not give ;" and " great shall be your re ward in heaven." Blessed, blessed is the people, O Lord! whom thou choosest; they shall be kept, not "from the sound of the trumpet, and the alarm of war," but from being terrified by the summons of the one, or pierced by the sword of the other. Their being thy children will not, indeed, preserve them from the tyrant and the furnace; but, like the favoured children of old, the fire shall "have no power over them," and the "Son of God" shall walk with them in the midst of the flames, and there shall be "no hurt" on them. And you, my brethren, who "know the truth as it is in Jesus," with whom the "offence of the cross" has become your joy and boast, remember that its practice is as simple as its doctrines are sublime-that it alone can at once elevate man above the world, and yet teach him how to live in it. Its duties are not those of tremendous emergencies, of passionate and perilous excitementthey are domestic, practicable, every-day virtues. 66 66 Continue in these, my brethren; and, by peaceable continuance in welldoing," justify yourselves to your God, your conscience, and yourselves; " give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully;" "be careful to maintain good works ;" and, in due season, ye shall reap from the "offence of the cross" an abundant harvest of eternal felicity. Now to God, &c. ON THE IMPORTANCE OF SEARCHING THE ST. JOHN, v. 39. • Search the Scriptures. THERE can be no stronger proof of the importance and necessity of this precept than that which is supplied by the lives of those who profess to "think that in them they have everlasting life," while their hourly practice is at variance with the precepts of Him" of whom they testify." It must be obvious to the most shallow observer, that there is a striking difference between the commandments of Christ as delivered in the Gospel, and the lives of those who profess themselves his disciples. There can be no plainer cause of that difference than the general neglect of the injunction given in our text-" search the Scriptures;"-there can be no better remedy for it than a faithful adherence to it; and such as obey it will doubtless feel themselves not deceived in the thought, that "in them they have everlasting life." But let me not here seem to urge an unfounded charge against professing Christians in general. We have a test easily referred to-to that I appeal: let the Bible be the test, and your own consciences the judge. Remember, you will one day have a judge who can neither be deceived nor overcome! Is it not true, that the views and habits which tend to and centre in this world, whether they be what in its language are termed trivial or important, whether they are expended on the accumulation of dross, the attainment of glittering instability, or the desire of factitious enjoyment-is it not true that all such views are proscribed by the Scriptures as variously modified, but equally substantial workings of that "flesh which lusteth against the spirit," of that "carnal mind," which to possess or to partake is" enmity against God?"-Yet is it not equally true, that those, and those alone, are the views by which the minds of professing Christians are animated and directed that to those all the powers of their being are devoted—that their energies are aroused, and their passions excited, just in proportion as those objects become accessible or auspicious that their praise or their pity are bestowed on their companions in life exactly as they are attained or forfeited--and that those over whom they have any influence, or for whom they feel any solicitude, they endeavour to prove it to, by aiding and inspiriting them in the pursuit of those objects, whose pursuit or attainment the " Scriptures" declare to be hostile to their everlasting interests ?—Is it not true, that the vices and evils against which the Gospel points its emphatic "woes" are the cherished favourites of that world which professes the Gospel, and that the objects which |