lost." Yield to his love. Submit to his invitation. Credit his kindness. Believe and live for ever! Then in the awful hour which approaches, you will rejoice, and not be afraid. You will anticipate the day of final doom; the quick return of Christ to the world, without dismay. Rather you will connect with that return, the moment of full and glorious restitution; the fruition of perfect happiness; the participation of joys, "such as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive; but which the Lord hath prepared for them that love him.

To you, my christian friends, who have through grace received mercy, I would in conclusion speak. You have been translated by the mighty power of God from darkness unto light. You have trusted in Christ, and found him precious unto your souls! You know, "brethren beloved, your election of God;" for his word has come to you "in demonstration of the Spirit and of power." Bless then, and adore the name of your God! contemplate his eternal love, and rejoice in the assurances of his grace! You owe all to that grace. You merit nothing. You have forfeited every thing. The tenure by which you hold your bliss, is free, sovereign grace. Recollect this, and let a sacred and generous gratitude bind you to your God. Be not ashamed to confess your faith in

his name. Shrink not before the frown or fear of man. You belong to Christ, and all things in him are yours. Nothing shall separate you from his love. "The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but his kindness shall not depart from you, nor the covenant of his peace be removed." He is faithful who hath called you, who will also fulfil the same. It is now your high privilege to live by faith, and not by sight; to lean ever upon the counsel, wisdom, fidelity, compassion, and omnipotence of God. It is your privilege to abide in Christ; to rise above the maxims, ways, and low ambition of this world; to be dead to the world, and to have a "life hid with Christ in God." It is your privilege to have daily "fellowship with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ." To you the remembrance of sins blotted out, and the prospect of approaching glory; to you this review of mercy, and this anticipation of felicity ought to prove' moral stimulants of no ordinary kind! "What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness." "You are not your own, but Christ's, bought with a price, that ye should glorify God with your bodies and spirits, which are his." How separate ought you to live from the pollutions and vanities of this fading scene! In a little time you will be with God. In a little time, the veil of mortality will be removed. You will

see Jesus Christ who died for you "face to face." You will rise to perfect bliss, with bodies fashioned like unto his glorious body. You will sing the songs of victory, and rejoice with a multitude, whom no man can number before the everlasting throne! Oh walk worthy of this calling, and honour the name you love! Be conformed to his will, and shrink from the touch of sin! "Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace." "Walk then in the spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh." Look upwards daily, and expect the glory which shall be revealed. How light shall prove your afflictions, how salutary and medicinal your sorrows, how ennobling your joys, how expansive your sympathies, how elevating your wishes, if you abide in these and similar contemplations! if you set your affections on things above, and not on things on the earth! if reposing on the countless promises of Jehovah, you thereby become partakers even of the divine nature!

"Fear not, little flock, it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."

" IMMEDIATELY, THEREFORE, I SENT UNTO THEE; AND THOU HAST WELL DONE THAT THOU ART COME. NOW, THEREFORE, ARE WE ALL HERE PRESENT BEFORE GOD, TO HEAR ALL THINGS THAT ARE COMMANDED THEE OF GOD."

THESE words are part of the address of a Roman soldier to the apostle Peter; and they are descriptive of that generous, and manly, and enlightened mind, which had the fortitude to esteem virtue a nobler quality than mere animal courage, and the fear of God a better possession than the splendor of military fame. The portrait of Cornelius, like the rest of scriptural portraits, is sketched rather than filled up; but the lines are strong and marked. The features glow upon the canvass, and a few touches give you the whole man. The abridgment of his history until the period which introduces the text, is the following. Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian band, was a devout

and charitable man. He had, I think, evidently renounced idolatry, and had addicted himself to the worship of the God of Israel, though not in the actual communion with the Jewish church. Like the Ethiopian nobleman, he was probably acquainted with the Jewish Scriptures. Cornelius cannot be regarded as a mere heathen. He owned and rejoiced in the light of Judaism. We are unequivocally told, that the "world by wisdom knew not God." No fallen man, by the efforts of reason, ever attained to the moral character of Cornelius.

66

By the grace of God, he was what he was ;" and by a divine power, he had embraced the hope of the favoured people of God. I cannot doubt but that he was waiting "for the consolation of Israel." He was, we are told, a man of

prayer, and a man of domestic religion. Can it be questioned that his supplications referred often to spiritual illumination,-to the fulfilment of the days of the Messiah? "His prayers and his alms came up in memorial before God."

And, living in the days of miraculous evidence to the truth of Christianity, he was favoured with a supernatural vision. An heavenly messenger, one of those benevolent beings who rejoice over the penitent sinner, and who delight to minister unto those who shall be heirs of salvation, addressed him immediately