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you can be

believe that it is at least happily begun. And without this, what will you do at the table of the Lord? Do you think you can be welcomed there, with passions still impetuous, with vices predominant, and without one good resolution to renounce them? Do you think received there, without having on the wedding garment, without the livery of Christ, which is love? No, the love of Christ must constrain us, it must bring us into captivity to his obedience. Let us remember that Jesus deserves to be infinitely loved. To regard him with a feeble and languid affection, is to insult him. Let us give him the affection which he deserves and requires. He has loved us without reserve; so let us love him. Henceforth let us pursue every thing that may promote our love towards him; his word, religious assemblies, prayer, pious company. Let us flee and avoid every thing that may enfeeble or extinguish the flame of our affection; evil examples, licentious company, extremes of joy and pleasure, presumptuous thoughts and expressions, which gradually cool the ardour of the soul. If it be possible, let us never lie down at night, without examining our hearts respecting this love, without requiring of ourselves an account of its state, of the accessions it receives, or the progress it makes, or the diminution it suffers. Let us never rise in the morning, without renewing our resolution of inviolable and increasing love to our Lord. Then shall we be able to say: "the love of Christ con"straineth us."

Let our whole conduct demonstrate that we are

dead with him. To this I conjure you, by the death of that great Redeemer whose mercy you are about to celebrate, and by his resurrection of which this day renews your remembrance. If Christ crucified can affect our souls; if his resurrection and life have any power of exciting us to obey and imitate him; if our profession of his gospel is not hypocritical; if our communions are not impious; if we would receive not our condemnation, but salvation, in this solemnity; if we have the smallest particle of real christianity; let us now conclude that we ought henceforth to die to sin and live to God. But let us not deceive ourselves to die to sin, it is not sufficient to form a general purpose of repentance; we form such purposes every day: a better resolution must be formed and executed. Let each of us come to a final determination. I must die. To what? To that pleasure which has hitherto seduced me; to that pride which elates me too much in my own eyes; to that envy which poisons my heart; to that detraction which pollutes my tongue; to that connection which is already criminal, or is liable to become so; to that desire of revenge with which I am tormented. I will spare nothing. The executioners of my Saviour aimed at his life in various places. They pierced his head with thorns, his hands and feet with nails, his side with the

point of a spear. I will treat the "old man" in a similar manner; I will inflict on him so many wounds, that he must expire.

Let us remark further: to die to sin, it is not enough to abstain from great crimes. Our lives

We must

must yet be more rigid and austere. be more temperate in recreations, less eager for pleasures. We must be more indifferent to the calamities of life, to the opinions of men, to the temptations, promises, and threatenings of the world. We must be less attached to our property, to our comforts, and to life itself, that we may be more ready to employ, to sacrifice, and to lose them, in the cause of Christ.

What must we not do, to live to Jesus risen from the dead, to live his life? We should exhibit in all things an exemplary holiness, and a perfect detachment from the world. We should make our hearts living altars, where the incense of our love and praise should be perpetually burning. Yes, Christians, already risen with Christ, already living his life, let us show that, like him, from the height of our glory, we look down with contempt upon the world and its vanities, and trample its pretended treasures under our feet. Like Jesus ascended to glory, let us be already elevated above the troubles and commotions which agitate mankind. Like him, let us be unceasingly employed for the good of the church and the glory of God. Thus let the love of Christ transform us into far other men. Let us come to the sacred table with the resolution of thus dying and rising with the Saviour. Let us renew this resolution while we are receiving the bread and wine. Let us carry it home with us, when we depart. In all our prayers both before and after the communion, let us implore the grace of God to assist us to perform it. In the name of God, let us no longer

live unto ourselves

"according to the course "wherein we walked in time past;" "* but let us live entirely to Jesus Christ our Lord. We have lost but too many days and years in serving the world and sin, those bad masters; masters deceitful and ungrateful, whose wages are nothing but death. Let us better employ the time which remains. Happy life! which is spent in the service of Christ. If we thus live for him, we shall feel no reluctance to change our place when we come to die. Already citizens of heaven, we shall sacrifice little in quitting the earth. We shall go to be nearer to our Lord, and to reign with him for ever. God grant us this grace. Amen.

Ephes, ii. 2.

SERMON X.

JOSHUA'S CHOICE OF THE TRUE RELIGION.

JOSHUA XXIV. 15.

And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose ye this day whom ye will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were. on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

IT is a maxim of the Saviour, that "no man can serve two masters."* Yet men are daily seen changing the service of one for that of another, and passing successively under different dominions. Every day witnesses changes of party, of country and religion, of principles and conduct. And is it not possible to obey the commands of two sovereigns at the same time, when there is no discord between them, nor any thing contradictory in their orders? How many persons are faithful at once to God and their country, when the laws of the state have nothing inconsistent with religion and piety! Is it not possible too, by accommodations which are easily settled, to serve at the same time two masters whose laws and interests are both at variance? This is a case daily occuring in those divisions, those doubles, of the heart which compromises with God and with the world,

* Matt. vi. 24.

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