mammon make religion subservient to the world, so he requires the worshippers of God to subordinate the world to religion. Instead of exhausting ourselves in efforts after the bread which perisheth, he reminds us that there is angels' food, and urges us to put forth our chief endeavors after that. He finds us as in the midst of a spacious repository, crowded with an infinite variety of objects; some of which are adapted to the body only, while others might form a rich dowry for an immortal soul: some of them things that perish in the using, and others of them things that form the gold and currency of heaven, things on which God has stamped his image and superscription, and inscribed an infinite value. But however diversified their character, he finds them each soliciting the first and highest place in our esteem; and aware that we are in danger of lavishing our affections-those precious things which if given to God would bring us heaven in return—of wasting them on less than nothing and vanity, he draws near and expostulates, and entreats us that we cheat not our souls of eternal happiness by providing for them only an earthly portion, but that we select for them a good spiritual and immortal like themselves, suited to supply its imporant wants, and to gratify all their large capacities.

Lay not up treasures on earth,' saith he, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through and steal.'

And by exhorting us to establish our principal interest in heaven, he actually consults our peace on earth: 'For where your treasure is,' he adds, 'there will your heart be also.' By choosing a heavenly treasure, our character and hopes, which are invariably modified by the object of our paramount regard, will partake of its celestial attri

butes for it is both ennobling in itself, and lodged in the only part of the universe which is exempt from calamity and change; so that, while others partake of the littleness, agitation, and debasement, which belong to their earthly gods, we shall receive, by an anticipation, an impress of the greatness, and security, and stability of heaven; while, at the same time, our temporal mercies will be enjoyed with a superior relish, since we should feel that the loss of them would leave us still in the possession of our real treasure entire and secure. In the prospect of a national convulsion, it is not uncommon for the wealthy to transmit their property for security into other lands. And, O, were there a country on earth perfectly exempt from all the changes which endanger property, that would be the envied land in which all would aim to invest their riches. But that blessed region, not to be found on the face of the wide earth, actually exists in the kingdom of God. Yes, by throwing open to us the gates of a heavenly commerce. he would give scope to our loftiest aims, security to our choicest treasures, and objects to our most capacious desires. Here, the affluent may embark their abundance :instead of living for themselves let them live for God, and they will be remitting their property to a world where it shall accumulate with abundant interest; they will be laying up a store for the future, on which they may live splendidly and gloriously for ever; they will be placing uncertain riches in a safe repository, and transmitting them into certain wealth. Let them acquit themselves as faithful stewards of the great householder; and as they dispense their wealth, it will direct its flight towards heaven, bearing on its wings the prayers and benedictions of those they have benefitted. Having made to themselves friends with the mammon of unrighteousness, when they die,

those friends will welcome them into everlasting habitations. Here the humblest believer may employ his penury—and he will find eventually that his single mite, his cup of cold water, or his one talent, consecrated to God, has augmented into a treasure, exceeding his powers of computation. For every sacrifice we make in his service, he guarantees to requite us,--not indeed as of debt: this the magnitude of the requital shows; but of his own exuberant munificence, he promises to repay us a hundred fold in the present life, and in the world to come, life everlasting. Every struggle against sin, every effort in the cause of benevolence, every holy principle exerted for God, he pronounces an element of future blessedness, and constitutes a claimant on his grace at the recompense of the just. Whatever is transmitted by the soul to the world above, is placed under the guardianship of omnipotence, is laid up securely by the throne of God. His seat is the centre of a circumference, within which nothing that impairs or destroys, can by any possibility intrude; and which itself remains unmoved and immutable, while all besides is fluctuation and change.

It is not easy to speak of the claims of heaven and earth, as needing adjustment, without seeming to countenance an erroneous impression that they are naturally at variance. But let it be borne in mind, that originally they were one. The only quarrel which eternity can have with time, is, when it usurps an ascendancy which, by inverting all order, and doing violence to the first principles of our nature, renders the happiness of the soul impossible. Let the present defer to the future, let it fall into its proper place as the handmaid of immortality, and instantly they are one again each is seen reciprocating its influence, and lending its aid to the other, to secure to us a blessed futurity and to prepare us for it. But though all hostile opposition

terminates with this new adjustment, it is not to be denied that difficulty still remains, the natural and unavoidable difficulty of keeping the world from that dangerous domination which, having once enjoyed, it is ever impatient to regain. New habits are to be formed, powerful propensities are to be held at bay, old and indulged inclinations are to be denied, and enemies which we fondly thought we had laid dead at our feet, suddenly starting into hostility again, are again to be coped with and vanquished; this is attended with a disheartening sense of difficulty which some have no sooner tasted, than they have declined the contest, and surrendered themselves at discretion.

Now, while our Lord, in various ways, takes cognizance of this struggle-for one of his great excellencies, as the founder of a new religion, was the most transparent simplicity and candor--while he even enlarges on the conflict, presents his followers with a plan of the battle, points out its imminent hazards, and exhorts them before entering on it, to count the cost,' he at the same time assures them of such supernatural succors as shall enable their weakness to do the deeds of omnipotence, and make perseverance infallible success. While he takes them to an eminence, and shows them the vast confederacy of evil arrayed against them, he reminds them that they struggle for an invisible world, that they fight in fellowship with all the children of the light, that more than angels are in their ranks, for he promises them the abundant aid of the Eternal Spirit. Their infirmities may be numerous, their sins may be mighty, their ignorance may seem invincible, but an almighty agent is employed for the special purpose of piercing that ignorance, overpowering that sinfulness, and surrounding them with an element of light and holiness.

And even beyond this, as he leads them to the field he proclaims, Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world;

your leader is a conqueror, advance to victory.' The history of the first christians proves that he did not utter this inspiring address in vain. By this sign they conquered. Though the world within and the world without were in arms against them, they could not be depressed. They fought in the presence of an invisible world. They surveyed the whole array of evil, looked calmly in the face of every foe, considered all that might happen, but to this triumphant conclusion they came, 'because he lives, we shall live also.' Like the earth on which they trod, and which continues to roll on in its orbit unimpeded by the earthquakes which rend it and carrying all its atmosphere of storms along with it, so they, animated and impelled by the love of Christ, advanced in the course he assigned them, as steadily and cheerfully as if no ills within, no storms without, assailed them; as if each step they took were across the heavenly threshold, and in sight of their appointed thrones.

Without intending or hoping to supply the defects of the concluding Essay-On the Practicalness of our Lord's Teaching-it may not be inappropriate to close this prefatory miscellany with a few practical remarks. A variety of circumstances seem to concur, in the present day, auspicious to the study of the gospel as a practical science. To or three of these circumstances may be named.

1. The great error of religious polemics, hitherto has consisted in arguing from compound dependent truths, as if they were ultimate. The application of the inductive method of investigation, however, has taught us that, as in philosophy, so in theology, we as yet possess but few ultimate truths; that principles on which parties have heen accustomed to rely with the greatest confidence, may be easily carried to a point where they break down and fail us--that where two truths appear thus to clash, it is evi