and true holiness : " and look to it, that, in these and all other respects, ye walk worthy of Him who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory.]
2. How we may ensure to ourselves all its glorious effects —
[The Gentiles, in the latter days, may well be proposed as a pattern for us in the present day. Let an entire conformity of heart and life to God's revealed will be the one object of our pursuit. Seek knowledge, not for its own sake, but for its influence upon the soul: and seek grace, not for the aggrandize- ment of yourselves, but that God may be glorified in the whole of your conversation. If you come up to the House of God with such dispositions as these, you will find that there is a power in the word to enlighten and sanctify the soul ; and, in proportion as you cultivate these dispositions, you will " grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."
It will also have a good effect to animate and encourage one another. This will characterize the Christians in the latter day : and the influence of social piety will be found most beneficial to your souls. Be careful, however, when exhorting others to come up to the House of the Lord, never to omit, in spirit at least, if not in word, " I will go alsof."~\
3. What glorious times are hastening upon us —
[We do hope that the times here spoken of are not far dis- tant. Multitudes of us who are here present can remember when the Church was by no means what it now is : even twenty years have made an immense difference ; so great, compara- tively, has been the out-pouring of God's Spirit, beyond what it has been for centuries before. And we account it no small privilege to live in a day when some of the greatest Potentates upon earth are uniting, with their subjects of every denomination and description, to disseminate throughout the world the glo- rious Gospel of the blessed God. By this we may form some little judgment what to expect in that day, when, in every na- tion under heaven, kings shall be the nursing-fathers, and queens the nursing-mothers, of the Church. O blessed times ! May God accelerate them ! and may we all exert ourselves, as his instruments, to accomplish his will, and to hasten forward these glorious events ! If it be thought that these prospects are too good to be ever realized ; let any one only compare Britain as it now is, with what it was before the banners of the Cross were erected on our shores ; and then he will see no reason to despair of those nations that are yet " sitting in darkness and
f Zech. viii. 20, 21.