Let us ask then, does our practical estimate of the worth of the soul harmonize with that of the Word of God? If the souls of men are endangered by the world, our fitness to save them will depend on our unworldliness. The measure of our spirituality will be the exact measure of our fitness to detach them from the world. To be apathetic about their highest interests, self-indulgent, half worldly ourselves, can only tend to rivet their chains, and to render them satisfied with their state.

My young friends, come, I entreat you, and make this the season of your dedication to God. Christ and the world invite and divide your regards. Could we actually put you in possession of the entire world, and make your life commensurate with the world's existence, do you not see that the lapse of every moment would diminish your interest in your possessions, and bring you nearer to the period when the whole would vanish? On the other hand, what shall it not profit you if, in parting with the world, you save your own soul? What? You find life! Not merely existence, but all that can enrich, expand, and make existence infinitely desirable motives for all its actions, and objects for its noblest affections. You gain a world in which to enjoy it; this world is too confined for it.; it asks the scope of infinity for its expansion. You find yourselves surrounded with the means of saving others. Only give yourselves up to the absorbing sentiment of the text, and throw your heart into the great work of man's recovery, and Heaven itself shall join you, and the Holy Spirit anoint you to your work.

SERMON III.

THE CONSECRATION OF MAN'S WHOLE NATURE.

1 Cor. vi. 19, 20-"What! know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? for ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's."

SOME ages hence, when an intelligent descendant of the liberated negroes shall read, "your release was bought with £20,000,000," what visions of the past we may suppose the expression to call up before the eye of his mind-a vision of Africa as it was before the first slave-ship touched its shores, peopled with myriads of freemen—“noble shapes, kings of the desert, men whose stately tread brought from the dust the sound of liberty”—a vision of those same men changed into shapes of deformity, by degradation, madness, and despair, scorning the iron which gnawed into their heartsrecollections of the tears, the travels, the entreaties, the heart-wearing labours, the multiform struggle maintained year after year by the Christian apostles of freedom against the inhuman abettors of slavery, till the hand of God smote and shivered the system; and all its fiendish apparatus, manacles, scourges, and chains, were brought as spoil to the feet of divine Christianity-the clouds which for ages had hung over Africa and her children in the west rolled away, and a voice was heard, saying, as from heaven, "Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord hath arisen upon thee!" And with these visions of the past before his view, what sentiments of veneration and gratitude for those who instrumentally achieved the grand consummation

may we suppose expanding his soul-what a devoted champion may we picture him for the freedom of the world!

We, brethren, as Christians, occupy a spiritual position very analogous to the civil position of the individual supposed. On opening this ancient and sacred book, we find a document addressed nearly eighteen hundred years ago to certain Christians, and containing this remarkable expression, "Ye are bought, or bought off-that is, redeemedwith a price." What a hint to the imagination is here! what a world of truth condensed into an atom! Who does not think at once of primeval Eden—of man walking there in his Maker's image, with perfect liberty for his birthright, the world for his free domain, and God, and the angels of God, for his companions? But soon the vision changesanother party appears on the stage of action in the person of the Tempter, and Eden vanishes, and happiness departs. Man is seen in a wilderness moving among thorns and briars. The creatures have shaken off his yoke, and revolted from his dominion. His own passions rebel, each one asserting its right to reign, and he is the slave of them all. Two thousand years roll on, and the entire race, sworn as one man to the service of Satan, and in love with his chains, is swept from the earth by a universal flood. Another long and dreary period succeeds; and behold a whole nation in civil captivity one day, and the next at liberty, and marching to take possession of a distant land-the greatest providential event in the history of the world. But great as it is, it is only a type of that spiritual redemption which, in the fulness of time, awaits the entire race. Another cycle of ages, and behold on Calvary a scene with which all nature sympathizes. The veil of the temple rent in twain—the convulsions of the earth--the darkened sun, proclaim some unparalleled occurrence. The Son of God is there paying the price of human redemption. For the ransom of a world in bondage to sin, and sold to destruction, He is there presenting a moral compensation-a compensation consisting

not of corruptible things, such as silver and gold, but of blood-His own most precious blood. Angels pressed in to see that sight. God himself was there to ratify the transaction, and, when it was concluded, a voice from the excellent glory may be regarded as saying to the world, "Ye are now bought―redeemed with a price-glorify God in your bodies, and in your spirits, which are his." And who does not know the effect? Thousands did thus glorify him. So effectually were they wrought on by that display of Divine compassion, that they thus judged, “that if One died for all, then were all dead; and that He died for all, that they who live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him that died for them, and rose again "—they judged, that instead of living as if they were under little or no obligation to Him, they should henceforth act as if the duty of living to Him were the only obligation they were under, and that the best way of doing that would be by conveying the knowledge of His redemption to others, and thus working out the grand purposes of His atoning death.

But were none of them in danger of losing sight of this obligation, and of relapsing into their original selfishness and sin? This was precisely the fact with the persons addressed in the text. To rescue them from this danger it was that we here see the apostle rushing into their presence with the Cross-bringing the blood of Christ before their eyes as the price of their redemption. As if he had said,

Even in the Roman civil law it is a maxim, that a person whose life has been forfeited, but ransomed and preserved by another, is bound to devote all his future life for the benefit of his deliverer. You were the slaves of Satan your lives were forfeited to the justice of God-soon, very soon would you have eternally perished-but you have been bought off with a price! what a price I will not attempt to say, language would only impoverish the idea. Oh let the recollection of its value, of the infinite love which it displays, and the infinite blessings which it procures, reclaim you to a

sense of your obligation to glorify God in your bodies, and in your spirits, which are His."

Brethren, though nearly two thousand years have elapsed since the apostle wrote thus to the Church at Corinth, do we not all recognize its applicability to us? Are we less prone. than they to forget our obligation to live unto Christ? Do we need less than they to be reminded of the price by which we have been redeemed? to have Christ "evidently set forth crucified amongst us?" Oh, as if the scenes of Calvary had but just transpired-as if the ransom-blood had just been shed-and Paul were still visiting the Churches and the epistle containing the remonstrance in the text had been addressed by name to the Christians of this assembly, and had only reached us this day fresh from his inspired pen-let it impress us with the universality and entireness of Christian consecration, and with the great Gospel motive or obligation to it.

I.

First, when the apostle enjoins us to glorify God in our body and in our spirit, he would teach us that our consecration is to be universal, including every thing in us and belonging to us. As the property of Christ, every part and faculty of our nature, and everything by which we can influence others, is converted into a talent of which He may be regarded as saying "Occupy till I come-employ it for me." Now, in order that we may see the extent of our obligation, let us glance at a few of the various means we possess of serving Him.

1. The knowledge of His Gospel is a talent-the first Christian talent we are supposed to possess-and that which is to induce us to consecrate every other talent to His glory. Knowledge of every kind is proverbially said to be power. "There is no power on earth," said the great man who originated that proverb-"there is no power on earth which setteth up a throne or chair of state in the spirits and souls