The Christian must serve God with the faculties of the whole Man,

will. We must cleave to that which is good, and do every thing in our power to his honour and glory, in all our undertakings and pursuits whether of business or pleasure. As sensual delights lead to selfishness, begetting indifference to the feelings and claims of a neighbour; we must keep a powerful restraint upon the will and appetite, that they may not ex ceed the rules, which the law of Heaven has prescribed for them. As desire seldom becomes unruly, except when it is strengthened by the imagination; we must put a strong guard upon this licentious and delusive facul ty, directing it, as much as possible, to the pure pleasures that we shall certainly enjoy, in the consciousness of obedience to the Gospel. Earthly gratifications being so liable to enchain both the affections and the imagina tion; we should fix our thoughts and affections on things above, making all other pleasures subservient to the joys that shall be hereafter, and looking for the consummation of our hopes to the pleasures that are at God's right hand forevermore.

In these reflections, my brethren, examine yourselves.

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The Christian must serve God with the faculties of the whole Man.

yourselves. Do you forego the superfluities, and even the comforts of this world, when they cannot be possessed without the known or probable injury of a fellow-mortal? Do you give no more to sensual indulgences than is compatible with a sound and healthy state both of the mind and body? In your pursuits of worldly wealth, do you keep in mind the service of your Creator and Redeemer, seeking no more for yourselves than is consistent with the obligations you are under to obey Him, in works of beneficence? Are you zealous and active to do good to your fellow-creatures, avoiding every selfish gratification causing sorrow and bitterness to the simple, the unsuspecting, the weak, and the innocent, or just offence to any man? Do you cultivate charity and benevolence towards all men, even to an enemy? Do you observe that public worship of God, and all those religious rites which, by his holy word, or his holy church, he has commanded or established, as the means of preserving among men a due remembrance of his wonders and mercies? and the offices of devotion both public and private,

necessary

The Christian must serve God with the faculties of the whole Mau.

necessary to keep your hearts directed to Him in a grateful and operative sense of his all-superintending, ever-watchful, and ever-gracious providence? Have you habitually meditated upon his infinite greatness, glory, and goodness, always remembering that the whole creature is His; that He should be served, honoured, and obeyed, with every thought of the mind, every aspiration of the heart, every word of the tongue, and every operation of the hands; in short, that you were made by Him; that all your feelings and faculties are his gift, and your whole business and duty is to serve and please Him, that you may, in the end, inherit his promises of everlasting joy and felicity? Have you had this conviction upon your hearts, and has it been attested in your lives? You know what answer you can give to these most solemn questions? But let me assure you that the apostle's injunction in my text is the great, the distinguishing, the comprehensive, and indispensable duty of the Christian. To this you are invited, exhorted, persuaded, by the powers of Heaven, and by every thing that is good on earth, The reason of man, the desire

of

The Christian must serve God with the faculties of the whole Man,

of angels; the counsels of Him that reigneth for ever and ever; the sympathies of all happy and intelligent beings in the immensity of creation; the example, the sufferings, the love of Christ; the mercies, the justice, the glory of God; all unite their inducements, to withdraw you from the ways of the flesh to the ways of the spirit; to establish you in righte ousness, to make you dutiful children of God, and healthy members of the universal church. You have no solicitations to the contrary, but from the apostate spirit; or from the evil propensities or affections of your own hearts, and the wickedness of the world, the consequences of his machinations, under the permission, but against the desire, of the Almighty. The son of God was manifested in the flesh, that He might destroy the works of the Devil, Will you then lay hold on eternal happiness in obedience to the will of the ever-gracious God? or will you be eternally wretched, to gratify the malignity of the rebellious angel? Will you assist the work of the Devil to propagate sin and misery? Or, will you work with Christ to effect the objects of his infinite

The Christian must serve God with the faculties of the whole Man.

love, in the accomplishment of the eternal purpose of the Father for the final happiness of his intellectual creatures? Will you seize the short-lived pleasures of sin, and in despite of Divine mercy, forfeit your happy inheritance in eternity? or will you employ the means, which Christ's death, and resurrection, and intercession, have put at your disposal, to counteract the influence of sin, and defeat the devices of the evil one, by your practice and example in this short scene of trial, to be received at last into the everlasting mansions of glory, amid the gratulations of angels, and the benediction of the Godhead? Will you thus yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God?— If you do not; the untaught heathen will have their station before you, around the eternal throne, in the great multitude, whom no man can number. Summoned from the highways or hedges, or from weary wanderings in the desert, arrayed each in a white robe furnished by the Lord of the feast, because they had not the knowledge or notice, to procure one for themselves,