Christian joy, has seen the reconciled face of God. He will say within himself, God has not done all this in anger; it cannot be in his heart to thus render every earthly scene dull, and raise my hopes of what he will one day do for me, when he has no such kind intentions. Should a prince, who had power to choose his successor, but had no heir to whom it was expected he would bequeath the throne, call some beggar frequently into his palace and put on him the royal vestments and the crown, would he not gather the hope, and gather it legitimately, that the prince intended that one day he should wield a sceptre ? Else why tantalize him with the investiture of the royal equipments? And if God never intends to bring his people to heaven, why give them these foretastes of his glory? Why lift up upon them the light of his countenance and put gladness into their hearts, such as cannot be created by the increase of corn and wine, when no favor is intended him beyond what earthly objects can produce? Thus the presence of God inspires hope; scatters the gloom that hangs over the mind; and casts upon the prospect the light of life. The good man becomes of course a cheerful man. He can pass through many a dark scene joyful and happy. He has songs in the night, and is thus made to differ from all others.

Thus the presence of God with his people, signalizes them by elevating their views, by furnishing the heart its noblest, happiest employment, by moving them to uprightness of Christian deportment, and by inspiring pure and heavenly hopes.

5. The presence of God with his people, distinguishes them by enlightening and sanctifying their consciences. There is probably no point in which God's people differ more from the world than in the superior sensibility of their consciences. I know we meet with numerous instances where there is a profession of godliness, but a total destitution of moral sensibility, but I know too that in no such case can there be the grace of God. He who does not aim to have a conscience void of offence toward God and toward

man, manifests that he neither understands the law nor the gospel, nor has felt the sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit. Nor can there be a doubt but the presence of God with his people tends, more than all other things, to put right this power of the soul. Sin has disordered its judgment, and unbelief keeps it disordered. But when God is nigh, and is looking into our inward parts, then conscience can be heard, and will speak, and her sentence will be according to truth. And when this happens often, there is found the habit of correct judgment. And conscience will carry her faithful news into the dark hour. We have seen the apostate, who really never did enjoy the presence of God, still very wretched, because he had come in contact with truth and had imperceptibly learned what is duty. And we have always seen the backslider miserable because once he did approach near to God, and when there had his conscience corrected by the law and the testimony. Hence he could never wander so far as to forget wholly what once he knew of truth and duty. It is true that as he wandered his conscience became less and less sensible, and would at length, but for the covenant faithfulness of God, have been seared as with a hot iron. With the apostate this often becomes the fact, though probably not always in the present life. But the believer will have a conscience more or less correct in proportion as he walks with God. You never knew the case when the believer had been spending the Sabbath in near communion with God, when he could spend the evening in a light and trifling manner. You never saw him come warm from his closet and wrong or backbite his neighbor. When you see him worldly, and forgetful of duty, proud, contentious, envious, or idle, you know assuredly that he has had no communion with God that day. When you see in him on any occasion a want of regard to duty, you infer infallibly, that he has been for some time without any visit between his Savior and his soul. Show me the man who has just quitted his labor to go alone and pray, because he could not wait the ordinary season of retirement, and that man will not speak wrongly, or deal unmercifully with his beast. Show me any two men who are contending, and I can predict with certainty that one of them at least is not thirsting for God, for the living God. There is a total and unchangeable dissonance between communion with God, and all iniquity. Bring up the conscience, as it is brought up in an hour of spiritual enjoyment, to a close contact, to a strict and rigorous comparison with the testimonies of the Lord, and its prompt and, if necessary, desperate fidelity will bear unequivocal witness to the

truth tnat God has, while it was near to him, stamped upon it his own impress. And it will often wear the image it has received, when the memory of that season of fellowship has almost fled.

II. That all this is evidence of their adoption. "Wherein shall it be known how that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? Is it not that thou goest with us? So shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth."

I use the word adoption without the wish to force this upon you as precisely the thought sustained in the text. If you please, substitute repentance. The idea is, how should it be known that the family of Jacob were God's peculiar people, his inheritance, but by their distinctness of character and conduct from all others. Perhaps adoption is a term as suitable as any other. Their distinctness of character becomes evidence of their adoption, by the peculiar characteristics of that distinction.

The Mohammedans are a distinct and peculiar people. They have a system of laws that bind no other people, and a form of ceremonies and a mode of propagating their faith such as no other people have adopted; but all this is no evidence that they are the people of God. And I might illustrate the same truth by other comparisons. Hence, if we find a people who are like no others, this, by itself, will prove nothing respecting their relationship to God.

