He sang his consummatum long before he departed, committing his soul into the hands of God." To conclude. When we view the faith by which our departed friend was strengthened to run his heavenly course, and behold his faithful ness unto, death in that course, with the victory which the Lord gave him over the last enemy, we may surely adopt, for him, the strong description of the renewed man, given us by a writer of the present day : "For the Almighty Spirit to descend on a man, to apprehend him, as the great Apostle says, amidst the thoughtless crowd, by a potency that transforms when it touches him, and to conduct him forward towards another life, under an influence which purifies him as he advances, in spite of all the powers of corruption, is a more extraordinary train, if the Divine management could be fully disclosed, than the mere political history of an empire. This man will be happy to look back to the first operations of the sacred influences, whether they were mingled in early life almost insensibly with his feelings, or came on him with mighty force at some particular time, and in connexion with some assignable and memorable circumstance, which was apparently the instrumental cause. He will trace all the stages and vicissitudes of his better life, with grateful acknowledgments to the sacred power which has advanced him to a decisiveness of religious habit, that seems to stamp eternity on his character. In the great majority of things, habit is a greater plague than ever afflicted Egypt; in religious character, it is a grand felicity. The devout man exults in the indications of his being fixed and irretrievable. He feels this confirmed habit as the grasp of the hand of God, which will never let him go. From this advanced state he looks with firmness and joy on futurity; and says, 'I carry the eternal mark on my forehead that I belong to God. I am free of the universe, and I am ready to go to any world to which He shall please to transmit me, certain that everywhere, in height or depth, he will acknowledge me for ever."" SERMON IV. THE GOSPEL CALL REFUSED. THEN answered Peter, and said unto him, Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee; what shall we have, therefore? And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, that ye which have followed me in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundred fold, and shall inherit everlasting life.-MATT. xix. 27–29. 66 "ALL Scripture is given by inspiration of God." It is designed to be the food of that spirit which "God breathed into man: My wine to cheer, my bread to stay." And it is profitable for "reproof," when wood, hay, and stubble, are put in the place of gold, silver, and precious stones; for "correction in righteousness," when the gospel of God our Saviour is not adorned in all things; and for "edification," that believers may be "built up in their most holy faith," and come to "perfect men, even to the stature of Christ Jesus." |