SERMON XXVII.—GRATITUDE, PECULIARLY INCUMBENNT ON CHRISTIANS.-St. Luke, xvii. 15. 16.—“And one of them when he saw he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks, and he was a Samaritan."

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SERMON XXVIII.-THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD.-Eph. i. 11."In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will." SERMON XXIX.-CONFIDENCE IN THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD RECOMMENDED.-Matt. vi. 34.-"Take, therefore, no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.”

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SERMON XXX.-THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST.-Luke, xxiv. 34.-"The Lord is risen indeed."

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SERMON XXXI.—THE SUBJECT CONTINUED.-Luke, xxiv. 34.-"The Lord is risen indeed."

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SERMON XXXII.-THE CHARACTER AND OPERATIONS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.--John, xiv. 16. 17.-"I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another comforter, that he may abide with you forever; even the Spirit of Truth."

SERMON XXXIII.—THE QUALITIES ESSENTIAL TO DEVOTION, AND THE ADVANTAGES RESULTING FROM IT. James, iv. 8.--"Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you." SERMON XXXIV.—UNIVERSAL PRAISE.-Psalm cl.-"Praise ye the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in the firmament of his power; praise him for his mighty acts; praise him according to his excellent greatness; praise him with the sound of the trumpet; praise him with the psaltery and harp; praise him with the timbral and dance; praise him with stringed instruments and organs; praise him upon the loud cymbals; praise him upon the high-sounding cymbals; let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord."

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SERMONS

BY THE

LATE REV. JAMES INGLIS.

SERMON 1.

CHRIST, OUR LIFE.

1 JOHN, V. 12.

"He that hath the Son, hath the life."

WHEN that fatal act was perpetrated by which our race incurred the displeasure of heaven, death erected his throne. At that moment the decree went forth which numbered every child of Adam among his subjects, and put into his hands an iron sceptre to minister to the justice of God. His dominion embraces both the natural and moral worlds. Every where we trace his footsteps. At his touch, beauty withers; strength is unnerved; and the proudest monuments of human glory vanish like a vision. If we follow him into the spiritual department of his empire, what desolations do we not behold! All the ravages which mark the progress of mortals to conquest and power, are but faint emblems of the ruins of the soul. Where is Piety? Where is Charity?Where is Primeval Integrity? Is this the being formed in the divine likeness, with an understanding to know, and a heart to love God and virtue? It is--but ah! how changed,

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Man is fallen from his high estate; his sins are at once the evidence and the reward of his defection. They form the very sting of death. They give edge to his sword, and barb his arrow's point. Without them, his stroke would be innoxious. For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes are dim; "because the enemy prevailed, and the destroyer is among the works of God."* We see his operations in the gradual decay of our bodies; we feel his chilling touch upon our hearts, weakening our strength in the way; repressing the flight of devotion; extinguishing the fire of love; inspiring a servile fear where the reverential confidence of the child should predominate, and compelling us to evil, even when we would do good. Seeing these things, feeling these things, we exclaim, "O wretched men that we are, who shall deliver us from the body of this death." The answer to this anxious and most impressive question is near us, even in our mouths. "God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son;" therefore, "He that hath the Son, hath life." Let us seriously apply ourselves to meditate upon that life which the atoning merits of Christ have procured for those who believe in him. Corresponding with those evils in which death involves us, the loss of innocence-the corruption of the heart-the distresses of this world, and the torments of the next-are the consolations to be derived from this sacred oracle, "He that hath the son, hath life." Contemplate the blessing it announces as an assemblage of all those traits of mercy which distinguish the redemption of a guilty world. Contemplate it more particularly under three characters; the remission of your sins; the renovation of your nature; your final resurrection to heaven and immortality.

"He that hath the son, hath life," because his sins are forgiven.

There is no truth more evident than this, that God is a holy, and man an unholy being. Reason, conscience, and

* Lam. i. xvi. 5, 17. ` † Rom. vii. 24.

faith combine their testimony in support of this truth. If we look round upon the world, we perceive the sanctity of God in the dispensations of his providence. We behold him ever active in punishing those disorders which insult his moral government; at one time visiting the iniquities of individuals with the rod of justice, and casting the bloody and deceitful man into the pit which he had digged for the righteous; at another, desolating whole nations by the scourge of war, by pestilence, or by famine, and sweeping them from the earth with the besom of destruction. These awful events proclaim the divine holiness not more loudly than human guilt. God does not willingly afflict the children of men, Mercy is his delight, and judgment his strange work. Every act of severity which signalizes his government, is an execution of that sentence of death which constitutes the wages of sin. It was probably the contrast which common observation must have occasioned between the sanctity of the divine nature, and the vices of men, that led some among the heathens to suspect that our race is in a lapsed state. No sentiment was more common with many of their moralists than that of the imperfection of human virtue. Most, if not all, of the religious institutions which have obtained in the world, pre-suppose equally the existence of impurity in the votary, and purity in the object of adoration. Hence, the altar and the victim-hence, the incense and the ablution.

If we have recourse to conscience, it will tell us the same unwelcome truth. We might challenge the world to produce that man who can lay his hand upon his heart, and in the presence of HIM who searcheth the heart, and trieth the reins, declare himself unconscious of a fault. But if conscience convinces us of sin, what is this but to teach us also the sanctity of that Being, whose commandments we have transgressed? Here is her office; in this consists her power. Reason and conscience, therefore, concur in their evidence. But it is in the school of inspiration that we are to look for