Put ye on therefore the Lord Jesus Christ," and being thus clothed, "thou shalt shine in justification, and likewise in sanctity." The dress of the christian, in fact, is not only the outward adorning of all that is lovely and gracious to the eye of man, not only, to use inspired words, "the clothing of wrought gold; " but every inward thought and secret feeling, every principle and every motive is adorned and beautified for the eye of God; he is "all glorious within."

Election is your high privilege; but election, to use the words of the martyr Bradford, "is not to be looked on but in Christ!" Reprobation-dare I speak so awful a word ?-yes, most fearlessly-reprobation, as Bradford has added, "is not to be looked on but in sin." Wherefore, beloved, "examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves: know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you except ye be reprobates."* Spiritual pride is perhaps the most fearful form of double-mindedness; and after all, it is but a waste of words to say much, as preachers of the gospel, to the double-minded, unless it be to tell them most seriously, most solemnly, but most affectionately, that no promise, no privilege, no blessing of the Word of God is held out to them; that the Book of Life contains nothing but characters of death

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to them. And yet even from the proud, self. confident, double-minded man, we cannot turn away. Entrenched, however, as thou art in the very centre of the wide-spread fastnesses of spiritual pride, lodged in the highest battlements of the citadel of presumption, how can we even approach thee? And yet we cannot, must not turn away. We stand before thee, O proud and double-minded man, with the Word of God opened before our eyes, and there we read thy character and thy doom!" exalted to heaven, to be cast down to hell!" We might tell thee how that the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, God hath reserved in everlasting chains, under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day. But we scarcely hope to prevail with thee by any word of human preaching. We meet thee with the power of humble prayer. "O Lord! to Thee, and Thee alone, do we address our earnest voice. Speak Thou the word, and the fastnesses shall be destroyed, and the towering citadel be laid low! Speak Thou the word of love, and grace, and tender mercy, and the most finished work shall be destroyed and the brand plucked from the burning, and the sinner set free from the bondage of his own iniquity. Speak Thou the word, by the voice of Thy Spirit, through Jesus Christ our Lord."

SERMON XIII.

THE CHRISTIAN'S ONLY SERVICE.

MATHEW VI. 24.

“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”

THERE cannot be a more fatal mistake than for a man to suppose, that because the worst sinner is forgiven freely, without one work of merit, through faith in Jesus Christ, he has obtained a sort of liberty to suppose, that what would be sin in a worldly man is not sin in him. I do not mean that any man would declare this to others, or exactly own it even to himself; but many persons live as if the glorious gospel of the grace of God, the free unsought grace of God, had not only discharged the debt of all past sins, but had given them a sort of popish indulgence to sin in future. Now it is perfectly true that the justification, nay, the salvation of the sinner, that is, of each, and all of us, is from first to last, of free and sovereign grace, of grace and not of debt. But shall we? may

we continue in sin, that grace may abound? "Continue in sin!" Sin, as a state of continuance, is forsaken for ever. The "God forbid," of the apostle, is constantly before the eyes of the pardoned offender. So far from sin being the licensed guest of his bosom, sin becomes, from the first moment that he receives his wonderful, his blood-bought, blood-sealed discharge from it-the one great grief to him—the one deep source of self humiliation, compared with which, all other troubles are not worthy to be mentioned. He is struck to the very heart with a sense of his unfeeling, base ingratitude to his Creator, his Redeemer, and his Sanctifier. Yes, my beloved friends, the nearer we are brought to the Lord our God, the more fully does the holiness of his character appear before us. We see holiness in every doctrine, holiness in every precept; all His commandments are holy, and we all of His family and household the church, know and are sure that holiness becometh His house for ever. The people of the Lord are a peculiar people—not only do they hold doctrines as necessary to salvation which the world has ever called peculiar-not only are they peculiar in their singularities-(for such the world will deem many of their ways)—not only are they peculiar in their gravity, their sincerity, their humility, their separation from the world, but in this way

they are peculiar, more than commonly peculiar if they are Christ's, and Christ is their's. "They are a peculiar people zealous of good works." They do not call themselves by the name of the Lord, and think that an inconsistent practice on any point can pass with their high profession; they are spiritually-minded, as well as spiritually-named, and they cannot serve God and maminon.

II. No man can serve two masters. I would have you consider the force of this word serve with me. It is absolutely necessary, whether you be a christian or not, that you should consider and understand that the life of every man is a service, either to the powers of darkness, or to the Lord of light and life. Independent, you cannot be independent, no human being ever was! You cannot stand as it were, in a sort of neutral state between the two services. In dependent, however, both of God, or satan, some men may flatter themselves they are; and satan himself would gladly assist them to deceive themselves, and to feel and to think that he has no claim upon their services, and is not their master. In this way, the father of lies makes many a wretched dupe his own bond slave for ever. This fatal security of independence, is. one of his most deadly snares. The word of God declares plainly enough, that "he that com