exhorted the New Testament saints, to "draw near with true hearts in full assurance of faith:"-and again he saith, "Let us come with boldness to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need."

Again, we are to manifest this disposition in acts of obedience. The slave manifests a servile disposition, in the reluctance with which he complies with his master's commands. It is easy to see, that fear is with him the chief motive to obedience. Not so with the child. With David he can say, "O how love I thy law;" and with St. Paul, His commandments are not grievous, but joyous. "My yoke is easy and my burthen is light," said Christ; and this he knows by experience. Thy will be done, says the obedient child, even though it should assign to me affliction.

Moreover this filial disposition is to be manifest in sorrow for sin. When does the ingenuous child feel such real compunction, as when he has offended his father? I will venture to say, that he feels a sensation to which the servile slave is an utter stranger. When the child discovers in his father a disposition to forgive him, his misconduct is marked in blacker colours in his own estimation. My brethren, what do you suppose were the feelings of the prodigal, when his father was weeping on his neck? O, is this my offended father! Is it possible that he will receive me? Such language as this, expresses the ordinary feelings of an evangelical penitent.

But again, this filial temper will appear in the manner in which we sustain affliction. This, whether

bodily or mental, will, by the child who discovers its end, be received with a willingness to which the slave is a stranger. To the suffering child the apostle's exhortation will not be thought unsuitable, “ My Son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons: for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence; shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now, no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.

But the filial temper will show itself by studious assimilation of mind and manners. Nothing is more dignified in the estimation of the affectionate child, than to imitate his father in walk, speech, and behaviour. And there are no prayers offered up more fervently by the New Testament saint, than those in which he begs for conformity to his heavenly Father in all things.

Once more, the filial temper is manifest, in loving those who appear to be children of the same parent. "For if we love him who begat," surely "we shall love those who are begotten:" for if we say we love God, and do not love our brethren, we lie, and do not the truth." Nor will we, in defining the term brethren, suffer it to mean only those of our own church : Christian forbearance and love will extend to all who love the Lord Jesus in deed.

I will only add, this temper will be shown in regard to dying. The dying Christian will consider, that God, his Father, when he sends death for him, only sends for him his chariot, paved with love, to take him from school below, into his immediate presence above, there to dwell and inherit the patrimony of eternal glory.

We pause for a moment to contemplate the privileges we enjoy in this glorious dispensation. I look back, and I behold the ancient saints ascend the hill of prophetic vision, and view the glories of this dispensation: I hear them groan with desire to see the day that we see; but they die without the sight. But blessed are our ears, for they hear; and our eyes, for they see: "the lines have fallen to us in pleasant places, and we have a goodly heritage" among the host of nations. Permit me to ask, whether we have been benefited by the Gospel blessings, which God has dealt out to us with so bountiful a hand? This question will appear still more important, if we consider what the Scripture saith; that the Gospel is the savour of life unto life, or of death unto death.

190 HARRIS'S SERMONS ON IMPORTANT SUBJECTS.

Again, I ask what sin you have mortified or subdued, that you would not have done under the darker dispensations? Have you not been satisfied with a smaller portion of holiness, than was possessed by the Old Testament saints! Indeed have not some of you satisfied yourselves without any holiness at all? Are there not some present who know nothing of real holiness, and have not the smallest desire to obtain it? Surely the Ninevites shall rise up in judgment with the men of this generation; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, a greater than Jonah is here. It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than for this people.-The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with the men of this generation.

Christians, let us avail ourselves of the advantages of this dispensation. O let us cultivate a filial temper. Let God be the object of our hearts' delight.-Let us come to the throne of grace with boldness-let us obey God with cheerfulness-let our sorrow for sin be evangelical-let us sustain affliction with pleasure— let us assimilate to the divine perfections-let us love our brethren with true hearts fervently-and let us wait with patience the happy moment when this tabernacle shall fall, and we shall go to the building of God, eternal in the heavens.

SERMON XIX.

ye

But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that have suffered awhile, make you perfect; stablish, strengthen, settle you. 1 Pet. v. 10.

IN these words, as also throughout both of his epistles, the apostle breathes an affectionate solicitude for the Christians to whom he wrote. They had lately been converted to the faith, and he was greatly anxious, that, as obedient children, they should not fashion themselves according to the former lusts in their ignorance, but as he who had called them was holy, that they also should be holy in all manner of conversation. He wished it to appear to all the Gentiles among whom they were scattered, that Christianity wrought the most excellent effects, and that its votaries were made a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a peculiar people, to show forth the praises of him who had called them out of darkness into his marvellous light.

The counsels and exhortations of the Epistle are such as we might reasonably expect from a man of God; who, though he was not insensible of the weak