manner, if a professor of religion remains unmoved, while means are employed to call into exercise the graces of the spirit, the conclusion is that he is dead in trespasses and sins.

God stirs up his people in various ways. He has a variety of means, which he employs for the purpose of quickening and animating them to run, with increased alacrity, the Christian race.

He employs for this purpose the teachings of his Word. He brings truth to bear upon the conscience. In this way he stirred up David. He sent to him Nathan, the prophet, who, having enlightened his mind, and opened an avenue to his heart, made that thrilling appeal to his conscience, "Thou art the man," which led to the confession, "Against thee, thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight." Whenever you open your Bible, God speaks to you of duties to be performed, and of sins to be forsaken. He points you to heights to be reached, and to depths to be shunned. You can hardly read a chapter, in any proper frame of mind, without having your spirit stirred within you, or without being led to resolve to serve God more faithfully.

Another means which God employs for stirring up his people is the preaching of the gospel. He sends the living teacher-a man of like passions with yourself to unfold the truths of his Word, and to enforce the practical duties it requires. If you attend public worship with any proper sense of its design, and especially if there be in your hearts a particle of vital godliness, it will be touched, and you will have some sense of your short comings, you will form some new resolutions, or, to say the least, you will be kept from becoming more inanimate. Often the preaching of the gospel is the instrument of stirring up the disciples of Christ to engage more actively in the duties of religion, and in efforts to promote their growth in grace.

Another means which God employs for stirring up his people is the example of other Christians. You see or hear how they live and how they are blessed, and it throws over you a healthful influence. You see it is possible for one in the condition in which you are to serve the Lord better than you have done. You feel condemned for living at so poor a rate. You take shame to yourself when you see others maintaining a much closer walk with God than you do; and when you perceive that the sun of righteousness shines upon them, it awakens in your mind a sense of your ill-desert, makes you dissatified with yourself; it leads you to seek for pardoning mercy, and a larger measure of divine influence.

In order to stir you up you have a narrative of the life of Christ, whom you are required to imitate in all his imitable perfections. You have also, an account of the faith of Abraham, of the meekness of Moses, of the patience of Job, of the earnestness and zeal of Paul, of the love of John, of the benevolence of the

poor widow, of the repentance of Peter, and of the humility of the woman who washed the Saviour's feet with her tears.

In the lives of those who have lived in later times, you find much that is fitted to provoke you to love and good works. In Martin Luther and John Knox, and in others of those days, you behold stirring examples of Christian boldness; and in the lives and deaths of the martyrs, you see what it is to count not your lives dear unto you, and have an exemplification of that love that is stronger than death. From the memoirs of Brainard and Martyn you learn the nature of self denial; and by such men as Harlan Page, you are taught how much one can do for promoting the cause of Christ while engaged in the ordinary pursuits of business. Thus, by the example of the living and the dead, God is seeking to stir you up, and to urge you onward in the way to heaven. If, while you gaze at these examples of fervid piety, your souls are unmoved and untouched with a desire to do likewise you have reason to fear you are spiritually dead; that there is not even a small germ of spiritual life in your souls.

God furthermore stirs up his people by his providential dispensations, both merciful and afflictive. Christians are often drawn. away by their love of this present world. The glitter of gold captivates and allures them from the path of life. They become so eager in the pursuit of filthy lucre, that the ordinary means of stirring them up, and of reclaiming them, are ineffectual. But they must be awakened, and retrace their steps, or be lost. Sometimes the flames kindle upon their possessions, their debtors become bankrupt, their ships founder at sea, and their treasures take to themselves wings and fly away. Their eyes are opened, and their hearts are made to feel that a treasure in heaven is worth more than all the gold that was ever coined. Then to the shining realms above, they once more "stretch their hands and glance their eyes."

Sometimes the professed disciple is visited with bodily infirmity; his strength is weakened in the way; he is unable to pursue his money-getting avocation; and is forced, it may be to expend what he has accumulated in endeavoring to regain his health. He is brought, at length to feel that nothing is so desirable as the favor and friendship of his Father in heaven. With Agur he begins to pray, "Give me neither poverty nor riches,' but "feed me with food convenient for me."

Sometimes death enters his dwelling, stirs up the whole household, and fills the survivors with deep sorrow as they behold one of their number torn from them, and "in his narrow cell for ever laid."

