If you saw two persons working together in the same shop, or the same field, both blessed with the faculty of speech, and delighting to converse with all others, but never conversing with each other, what would be your conclusion? That they loved each other? By no means; but the reverse. If you saw one person using every art to please another, and draw him into conversation, and the second person avoided his presence, and refused intercourse, what would you think? That the second person loved the first? Surely not. It is our pleasure to be in the society of those we love, and to converse with them. We love to speak to them, and to hear them speak. Prayer is speaking to God. Worship is coming into his presence, and waiting upon him-is listening to his voice. How long since some of us prayed? A year? It may be five or ten: possibly more. A few years ago, when that splendid meteoric shower occurred all over the country, a few old sinners huddled together affrighted, thinking that the great day of wrath was indeed come. "Pray for us,” said one to the oldest man in the group. 66 Mercy on me,” said he, “I cannot pray. I never prayed in my life." Did he love God? God was always present, and he could have spoken to him at any time. But he did not, because he did not love him. Indulge me in a parable :

There was a wealthy and benevolent parent who had a son in whom he delighted. Everything was done for the youth, that could be done for him, to make him happy. The father doated on him; but the youth, as he grew up, manifested a strange, unnatural aversion to his father. He shunned his presence; would not speak to him when he could avoid it; fled at his approach, in terror and disgust. The fond father might be seen following him with tears in his eyes; calling to him; pleading with him; making the most encouraging promises; using every possible artifice of love to win his affections-still the son hated him, and shunned him. Only when he had plunged himself into difficulties, from which no one else could extricate him, would he reluctantly call upon his father. The father, glad of an opportunity to show his love, always relieved him: took him out of prison; bound up his wounds, gave him medicine, watched over him with tenderness, and restored him. Restored him to health; but, alas, not

to love! No sooner was he able to go abroad, than his old feelings and habits returned. He still hated his father. What should have been done with so ungrateful a child? Cast him out-disinherit him! He is not worthy of being the heir. Who is that undutiful, unnatural, ungrateful, hating and hateful child? Prayerless sinner, ask thy conscience. Thou art the man! God, thy father, has fed, clothed, sustained, and blessed thee. He has followed thee by day and by night, to win thy heart. He has spoken by his providence, his word, and his Spirit-as thou hast sat in thy house, as thou hast walked by the way, in the silence of thine own bedchamber, in the stillness of the night, his still small voice sounded in thine ears: "Hearken unto me; come unto me; call upon me, and I will answer." But you would not. Lo! these many years

he has followed you, has been near you all the time; but you have not spoken. Yes; once or twice. When you were sick; when death stared you in the face; when the grave yawned; when hell opened-O! then you called upon him. He heard you; he healed you; he raised you up! How soon you forgot your Father and your vows! You have pronounced your own sentence. You must be cast out-disinherited-have no place among the children. The Lord grant you repentance; take away your desperately wicked heart-your stony heart-and give you a heart of flesh. That heart of yours hates God; you cannot deny it. It must be so, or you would love to pray.

We have said that man was created to glorify God; and that in showing forth his glory other beings were intended to be blessed through him. To know God is the chief good of man. So it is with other beings. Man is the workmanship of God; to exhibit his perfections; to declare his knowledge, power, and goodness. Every new exhibition of these attributes increases the sum of universal knowledge and happiness. God has a right to this use of his property; and man, refusing, betrays his trust, dishonors his God, and does him great injustice.

I am acquainted with a man who has spent, perhaps, the one-third part of the last twenty-one years in planning, constructing, and bringing to perfection, one piece of mechanism. It has cost him much money, and more labor; but the drudgery of thought was immense. He

is an unlettered man, in moderate circumstances; but his genius is of a high order. This piece of mechanism is a chronometer. It is intended to indicate not only the hour of the day, and the minute of the hour, and the second of the minute, as in ordinary time-pieces; but also, if I remember rightly, the day of the week, the month, and the day of the month, the rising and setting of the sun, the rising and setting, and different phases, of the moon, &c. But besides all this, it has connected with it a planetarium, or representation of the solar system. All the primary planets are there, and some of the secondary; all in their appropriate orbits, and at their appropriate distances from the sun, and from each other; showing, also, the inclination of their orbits from the plane of the ecliptic; and each performing its revolutions in the regular time, as in nature: a wonderful work, should he ever finish it. If successful, it would enroll his name on the records of earthly glory.

