peat, on the attainment of so many successive stages of mental power and spiritual delight, even throughout those periods which centuries shall not bring to their slumber!

How lofty, then, is our destination, how wondrous those energies by which we are likened to the Deity! How surpassing great, how immeasurably good, the Being that has formed us thus; and how august that Saviour who hath begotten us to a lively hope of so transcendent an inheritance! Surely, if destined thus to live-thus to feel-thus to enlarge for ever, surely the redemption of the soul must be precious, far beyond what the world can give or take away. But above all, in these high prerogatives, let us read our present duty. Be it our's, in the true dignity of our calling, to seek those things which are above. Let our knowledge of God and his Son be begun and continued on earth; a relish for heavenly employments ever be exercised and encreased; and so, advancing from one degree of grace unto another, we shall become more and more meet for the society of angels, and the exalted enjoyments of heaven; which may God himself grant: and to him shall be the glory and the praise, world without end. Amen.

SERMON IIL

WALKING WITH GOD.

BY THE

REV. DONALD ROSS, A.M..

MINISTER OF LOTH.

GENESIS V. 24.

"Enoch walked with God."

At the time to which the words of the text refer, mankind were utterly abandoned to irreligion and licentiousness: yet even at that time of awful depravity, God did not leave himself without a witness to defend bis cause--to support the interests of declining religion

-to maintain the honour of the divine law-and to exhibit in actual life and personal conduct, the power, and beauty, and influence of true godliness. To be religious under circumstances so forbidding—at times when the ways of God are evil spoken of, and when the most singular fidelity and devotedness to God are sure to meet no better reward than persecution and reproach, argues a strength of faith, a firmness of mind, and contempt of danger, which can only be inspired by him who is "wonderful in counsel and excellent in working."

66

When the posterity of Adam in the old world had corrupted their ways, the sacred historian informs us that the " sons of God," (the very men who should support the cause of God,) saw the daughters of men," (that is, women descended from ungodly parents,) "that they were fair, they took them wives of all which they chose," and thus shamefully abandoned themselves to their own sensual affections, At that time of great degeneracy, one man was found faithful to his Goda man who lived uninfected with the general contagion that prevailed around him. That man was Enoch, the seventh from Adam". -a man who stood forward as the fearless advocate of God's cause, when that cause was derided by his fellow-men! And to show the world that it is no vain thing to serve God, we find that his distinguished and exemplary piety was rewarded with a singular mark of divine approbation; for he was taken up alive into heaven, without experiencing the ordinary pains that accompany mortal dissolution. "And Enoch walked with God, and he was

с

66

not, for God took him." And as a further illustration of the superior excellence of his character, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews informs us, "By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him : for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God."

What a striking display of the power of faith does the life of this primitive saint furnish us with! and how strenuous ought our endeavours to be, after the attainment of a principle so pleasing to God, and which adds such lustre to the human character!

With a peculiar reference to the solemnities of a communion Sabbath, in which you have been so lately engaged, that which I have particularly in view in addressing you at this time is, to offer for your consideration a few observations illustrative of the character of the man who walks with God.

The man, then, who walks with God, is a man who walks-1. Under an habitual sense of God's presence ; and this a never-failing fruit and effect of faith, whose province it is to give being and reality to objects that are invisible to the eye of sense.

It is the "fool who says in his heart, there is no God." All nature proclaims aloud, throughout the endlessly diversified forms of being that exist in her wide extended dominions, the presence, and power, and superintending care of God: nor are these characters of Deity less striking and conspicuous in that economy of grace, whereby the soul of man, by nature a waste and barren wilderness, becomes like the garden of the

Lord, and is formed into the divine image-adorned with the beauties of holiness-made to assume a new form of being-and to exercise functions suited to its renewed nature.

From the unbelieving world, who are "without God in the world"—who "walk not after God," but "walk contrary to him," the presence of God is awfully concealed; for the god of this world hath blinded their minds, so that they neither see in the works of nature, nor in the dispensations of providence or grace, that Being whose presence enlightens, animates, and pervades all his works. But so universal is God's presence, and so vivid and vigorous the perceptions of the believer, that wherever he is, or to whatever quarter or object he turns his eyes, he beholds the traces of God's presence and perfections. He recognizes his footsteps in the storm and in the sunshine-in judgments and in mercies-in the threatenings of the law, and in the still small voice of the Gospel-in the dark and cheerless night of adversity, as well as in the season of prosperity, when the light of God's countenance shines upon his soul. He sees God in the heavens above and in the earth beneath—in the meanest reptile that moves upon the ground-in the rude unformed masses of unorganized matter—in the corporeal part of his nature—and in the exact adaptation of all its members to the purposes of their formation. With clearer vision he beholds him in those faculties of the soul which so demonstrably show the wisdom, and power, and goodness of their great Original. But it is in the scheme of salvation, devised by the love and wisdom of