In these and other ways God is continually stirring up his people. He brings these influences to bear upon individuals and churches. If any begin to decline from the right way of the Lord, they are followed with warnings and with invitations: if

these avail nothing, then come trials, chastisements, and afflictions. God will in some way arouse those who have any spiritual life in their souls. If the hearts of any grow hard under these influences, there is reason to fear they will die in their sins.

Means of some kind, my friends, are often employed to stir you up to live as becomes the disciples of Christ. God says to you, "It is high time to awake out of sleep." He is even calling upon you to remember your covenant vows, to consider your ways, and turn your feet to his testimonies. If you have any true love to Christ, any of the spirit and temper of the gospel, you will hear his words, you will be moved by the means he employs: your hearts will be melted, and you will humble yourselves before him. If you have only a name to live, or are dead, you will probably remain unmoved, or sink to a lower depth.

As the eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings and teaches them to do the work of eagles, so God stirreth up his people, teaches them his mind and will, and uses means to induce them to live and act as becomes the disciples of Christ.

SERMON DCLXIII.

BY REV. E. CARPENTER,

NEW-YORK.

PRINCIPLES OF CONSTANT OBEDIENCE.

"Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord."-1 Cor. xv. 58.

THE work of the Lord, in doing which we are called upon to be steadfast, is the duty which God requires of man in all the obligations of piety, faith, and virtue; the practice of true religion as pointed out by the joint instruction of natural conscience and revelation. To be steadfast is to perform the task assigned us of following Christ, growing in grace, and working out our eternal salvation with unabating ardor, firmness, and diligence, in all the extent of well-doing. It is to hold our integrity fast to the end, in contradistinction to some professing Christians, who seem at times to feel and act according to the spirit of the Gos pel, but often yield to the corruption of the heart, or the power of temptation; and who, amid the occupations and cares of life, grow weary in well-doing, from the discouragements they frequently meet with; or are irresolute in the service of religion, and unstable in the practice of holiness.

But we are not merely to continue, we are also to abound in the work of the Lord; that is, to be constantly making progress in holiness and increasing in the fruits of righteousness, by adding grace to grace, and strength to strength, in the life of God; by giving all diligence, so as to make our calling and election For righteousness is likened to a seed sown in the heart, which ought to

sure.

be ever growing and ripening, till it reach the size of a tree of life, shedding fruits of immortality. It is a talent given us to improve in various measures of spiritual profit. It is a spark of heavenly fire which is to burn within us till it influence the whole soul with the pure ardor of all divine and moral excellence. If man, in these respects, grow not in righteousness, nor advance towards perfection, he is called the barren fig-tree, which will be cut down; he is the unprofitable servant whom his Lord, at his coming, will not approve; he is insensible to virtue, dead to godliness, and utterly unqualified for the joys of heaven. A true Christian must have the same mind as Christ. He ought to be grounded and confirmed in all the principles of the gospel. According to the expressive language of Scripture, Christ shall dwell in his heart as his life, and the spring of his whole conduct. Supposing, then, the same spirit in us which was also in Jesus, and setting before us the exalted prospect of a glorious issue to all our labors in the work of the Lord, let us inquire by divine grace into those principles of mind which are the foundation of being steadfast and always abounding in the work of the Lord.

ness.

I. The first principle of steadfast and abounding righteousness is a constant sense of the obligation of the divine law. He who truly partakes of the spirit of Jesus Christ is formed anew to better sentiments. Placed in the light of the divine fellowship, he looks on sin as moral darkness; he regards the will of God as the indispensable law of what is right, and as the instrument of his own happiAnd he feels himself bound by the strictest ties to the unceasing obedience and imitation of Christ, who, although not originally bound to obey, voluntarily subjected himself to the law, that he might illustrate to his people the beauty and excellence and indispensable obligation of obedience. Thus the Christian, in all his conduct, acts agreeably to the dictates of religion. Though influenced by pride, the security, or the indifference of the worldly spirit, he devotes his powers to God who gave them, and more and more abounds in goodness. Would you, then, maintain your integrity, and grow in righteousness? At all times feel the supreme and indispensable obligation of the divine law. The principles which men devise are weak and unstable, like their authors, and varying with the changes of interest, fashion, and humor, which give them birth. But that which I now recommend partakes of the energy and immutability that are the chief characters of the divine nature from which it flows. It is pure as heaven, strong as Zion, and lasting as moral obligation. It is thus that religion and virtue are indissolubly connected. To break them asunder, as some have impiously attempted to do, is to tear from religion whatever is amiable in the human heart to sap the foundation at once of morals and of social happiness; and, in the vain presumption of soaring to heaven on the wings of a barren, speculative faith, to abandon the only course of practical belief and good works, going together hand in hand, which God himself has pointed out as the only true and living way of conducting his people to the dwelling of immortal bliss.