Now, suppose this man is successful in completing his workmanship, and pronouncing his mechanism perfect, does, as is often done, employ some one in whom he reposes confidence, as his agent, to go forth, and exhibit his work to the world, that he may reap some reward for so many years of patient toil. He justly looks for praise and gain. The agent goes abroad. He is successful. The work is perfect. The world admires, and he is gathering treasure for his employer. This man of genius, we will suppose, has an enemy; one who has long sought to injure him. He seeks out the agent. By fair speeches he seduces him from his integrity. The agent consents that the enemy shall put his hand within the mechanism, and derange and break some important part of the work, which will be unnoticed by the spectator. It is done. The crowd gather together to see the new invention—the last wonder of the age. They are disappointed. It answers not to the description. It does not fulfill its design. There are plenty of wheels there, but they move not; or move too fast or too slow-irregularly; it is a failure in their estimation, and so they report it. It gets into the papers of the day, is pronounced a hoax-another of the humbugs of the times. The man of genius is defrauded. He suffers the grossest injustice. Men account him, probably,

SERMON VIII.

Consecration to God.

BY REV. FREDERICK MERRICK, A. M.,

PROFESSOR OF NATURAL SCIENCE IN THE OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY.

"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service."-Romans xii, 1.

As a system of religious truth, Christianity is as much above all other religions as the heavens are higher than the earth-as God's thoughts and ways are above those of man. Well might the apostle, after unfolding some of these glorious truths in the preceding part of his epistle, overwhelmed with their importance and sublimity, exclaim, "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!" But Christianity is not a system of mere abstract doctrines. It teaches and enforces the purest morality, and the loftiest piety. Its doctrinal form of sound words is not more remarkable than its practical precepts, and exhortations to a holy life. Thus St. Paul, in this epistle, after closing his doctrinal discussion, proceeds to enforce the duties these doctrines are intended to inculcate, in a great variety of practical remarks; urging, with propriety, first of all, the duty of entire consecration to God. "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service."

In speaking upon these words, I shall endeavor to explain the duty of consecration to God; show its reasonableness; and enforce the duty from a view of God's mercies. And may the Holy Spirit so apply the truth to our hearts, that we may all be led to render this reasonable service. I. CONSECRATION TO GOD.

The language of the text is metaphorical. Allusion is made to the offering of sacrifices under the Mosaic dispensation. Now, as an offering when presented at the altar was regarded as sanctified, or set apart exclusively for the orship and service of God, so we are to consecrate our

selves to him, henceforth, not regarding ourselves as our own, but the Lord's. God made man for himself-to love and serve him. But, as a sinner, instead of living to God, he lives to himself. God does not, however, relinquish his claims, nor is man freed from his obligations. It is still his duty to serve God. Ceasing at once and for ever to walk in the ways of his own heart, and after the sight of his own eyes, he should make the will of God his only rule of life. He is under the most solemn obligations to glorify God in his body and spirit which are God's. Feeling that he is not his own, but the Lord's, instead of seeking his own pleasure, the language of his heart should continually be, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" "Not as I will, but as thou wilt." Consecration to God is the denying of self, and yielding to God's claims. In this

act we

"Give up ourselves through Jesus' power,
His name to glorify;"

solemnly promising that whether we live we will live unto the Lord, or whether we die we will die unto the Lord. There are several particulars, however, alluded to in the text respecting this duty, which it may be well to notice.

In the first place, it is represented as something to be done by us," present your bodies." The worshiper at the temple brought his own offering and presented it to the Lord, and this he did "voluntarily." In the work of his salvation, man must co-operate with God. There are duties which he must perform, there are conditions with which he must comply, or he cannot be saved. He must "work out his own salvation," or perish. True, he does nothing unaided: the Spirit helpeth his infirmities. Of himself he can do nothing, only as God works in him both to will and to do. But this gracious influence does not irresistibly force him to act, nor does it act for him. It simply enables him to do what is required, and furnishes him with motives to action. Thus aided, he must act for himself. Life and death are set before him, and it is for him to make the election, and upon this election depends his eternal happiness, or endless ruin. Not that he is saved by works, for after having done all, he is but an unprofit able servant. His salvation is entirely of grace, though conditional.