a mixture of vanity and vexation? Yet see how the glory of Christ the Redeemer, and of God through him are connected with it. What a value is stamped upon life; what dignity upon the world, when we behold the only Son of God taking upon him that life, and coming into that world! Are men made in vain, when the only-begotten of the Father gave his life as a ransom for theirs? Here indeed we see the honour of man: he may become one with Christ, and Christ with him. Much as his life is chequered with vicissitudes, degraded by meanness, defiled by pollution, burdened with cares, oppressed with sorrow, and abridged by death; it is more than ennobled by the solicitude which the Almighty has expressed for it; by the bounty of Heaven, which daily ministers to its necessities; by the love of Christ, who gave his own life a ransom for sinners; by the offices he undertakes in behalf of those who make application to him; by the means of grace provided for the benefit of their souls; by the promises of the Gospel held out to them; and by the influences of the Holy Ghost shed abroad in their hearts. Is man, then, made in vain who has the Spirit of God for his Guide, the Son of God for his Redeemer, the Almighty for his Father, the Gospel for his support, and heaven for his home? No: he is blessed and favoured indeed. He is honoured with privileges and blessings resembling those of angels. But what am I saying? Are men in general so honoured? Alas! with respect to many, we must still say, Wherefore hast thou made all men in vain? But in what state are we, my brethren? Is it our care to be found united to Christ by a living and true faith? Is it the great employment of our lives to be partakers of that grace and peace which he communicates? Have we renounced the world, with its pomps and vanities? Do we say in our hearts, away with its glittering, perishing follies; I seek more substantial blessings; I have an immortal soul, I seek its salvation; I am a sinner, and I labour to be delivered from my sins; I want to enjoy communion with God

my Creator, and to be made meet for a better world above? If such are our hopes and desires, we are really living to great ends; we are enjoying life in the only sense in which it deserves that name. Without this we have still to learn the very end for which life was given to man, for which he was created and placed in the world.

Lastly, is life of so much importance, and yet is it short also? What an additional value does it acquire even from this circumstance which seems at first sight to diminish its worth! In this view, a day, an hour, is of great importance. If life is so uncertain; if almost the only thing certain in life is that we shall die, and we know not how soon; what manner of persons ought we to be? Are we laying this to heart? Do we say to ourselves, "Life is too important to be trifled with: too valuable to be wasted in things which have no importance beyond the present period? I have a great work to do, and little time in which to perform it. Death is at hand; the Judge is at the door. Oh, let me improve the precious though fleeting moments! They may be improved so as to make me partaker of the favour of God, and of eternal happiness." Short as life is, it is long enough to answer this purpose; and when it has done this, it matters not how soon it is terminated. It will be continued to greater advantage in another state. Happy is the person who acts under these views. They are the views which Christianity gives of this world and this life. May it so teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom!

SERMON XXI.

THE CHRISTIAN'S STATE OF PILGRIMAGE ON

EARTH.

Hebrews xi. 13.

And confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

IT must be allowed, that the Patriarchs and other members of the Jewish Church, before the Christian æra, did not enjoy so clear and distinct a view of the nature and blessedness of the life to come as we do: for it was Christ who was to bring life and immortality to light. But, on the other hand, it is evident, that the dispensations of God with many of them were such as tended to give them just views of the vanity and emptiness of this world, and to teach them to desire earnestly that happier state of future existence which was but obscurely revealed to them. Of this we have a striking proof in the course of life which God appointed for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They had been called out of idolatry, as one chosen family to whom God manifested himself with peculiar favour. They

therefore eminently appeared as a light shining in the midst of the general darkness which overspread the rest of the world; and their posterity of the Jewish Church, who received their most distinguished privileges through them, and on their account, would naturally look up to them, and to every circumstance of their lives, with peculiar attention and reverence. To what course of life, then, did God call their father Abraham, his chosen servant? Was it to a life of ease, comfort and enjoyment? Did he choose for him the most delightful country, subject it to his dominion, and on his account bless it with double fertility? No: Abraham had no land assigned to him, or country which he could call his own. So far different was his lot that he was commanded to quit forever his native land, his house, his family, his connexions, his countrymen; and to wander about in a strange land, dwelling in tents without a fixed or certain habitation. Surely the moral to be learned from this appointment of Providence could not be obscure. It was evidently the design of the Almighty that it should forever impress on the hearts of his people a persuasion, that it was not in this world that they were to seek their happiness; since Abraham, the friend of God, and the distinguished heir of his blessing, had not found it a place of enjoyment:-but that, sitting loose to this life and all its comforts, as well as all its cares, they were to look forward to another state in which the effects of the Divine favour would be more eminently conspicuous. Had there been no blessings but those of a temporal kind, surely the Canaanites among whom Abraham sojourned, had been happier than the venerable Patriarch favoured by God himself. They had houses and lands, cities and towns, a country and a people. Abraham had none of these. The conclusion is evident. He could not but "look for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God;" for he that so lives confesses that he is a stranger and a pilgrim upon earth, and declares plainly that he seeks "a country. And truly, if he had been mind

ful of that country from whence he came out," if he had thought it so desirable a thing to have the blessings of this life, "he might have had opportunity to return; but now he desires a better country, that is, a heavenly; wherefore God is not ashamed to be called his God, for he hath prepared for him a city."

But did not God afterwards give the descendants of Abraham a country,-a land flowing with milk and honey, and abounding in cities, high and fenced up to heaven? It is true-he did; but he had first instilled the principle, and given the rule, according to which they were to enjoy it. He had trained them to consider all worldly possessions as worthless, when compared with the blessings of heaven. Thus they were taught to enjoy as those that enjoyed not; and still to consider themselves as strangers and pilgrims upon earth.

What God teaches to one man he teaches to all. Truth is not to be confined to an individual or to a tribe, it belongs to the universe, and is applicable to all mankind; and when God imparts it in a remarkable manner to any particular person, it is that by his means it may be communicated to many. It was not Abraham therefore, merely, or Isaac, or the Jews that were to consider themselves as strangers and pilgrims here; but all mankind, and especially all Christians. The whole tenor of the Gospel illustrates and confirms this lesson, and impresses it with still more force than even the former dispensation. The address of the Gospel is this:"Ye are pilgrims and strangers in this world: ye are not of the world, even as Christ was not of the world. Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth; for" (to put it in a still stronger light, to use an image still more forcible) "ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God."

It is of unspeakable importance to have a practical conviction of this truth. If we have not a just view of the nature of this life, we shall be fundamentally wrong; we shall be wrong, not merely in an immaterial or in a collateral point, but in the very principle from which