II. The second principle of standing fast and growing in righteousness is that of love. Love is the sovereign attribute of God in relation to man. Was it not love to fill the universe with animated beings, and to pour the riches of beauty and happiness over creation. Was it not love to form man after the image of God, and to breathe into him a thinking, reasonable, immortal spirit? And is it not love that at this moment we think, and feel, and hear, and see, amidst all the enjoyment of the light of the sun, all the means of temporal being, and everything that sweetens life? Thus hath God, above all, commended his love, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the soul of man, to give it eternal glory in the heavens. His life, his doctrine, his agony, his death, his resurrection, and his intercession-all were love passing knowledge. From the sense of all this goodness, will not the man, who is not dead to every generous feeling in human nature, love the Lord his Maker and Saviour with all his heart, and soul, and strength? Will not the love of Christ constrain him? And will not the energy of this divine principle transfuse itself, from his inmost bosom, through all his conduct, so as to prove a perpetual spring of unwearied activity in well-doing? This we are told is the love of God, that we keep his commandments; and to abound in

love to God and man is the means of being established, or rendered steadfast, unblamable in holiness before the Lord.

III. The third principle of unwearied steadfastness and increase in the work of the Lord is a conviction of the evil of sin. In this respect a good man partakes of the spirit of that holy and righteous Being who hateth the workers of iniquity, and with whom evil cannot dwell. He despises what is mean, and abhors what is impure, with every false and wicked way. The sentiment which I describe is, moreover, quickened by fellow-feeling with the Saviour of men, who, laying aside the form of God, gave himself up to sorrow, and suffering, and death, for sin. Now, in all cases, sympathy is a powerful spring of action; it interests the heart, and raises every power of the soul. Above all, in this concern, its whole energy is called forth to make the Christian abstain from every appearance of evil, lest, by the commission of any sin, he should crucify afresh the Son of God.

IV. Another principle of unwearied well-doing and increasing righteousness is, the conviction that holiness is necessary as a qualification of the Christian fellowship. The great law of communion with Christ is that of light, purity, and righteousness, in opposition to the spiritual darkness of corruption and sin. If, then, we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, that is sin we deceive ourselves," says the Apostle. But if we walk in light or righteousness, then we have communion with the Father and his Son; and, cherished by the rays of divine light from the Sun of righteousness, graces spring up and vir tues flourish in our lives as the tender herb, with the fostering warmth and dew of heaven.

"

V. The last principle I will mention of holding fast our integrity, is a firm confidence in the declaration that our labor shall not be in vain in the Lord; that if we are steadfast, and always abounding in the work, we shall reap, through Jesus Christ, the fruit of eternal life and peace. It is the prospect of this that purifies the heart, and exalts the affections beyond the earth to things above. How animating the motive to perseverance and progress in grace, that the fruit of these things shall be peace and joy unspeakable for evermore! In this assurance the good man breathes ardently after God, and seeks the glory which is with Christ. He rises superior to the ills of life, and no obstacle discourages him from the performance of his duty, however difficult or painful it may be. In the whole discipline of purity and virtue he exercises himself; and his path shines more and more till he is adorned to mingle in the glorious hosts of heaven. The world may often repay your endeavors to do good with ingratitude and calumny; and after spending your best years in the service of men, or in quest of temporal happiness, disappointment and vexation may be all your reward. But, in the Christian life, benevolent and powerful is the Master you serve; and none who ever sought to please Him, have yet spent their labor in vain.

Such, my Christian friends, are the great principles of continuing steadfast, and always abounding in the work of the Lord; a constant sense of the obligation of the divine law; the power of love; a conviction of the evil of sin, and of the necessity of holiness; and the confidence of future retribution. By the united influence of these principles, may you be effectually prevented from ever becoming remiss in duty. Thus, while the ungodly, who refuse to be influenced by these principles, are unfruitful in good works, and have their minds lightened with vanity, till they become as the chaff, which the wind driveth away, you, on the contrary, shall be as trees planted by the rivers in the vineyard of God; you shall bring forth fruit in its season, and your leaf shall not wither; your spiritual work shall prosper; and you shall finally reach the end of all your hopes, the bliss and glory of heaven, and reap the harvest of life eternal.