No. 4.

HARTLAND, DECEMBER, 1825.

VOL. VI.

SERMON, NO. XXVI.

[The following discourse is from the pen of Rev. James H. Bugbee, formerly of Pomfret, in this State, now of Rhode Island. X Colossians iii. 2.-"Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth."

The condition of man in this stage of being, when wisely and rightly considered, is found to be precarious and miserable. He finds himself possessed of a frail constitution, and environed with objects seductively pleasing and deludingly gay. His habitation is the abode of continual sorrow and affliction. Disease, pain, and disappointment are the companions of his whole life, and never forsake him till death closes the door and absolves the connection!

While man is the child of mortality, he is the unenvied heir of bitterness and discontent. He is compassed. with almost innumerable difficulties, and thwarted with continued aggravations and disappointments. His path. is strewed with ten thousand obstacles to perplex and harrass his mind, which render his pilgrimage a scene of toil and danger. This arises from two important considerations; first, the mutability and weakness of his own nature; secondly, from the deceptive nature of all earthly objects.

But we shall wave these reflections for the present, and attend to the admonition of the Apostle. "Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth."

I. "Set your affections on things above." Here we are admonished to lift our hearts upon the wings of faith, and embrace all those promises and blessings, with which the gospel of God abounds. The things above are of a celestial nature: They are pure, and VOL. VI.

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unchangeably the same; hence they will communicate a permanency of enjoyment, and are the only proper objects of our regard and supreme affection. By things above, the Apostle would doubtless be understood, those things, or blessings, which the Author of all good hath in mercy prepared for his offspring, the human race. This language was addressed to the believers at Colosse, particularly. Saith the Apostle, "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above:" but notwithstanding its primary application was to the believers in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, it may be addressed with the same energy to those who rest not by faith in the ark of safety. But why should the Apostle admonish those who had already become the sincere followers of the Lamb, to set their affections on things above? Answer. Because there was a liability of their becoming so immersed in the vanities and luxuries of this present world, as to render them neglectful of, and wean their affections from the things above. Because that they were in great danger of being seduced by the temptations of the world, from a course of pious virtue, and from their faith in the promises of the gospel, and of being separated from the enjoyment which it so richly communicates.

All the happiness which the believer enjoys, flows from the source of divine fulness, and is communicated through the medium of faith and devotion. The felicity of the saint is derived from his devotedness to God. His heart is drawn out in love to his Creator, which is inspired by a belief in his unceasing goodness, as manifested in the gift of his Son, in whom he finds redemption and forgiveness, and through whom he has access by faith into the kingdom of God, which consists in righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. The heart, or the affections, should be rivetted upon the things which alone can afford joy and consolation, and not

upon those things which, to use the language of the Apostle, perish with the using. The things that are above, as we have before observed, must be those truths, and those blessings which are comprehended in the gospel, or system of divine grace; which beamed from the fountain of divine fulness, to irradiate and enlighten the moral and intellectual kingdom. These things will never fail to feast the soul with heavenly food and delightful prospects. They present the character of God in the amiable light of love and benevolencethey recognize him as the Father of the human family, who is mercifully kind and benevolent-They unfold to the believer the final destiny of intelligent beingsthat they are the heirs of immortality and endless beatitude: they speak the deliverance of man from sin and corruption, and announce a consummate victory over death, hell, and him that hath the power of death. By setting our affections upon these joyful and animating prospects-by receiving and embracing the way, the life, and the truth; and by our renouncing the hidden things of dishonesty, and withholding our atttachment from the things on the earth, and transferring it to the things above, our hearts will be filled with hope and consolation here, and the pure water of life and felicity in a blissful paradise above.

In Christ are centered all our hopes and all our happiness. The life of the Christian is hid with Christ in God. He is our hope and our salvation-he is our Shepherd and our shield. In him dwells all fulness, all that the Deity has promised and willed to man, will be accomplished in him; "For the promises of God in him are no more yea and nay; but in him they are yea, and in him amen unto the glory of God by us." Then all the blessings and the consolations of the Christian. are vested in Christ, who is denominated the head of every man, and he is the medium through which those

spiritual comforts with which the believer is blest, are communicated to the heart. Hence Peter declares unto his brethren, the Jews, "Unto you, first, God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities." The conclusion, then, is a very just one; that those things above, upon which the Apostle directs us to place our affections, are all embodied in the blessed Redeemer, who is made of God unto us, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption. Those things above, represent those amiable qualities of the divine nature, with which the glorious Prince of life was so abundantly inspired; by the exercise of which he is enabled to subdue all things unto himself, whether they be things on earth, or things in heaven; and to clothe the vast family of man in the garments of righteousness, and crown them with unfading glory and unceasing felicity in heaven above, where he hath victoriously ascended, and sits enthroned upon the right hand of the majesty of Power! It is Christ, then, upon which we are exhorted by the text, to place, or set our affections. The eye of our minds should ever be upon him, who is our strength and our salvation, and who died that we might live.

But why should our minds be removed from earthly to heavenly objects? Why should the Apostle admonish us to set our affections on things above, not on things on the earth? Compare, my friends, earthly objects, or things, with the joys they communicate, with those which the Apostle denominates things above, and you will discover the propriety and weight of the Apostle's language. Consider, for one moment the transient nature of all mundane objects! the volatile pleasure which they communicate, and their liability of decay. Let experience be your monitor, and let her voice decide for you. Hear, then, the voice of experience: place

not your affections on things on the earth; repose not thy confidence in temporal objects, for they are but the meteors of a day, which bloom for a time, and then vanish forever. All earthly things are marked by the unrelenting angel of destruction, and are swiftly crumbling and wasting before this mighty monarch of the dust! Set not your hearts on the things on the earth, for they will desert you in the hour of peril-their beauty is as the flower of spring, which fades and droops in the hands of the possessor-all beneath the resplendant orb of day, is subject to change, and bears the sure symptoms of a dissolution. Hence it is but reasonable to expect, that if we rest our affections upon such mutable and transient objects, we shall be disappointed, and left desolate in the hour of darkness and distress. In the arms of wealth, or in the garden of earthly pleasures, is man, the recipient of happiness, and free from the common annoyances of life? Does the possession of temporal toys or worldly vanities secure to their possessor the permanency of enjoyment? Can the possession of earthly things render us safe upon the ocean of life ?-will they hush the tumult of contending elements, or buy the boisterous waves to cease their raging? When dire disease attacks man's feeble frame, and the pallid hand of death feels for the vital spark, will earthly vanities arrest his bold career, or purchase a reprieve? In the awful hour of dissolution, would the consideration of earthly things turn thy convulsions into emotions of joy, and make a deathbed soft as downy pillows? Would they calm the terrors of the soul, or impart hope and consolation to the fluttering spirit? No. Cities and kingdoms would then appear as the dust in the balance. Then the things of time would appear in their native light. Their nothingness and inefficiency is so clearly manifested from such reflections, that the admonition of the Apostle,