has peace with God ! how rich the soul that has all the glory and felicity of heaven! Yet " is it all yours, if ye are Christ's." In your desires after these riches, you cannot be too enlarged. You may " covet as earnestly as you will these gifts :" nor will this principle ever operate, but for the production of good ; good in yourselves, and good to all around you. Nothing but joy will ever result from this : the fruit of this will be joy in time, and glory in eternity. Get this principle rooted in the soul, and all the riches of this world will be as the dust upon the balance, yea, lighter than vanity itself.]
1 Tim. vi. 11. Thou, 0 man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness.
NEVER can we lay too great a stress on the prac- tical duties of Christianity, provided we keep them in their proper place, and perform them not for the purpose of making them a justifying righteousness before God, but of evincing the sincerity of our faith in Christ, and the truth of our love to him. The things of this world always stand, as it were, in com- petition with him ; and the carnal man gives to them a decided and habitual preference. It is in vain that men are told how unsatisfying and transient a portion the world is, or what evils the love of it will entail upon us. The ungodly will affect riches as a source of happiness, and will pursue them as their chief good : but the true Christian must not do so : " Thou, O man of God, whoever thou art, thou must flee these things," and " follow after the things which will make for thy eternal peace." There is in this ex- hortation a peculiarity worthy of our attention : and, that I may present it to you in its just view, I will point out, I. The duties here inculcated —
They are two : the avoiding of evil, and the cul- tivating of good. Let us mark, 1 . The evils to be avoided —