riches, and honours, and titles are ascertained, and in believing which your possession and inheritance are sealed and secured. The glory of God, and compassion to the perishing, will produce in your exercise a generous concern for dark places of the earth, which are without the gospel of the grace of God, and fervent prayers and endeavours that the dispensations of it may be extended, and sinners of all nations enlightened, enriched, and saved.

Neither the worth nor the efficacy of the Gospel is derived from man. In respect of worth, it cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, nor the topaz of Ethiopia; onyxes and sapphires need not be mentioned. The price of the grace of God is above pearls and rubies. Its worth is inestimable, and the inherent quality of the doctrine itself. The efficacy is not of man, any more than the worth. It is not by might, nor by power, the wisdom of words, nor the excellence of speech; but by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, and working mightily with the word, that the fortresses of error are shaken, the walls of Jericho thrown down, and the standard of the gospel, with this motto, The Grace of God, lifted up in kingdoms and in hearts. Who was Paul, and who was Apollos, but ministers, by whom God wrought, and men believed? The first planted by his learning, and the last watered with his eloquence, but God gave the increase.

The lustre of the new dispensation of the grace of God is brighter than the old. Under the old dispensation, there were light and glory. Light shined, but it shined in darkness. Glory appeared, but it appeared in a cloud, and through

a veil. The beams of the Sun of Righteousness passed through a thick and gross atmosphere of ceremony, and were obscured by clouds of incense and pillars of smoke. In the new dispensation, this glorious Luminary appears in his meridian, and the light of the knowledge of the glory of God shines in his face with sevenfold lustre. The light of the moon is as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun is sevenfold, as the light of seven days. Arise, shine, O Christendom; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. Darkness covers other parts, and gross darkness other people; but the Lord is risen upon us, and his glory is seen upon us. If the gospel of the grace of God be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. May God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, shine in our hearts, and give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ.

The most celebrated systems of philosophers could not have benefited the world like the religion of Christ. With more appearance of ingenuity than the superstitions of the vulgar, they fall equally short of the object at which they aim. The lamp of reason which burns in the human breast, though trimmed with ever so much care, gives only a feeble and wavering light; and the greatest geniuses, who have sat down to read the divine nature with no better assistance, have risen from the task with little improvement, unable to read distinctly the very

first letters of JEHOVAH's name, or to discover the service with which he will be pleased, and the satisfaction he will accept for past transgressions. Can the light of the stars, especially when the sky is obscured, serve man for the purposes of life? And how shall reason, obscured, as it confessedly is, by ignorance, and prejudice, and vice, light the sinner to God and happiness? The deductions of reason can at best produce in the breast only a tremulous hope, founded on probability. They must often, like those wandering lights which appear to the benighted traveller in marshy places, mislead while they seem to direct. Christianity alone can conduct to true felicity. Its whole horizon is illuminated by the great "Light of the world"-by "the Sun of Right," whose beams irradiate, whose presence enlivens, whose influence gives life, vigour, activity, joy, to those on whom he shines. A single ray from Christ, the great Fountain of spiritual light, is of more use to lead a sinner to God, than all the torches lighted up by the reason or fancy of all the sages of ancient and modern times.

eousness,

THE BIBLE.

I MUST recommend to all, the incessant study of ONE BOOK, which infinitely more than all others, tends at once to enlarge the understanding, to sublimate the sentiments, to purify the soul, and thus prepare it for the everlasting presence and communion of its God. The Bible may be undervalued by the prosperous and the gay; but to the afflicted, it is the balm of every woe. It

may be neglected in health; but it is the only friend to the dying pillow. It may be despised by the vain and hated by the impious; but with all the wise, and great, and excellent of the race, it has been an object of unmingled adoration and love. Every sentence of the Bible," says Bishop Horsley, "is from God; and every man is interested in the meaning of it." "We ac

count," says Sir Isaac Newton, "the Scriptures of God the most sublime philosophy." "Those passages," says Boyle, "which are so obscure, that they teach us nothing else, may at least teach us humility." "In the first page of this sacred book," says Horne, "a child may learn more in an hour, than all the philosophers in the world learned without it in a thousand years." Study," says Locke, "the holy Scriptures. Therein are contained the words of eternal life. It has God for its author; salvation for its end; and truth without any mixture of error, for its matter." "This book," says Mrs. Huntingdon, "has done more for me than all the men on earth, and all the angels in heaven could have done."

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By the Scriptures," says Jay, "we can associate with Paul and Isaiah; with Moses and the patriarchs; and can sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, in the kingdom of God."

Dr. Samuel Johnson, was distinguished as a moral writer; his compositions have seldom been excelled in energy of thought and beauty of expression. To a young gentleman who visited him on his death-bed, he said, "Young man, attend to the voice of one who has possessed a certain degree of fame in the world, and who will shortly appear before his Maker; read the Bible every day of your life."

PECULIAR OPERATION OF CHRISTIANITY.

How vague in general is our notion of this the most remarkable change which has ever been wrought in the state of mankind! The violent and rapid conquests of Mohammedanism are clear and intelligible; a conquering nation overruns a great part of the world, and establishes its faith upon the ruins which its arms have made. The triumph of Christianity is the secret progress of opinion, working at first no change in the existing forms or relations of society, but gradually detaching individuals, cities, nations, from their ancestral faith; still growing in numerical superiority, compressing the inert resistance of its antagonist into a narrower compass; not sweeping clear and levelling the ground for the erection of its new system, but springing up, as it were, like a fresh growth of vigorous trees above a decaying forest, which gradually withers down into a thin and perishing underwood, till at length it entirely dies away-or only hangs a few parasitical branches upon the stately grove which has succeeded to its place and honours.

JESUS THE MEDIATOR.

THE character of a Mediator is in strict analogy with the order of nature and Providence, and in perfect congruity with our views of the holiness of God, and our needs as feeble and sinful creatures. It is strange that any can be so thoughtless as to depreciate the value of this office, and affect to imagine that the mercy of God would be more gloriously displayed if otherwise