But we mark in the people of God, as the surrounding nations did in the Israelites, a distinctness that is evidence of their adoption; it consists in their conformity to the will of God. The Jewish family had their laws from heaven. In all their movements they made inquiry of the Lord, who gave them immediate direction, and thus signalized them from any people who had ever crossed that desert, or had ever been known or heard of in that age or country. Men had carried their idols with them, and had repeated their sacrifices and their prayers to gods who could neither hear, nor speak, nor save. But no people, till Israel journeyed to the land of promise, had ever been led day and night by a pillar of cloud, and found immediate guardianship and protection whenever they were in straits and difficulties. But if God were so angry that he would not accompany Israel, their peculiarity would cease; the nations would see that they were not defended nor guided, and would fall upon them and make them an easy prey. God could only testify his love to them, and his care of them, by continuing his presence and his glory in the midst of them. This

Moses saw and felt, when he prayed, as in the text, "" Wherein shall it be known how that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? Is it not that thou goest with us? So shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth."

So that peculiarity in the people of God, which the ungodly see, and which it is desirable they should see, in every age, consists in their conformity to the mind and will of God. They rectify their consciences and their lives by the Scriptures, practice the duties it enjoins, cultivate the temper, and form the habits, and speak the language it teaches. And no farther than this is the case, have they evidence to themselves, or can give evidence to others, that they are the people of God.

The men of the world have the Bible in their hands, but though they believe it to be the word of God, they feel themselves disinclined to model their character after its precepts. Hence, if they see about them a people who in this respect differ from them, who make it their chief concern to obey the precepts of the Lord, and form a character after the pattern given in that holy book, it is inferred from this peculiarity that they are the people of God.

They would not thus regard the Divine precepts, but from dutiful respect and affection to their author. Many duties are enjoined that are unpleasant, that require self-denial, that curb the appetites, and restrain the passions. Men are commanded to deny themselves, to take up their cross, to crucify the flesh, with its affections and lusts, to return good for evil-but duties like these can only be pleasant where there is a spirit of obedience, where there is love. Hence, if any man distinguishes himself from the men of the world, by his obedience to the Divine precepts, they infer from this singularity of character, that he loves God, reveres his authority, and esteems his favor a high and distinguished blessing. They are entirely conscious that they feel no such regard to the authority of God, and make no such estimate of his friendship and his love; and very naturally infer, from the conduct of the dutiful Christian, that he has a different temper from that which they possess themselves. Thus the singularity of the believer, when it consists in his obedience to God-and there must be this obedience, or there can be no evidence of faith-becomes proof decisive to all about him that he loves God, and is a member of his family.

When men have practised singularities that God has not enjoined, and have thus calculated to do him honor, they have but covered

themselves with shame. "The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." "For he that in these things serveth Christ, is accepted of God, and approved of men." God has not specified how his children shall feed, or dress, or walk. He has appointed them no unmeaning ceremonies, by which he would have them designated. He has not required them to wear a breastplate, a cross, or a crescent. He has not enjoined a coat of sackcloth, nor a veil, nor à sad countenance, nor torn garments, nor lacerated limbs. By no such means may men become singular, and suppose that they are thus doing any part of duty. But in obeying the commandments of God, it is their duty to differ from all who are not obedient, and to differ in this respect as widely as possible. Would to God that no believer, from this time till the last day, would, in one single case, neglect a duty, or be guilty of a deed forbidden, to please or conform himself to the men of the world. If they please, let them pronounce us rigid. To be rigid in duty, should be our choice; it is the only way in which we can bless the world by our example, and certainly is giving the highest possible expression of our love 'to God.

While in this respect we are seen to be a distinct people, we not only give evidence that we love God, but that God loves us. It is well known that men are not by nature disposed to obey the Lord. They do not love himself nor his law, and their language is, "Depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of thy ways." Such is known to be the native character of every man. Now, if from a race of beings who are thus hostile to their Maker and their duty, it is seen that God has chosen to himself a people, and made them willing in the day of his power, is giving them his law, which they cheerfully obey, it becomes manifest that God loves them, and has adopted them, and is sanctifying them, and will finally bring them to his kingdom. As they become more and more unlike those about them, they become more and more like God. He instamps upon them his own image. Christ is formed in them the hope of glory. Thus the singularity of God's people is evidence to the world of their adoption.

REMARKS.

1. We see whence we are to gather the hope that we are believers. We are to obtain that hope from the same source, in a measure, and in a great measure, from whence others are justified in entertaining a hope respecting us,-our unlikeness of character