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add to that fund which is to be devoted to the service of your Almighty Benefactor. Then shall we no longer be deservedly reproached with regard to our own houses, while we neglect the temple of God. Then may we expect the blessing of Him, who says, "Them who honour me, I will honour.” And when, my brethren, the work is completed, forgetting all our little differences of opinion which so often arise in this world of imperfections, we will unite in the song of the heavenly host, when He who came to preach the gospel to the poor, descended below; "Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, good will toward

men.”

SERMON III.

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51

SERMON III.

PROVERBS iii. 9, 10.

"Honour the Lord with thy substance, and with the first fruits of all thine increase. So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine."

THERE is nothing more convincing to the unprejudiced reader of the Word of God that its author is the all-wise and omnipotent Jehovah, than the intimate knowledge it shows of the workings of the human heart, and the various motives it in consequence presents to the performance of that which is right; while, on the other hand, the reluctance to be led by those

motives in the path that God intended, or the perversion of the motives to unhallowed and worldly ends, is an equally convincing proof of the depravity of the human heart. God implanted in mankind the love of knowledge; Satan perverted the inclination, and turned it into sin. Our first parents plucked the fruit of that tree which God had forbidden them to touch, and thus sin with all its attendant woes entered, where it was intended that holiness and purity should for ever dwell. God placed man on earth, as in a state of probation, that he might become more and more like himself-an object worthy of his highest ambition, had he rightly pursued it. Ye shall be as gods, was the exclamation of the arch tempter. Our first parents fell into the snare, disobeyed their Creator, in order to attain an end which they so much desired-and deservedly became objects of the just displeasure of their offended Maker, and of malicious scorn to him who had seduced them from their allegiance and hap

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