their proper end ? Brethren, only reflect on the office of true wisdom, as delineated in the passage before us, and you will never want either a direction or a motive for a profitable attendance on the means of grace.]
2. With what care we should improve it —
[The word we hear will judge us in the last day : and if we do not take occasion from it to follow the counsels of the Most High, we shall greatly aggravate our guilt before God. The word we hear, if it prove not " a savour of life unto life, will become to us a savour of death unto death." The lessons of wdsdom had'better never have been delivered to us, than be suffered to pass away without a suitable improvement of them. Our blessed Lord told his hearers, that if he had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin ; but that now they had no cloak for their sin. And so must I also say unto you. All that you have heard respecting the evil of sin, the sufficiency of Christ, the beauty of holiness, of what use will it be to you, if it do not humble you as sinners, encourage you as penitents, and animate you as believers ? I pray you, neglect not the day of your visitation, nor " hold the truth in unrighteousness ;" but receive the truth in the love of it ; and deliver your souls into it as a mould, that it may fashion you after the image of your God. And never imagine that you have got above the use of ordinances, or that it is of no profit to attend upon them : they are the golden pipes through which, to your latest hour, you must receive the golden oil into your lamps ; and through the supplies of the Spirit which you may receive by them, you may hope that your path shall shine brighter and brighter unto the perfect day."]