Frequent converse and communion with a friend, is the life of human friendship. It is so also with reverence would I say it-between God and the soul. Love to him will be in proportion to communion with him in prayer and pious meditation; as I believe many happy souls can testify. And none can long neglect prayer, or run over the duty in a formal and careless manner, who will not find their hearts cold and distant from God.

Thus I have suggested some of the best means of "keeping ourselves in the love of God." I briefly recapitulate them, and close with a word of exhortation. We must withdraw our affections from the things which oppose his attributes and will. We must strive to obtain just apprehensions of the divine character. We must consider his works and ways, especially that little portion of them, which comprehends our personal mercies; and to these means, and each of them, we must add our fervent and constant prayer for the divine favour, without which onr exertions will be ineffectual.

These are scriptural and highly important suggestions. Let us apply ourselves to the use of these means with holy zeal, and with the deepest solicitude, to attain and increase the love of God in our souls. It is God's good pleasure to help the active, and to consign the slugglish to the dreadful fruits of their own neg

lect.

Beloved hearers, consider, I beseech you, the infinite and eternal importance of the love of God.

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You rejoice when you find a good and sincere friend, in a mortal as frail as yourselves. If you have found a wise, faithful, and unalienable friend, you exclaim with the sententious Young

A world, in purchase for a friend, is gain.

And yet, such a one is but a feeble, destitute, sickly,
dying friend. Tell me, then, what is the value of di-
vine friendship? Here the friend is rich, omnipotent,
unchangeable, everlasting. When you come to die,
the arms of your human friend must resign you, and
he will commit the body he loved to dust and corrup-
tion. But at that moment, when his love avails you
nothing, God's love avails you most.
When all things
else fail, God is present. He cheers "the valley of the
shadow of death"-" he watches over the dust of his
saints," and the spirit he assumes into his glorious
presence above, to enjoy the everlasting fruits of his
love. O let us aspire, with the strongest affection of
our souls, towards God. Perceiving the emptiness of
all creatures and their comparative vanity, let us give
all, all up, when they interfere, that we may obtain the
love of God. May God, "who is love," breathe upon
our cold hearts; purify them from corrupt affections,
shed abroad in them the love of himself, by his spirit,
and increase in us the holy and blessed affection, till it
shall attain an inconceivable degree of purity and per-
fection, in the heavenly, in the eternal world. The joy,
unspeakable and full of glory will be our's; but all the
praise be his forever and ever. Amen.

SERMON VI.

HEAVENLY BLESSEDNESS THE CONSEQUENCE OF

FOLLOWING THE LAMB.

REVELATION xiv. 4.

These are they who follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.

There is a great deal in the book of the Revelation of St. John, which is exceedingly obscure, and which has been variously interpreted by those who have commented on this portion of sacred Scripture. Some of our ablest expositors on the other parts of the NewTestament, have stopped short of the Apocalypse, and forborn the attempt to explain any part, where so much was beyond the comprehension.

But, notwithstanding some parts of the book are dark, and those, especially, which relate to prophecies not yet fulfilled, others are clear and intelligible, and the whole book is interspersed with instruction, and precious promises, and such lively descriptions of heav

enly blessedness, as cannot fail to interest and affect the reader.

It is observable in this book, that when some calamitous period of the church is foretold, there soon follows a description of the happiness of those, who have passed through it with christian integrity and firmness; a happiness, which is quite an overbalance for all the afferings, which the faithful disciples of Jesus have been called to endure. Such prophetic representations of trials firmly endured, and of the happiness succeeding, as a gracious reward, have a tendency to prepare the followers of Christ, in other ages, to meet their own trials with fortitude, and to sustain them in moments when christian integrity and virtue are in the greatest danger. The wisdom and goodness of the great Head of the church are worthy of our thankful admiration, since by the spirit of prophecy he has made provision against the ill effects of persecution, and extends support and consolation to his faithful friends in those seasons, when, without this aid, they might faint and sink in the sharp conflict. The chapter, preceding the context, gives a representation of the rise and establishment of the papal power, and of the dreadful cruelties, practised by the man of sin. And what can sustain those who are called to bear the burden and heat of this day of persecution? What, but a prospect of the blessedness of the high and holy place. To this, the enraptured apostle saw some of the faithful disciples of Jesus safely arrived; and the scene is described in the chapter connected with the text. In

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his vision, he saw a Lamb, standing on Mount Sion, surrounded by a vast company, "having his Father's name written in their foreheads," as a mark of the divine approbation and acknowledgement. They were occupied in the solemn worship of the heavenly temple, with angels, and with saints of former and later times s; and they were singing a new song, the full understanding of which was peculiar to those who had escaped the pollutions of the world. "These are they," says the text, "who follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth." In these words a character is concisely, but strongly drawn-the character of true christians; a character, by which they are as much distinguished from the rest of the world, as by the glory and blessedness, to which the apostle saw them exalted. Those whom John heard singing in the mansions of the blessed, while on earth, followed the Lamb whithersoever he led them. If we would indulge the cheering hope of rising to that blessedness, the same must be our character, the same our course of life while here.

Let us, then, seriously consider in this discourse, the meaning of the expression, "follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth ;" and the connexion of this character with heavenly blessedness.

I. Then, let us consider the meaning and extent of the expression, "follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth." The Lamb, or Christ, is here set in opposition to the man of sin, in the preceding chapter, who assumed dominion over a great part of the world. He is represented as a general at the head of his army,