fear God, you will mutually cherish Christian fortitude, and rise above that "fear of man which is a snare," and you will check and overawe the otherwise intimidating insolence and persecuting spirit of the world. By associating together on religious principles and for religious ends, you will call forth and unite more wisdom in planning and more force in executing well-digested schemes for enlarging the kingdom of Christ. And by Christian fellowship you will exhibit in your collected examples a more illustrious and alluring light of purity, and love, and happiness, than the same number of lamps scattered over society at considerable distances, and many of them placed in obscure situations. You will easily unite and mingle in sacred views and affections, and you will thus sweetly increase the lustre of each other, and your power of doing good. If one drop of oil on fire will fill the space of two square miles with light in the darkness of night, how great a space will be filled with light by a great number of lamps, each containing countless drops of oil, burning with augmenting and steady splendour! Many shall see it, and shall fear, and believe, and turn unto the Lord. "Ye are the light of the world,— let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven."

SERMON XV.

ROMANS Xii. 11.-" Fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.”

To obey Christ with the warmth of lively and constant affection is what the apostle enjoins in the text. If the followers of Jesus should strive to please him, if affections should be proportioned to their objects, and to the means of attaining their ends, this temper ought to be cultivated by all Christians. And, if God hath rendered them capable of those exercises which promote fervour of spirit in serving the Lord, Christians have no cloak for their sins of lukewarmness, of inconstancy, or of zeal not according to knowledge. With a view to inculcate rather than to prove these truths, very generally acknowledged, and, alas! almost as generally overlooked in practice, I propose to consider, 1st, the nature,-2d, the necessity,—and 3d, the means, of spiritual fervour in the service of the Lord.

I. Let us consider the nature of spiritual fervour in the service of the Lord. Whatsoever the Christian does ought to be done unto the Father as

the supreme end of all things, and by Jesus Christ as the one mediator between God and man, Col. iii. 17. And what can be more reasonable than that the Christian should, in all things, aim at the glory of the Father, "by whom are all things, who is the Judge of all, and who gave his Son, that we might have life through him?" Or what can be more reasonable than that the Christian should in all his actions rely on the merit and strength, as well as execute them according to the command, of the beloved, in whom alone himself and his services can be accepted? Unto this obedience God setteth apart his people in their regeneration, by the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ through the sanctification of the Spirit, 1 Pet. i. 2. Whether therefore, he is diligent in business, or instant in prayer—whether he rejoiceth with them who rejoice, or weeps with them who weep, he ought to serve the Lord Jesus, he ought, as it is elsewhere expressed," to do all unto him, and in his name." Nor is it enough that the Christian do all in word or in deed, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, unto the Father, he is required to do this, in spirit, i. e. with his spirit, Rom. i. 9; from the heart, Eph. vi. 6-nay, with "fervent spirit.”

This spiritual fervour in doing all unto Christ, more particularly implies activity, vehement exertion, and a passionate desire of attaining its end. We never say that the professing Christian who seeks his own ease, who cries, " yet a little folding

of the hands to sleep," hath fervour of spirit. This quality is never attributed save to the man who always" abounds in the work of the Lord." In this respect spiritual fervour is opposed to spiritual slothfulness, which is inactive and immovable in divine things. When the Christian is fervent in spirit, he is not only always in action for the honour of his master; but "whatsoever his hand findeth to do, that he doth with all his might;" his language is," in this cause I will gladly spend and be spent." In this respect, fervour is opposed to lukewarmness, which acts with feebleness and languor. And as we seldom give ourselves much trouble about what we do not love, or make great efforts for the sake of it, spiritual fervour, which implies activity and exertion, must also imply love for what the fervent Christian aims at and does, and a passionate desire of success. Hence, as in common life, the man who acts from compulsion and with unwillingness is not said to act with fervour, how great soever his exertions and activity may be; so, in the spiritual life, he alone is entitled to be called fervent in spirit who can say, the will of my Lord and Saviour."

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My meat is to do

We find little difficulty in distinguishing spiritual fervour from the opposite temper, and the attentive observer will find no great difficulty in distinguishing it from the many imitations of it to be met with in the world. False fervour originates in self-love, or in constitutional warmth; and is, consequently,

blind and impetuous: true fervour originates in the love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost, and is always according to knowledge and sober mindedness. He who is heated by false fervour is more frequently zealous and even furious for what is wrong than for what is right he who is animated by the true, is zealously affected only in a good thing, and "is holy in all manner of conversation. The former is ardent for some and regardless of other divine precepts: the latter esteems all the precepts of God concerning "all things to be right. The former acts without discernment or choice in obeying the laws of God, and he is heedless of the manner of yielding this seeming obedience: the latter performs every action in a becoming manner, and in its proper season. The one is commonly irritable and severe, unjust and violent; the other is meek and lowly, long-suffering and forbearing in love. In a word, false fervour is a fire of thorns-it crackles, it blazes, it expires in the smoke of bitterness; sometimes it is a fiery meteor, that shoots rapidly across the sky, that creates alarm, that dazzles for a moment, but the sudden extinction of it increaseth the gloom of night. On the other hand, the path of the fervent in spirit is "like the morning light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day." In old age he holds on his way with graceful vigour. His eye is directed to something beyond the boundaries of this earth, it beams with the bliss of heaven. Fre