2. Believers will have a religious character according with their views of God. Nothing has been more obvious in the history of man, than the conformity of his religious character, to that of the God he believed in and worshiped. Pass through the territories of paganism, and, such as you find their gods, such are their worshippers. Are they fierce, and jealous, and lewd, and bloody, or mild and placable, such invariably are their devotees. And as you come up through the lower grades of nominal christians, ask them their views of God, and their answer will give you substantially the purity of their religious character. God is our highest object of respect and of imitation, and to be like him, the highest object of holy aspiration. Hence if in our esteem, his character is more or less pure and lovely, such we shall wish our own to be. He who sees in God no attribute but mercy, and never thinks of him but as a father, will be less likely to hate sin, and less careful to be holy, than the man who thinks of God as a sovereign, and a judge, as well as a father.

And the case will be similar as to enjoyment. No false views of God will render us as happy as correct views. If we see only the mild and merciful traits of the divine character, we may have joy,

And if we look

but it will not be solid and lasting. at God merely in the attitude of sovereignty, and may never call him our Father, or see his mercy commingled with his terrors, we shall be forever in bondage. There are no doubt many on their way

to heaven, who are so injured by their creed, as seldom to pray any other but the prayer of the condemned and the lost. They are serious and watchful christians, but never hopeful, and never happy: joint heirs with Christ, yet never venturing to say, Abba Father!

Nor will christians who have partial views of God be useful. It is when he appears in all his glories, attracting sinners to himself by the full view of his attributes, and mingling mercy with judgment, reigns to make his creatures happy, that we feel our souls inspired to be workers together with him in extending his dominions. It is then that it seems to us a grief and a pity, that there should be any heart alienated from him, any hands that do not labour in his service, or tongue that does not speak his praise. Not the sovereignty of God alone, nor his mercy alone, can make the most useful man. The one holds back the inspiring influence of joy and hope, the other begets a religion that will all evaporate in songs and hosannas. Angels are inspired, by seeing the whole of God; and men will be more or less like angels, as "The God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, shall give unto them the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of himself." Then it is that we feel it to be a reasonable service, that we present our bodies and our souls to him, a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable.

3. Society at large will shape its moral aspect

from the prevailing views of God.

As fraud and falsehood and blood invariably follow the track of idolatry, and the dark places of the earth are thus filled with the habitations of cruelty; so in the different parts of Christendom, you may gather the prevailing notions of God from the morals of the community. Survey the darker territories of the Catholic communion, and tell me if, in rapine and murder, their population is removed more than a single shade from the dreariness and desolations of paganism. Where in Christendom is life and property least secure, where are daily assassinations, where the whole population prepared for any deed of darkness and cruelty; but where there is least prevalent, a correct knowledge of God. And let any of the better territories of Christendom become apostate in their views of God, and how soon will vice spring up, the public morals be changed, the sabbath be lost, the theatre thronged, and dress and vanity fill the place of sobriety and prayer! How soon will the true followers of Christ be persecuted, and family devotion, and christian watchfulness, and all the retiring virtues of holier times disappear!

Thus

you have

my reasons for thinking this sub-' ject important. For these, and others that could be offered, I would watch the public creed relative to the character of God, more tenaciously than at any other point. It is the fortress I would starve in defending, the strong hold into which I would fly with my

children, and feel myself, and teach them to feel, that it is the only safe place to die.

Will the blessed God make me far better acquainted with his character, and never subject me to the awful temptation, of thinking it a light thing to either overlook, or give paramount importance, to any one of the glorious attributes of his nature. Will he cause his name to be known in all lands, and make his praise glorious, wherever there are beings capable of doing him honour,

SERMON S.

UNREGENERATE MEN WITHOUT

HOLINESS.

ROMANS III. 18.

"There is no fear of God before their eyes."

THE text gives us man's native character. Such he is till the Spirit of God has sanctified him. The criticism that would apply this whole passage, to the people only who lived before the flood, or to a very few of the baser sort of sinners, is a contrivance of infidelity, and is extensively employed, in the present day, to betray and ruin souls. The man who is willing to shape his creed by the divine record, is entirely satisfied, when he reads the passages in the Old Testament which are here quoted; but when he finds them referred to, by an inspired apostle, and by him applied to the whole human family, Jews and Gentiles, no shadow of doubt remains. He is now content to lie down under the humiliating charge they bring, and is ashamed and confounded before the great Searcher of hearts. He who has become a new creature will consent, that "God be true, though every man a liar.”

The fear of the Lord is a gracious affection, be