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There will be no such diminution of the eternal enjoyment prepared for the righteous in his heavenly kingdom: nothing to disturb the happiness of those who have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. "Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes."

Such is a slight description of the happiness which the soul is capable of enjoying, and of the misery which it is capable of enduring; and in this its capacity, we find the explanation of that miracle of mercy, Christ crucified in the flesh. Then when we contemplate the stupendous method of man's redemption, we are lost in amazement. There have not been wanting those who have dared to call the means disproportionate to the end. But when, on the other hand, we estimate, or attempt to estimate, (for in truth we cannot reckon it,) when we contemplate, then, the capacity of the soul, and when we add eternity to the calculation, our wonder ceases, and becomes what it ought to be, lowly and obedient gratitude. Here, then, do we see the force of that touching question put by him who testified that which he had seen, and spoke of what he knew-"What shall it profit a man, if he should gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"

I come now to consider another capacity of the soul-ITS CAPACITY OF GOODNESS AND OF WICKEDNESS. I speak, you will observe, not of any goodness which it naturally has, but of that of which it is capable. The natural imagination of man's heart is evil, and that continually, since he fell from the innocency in which he was created: and the consciences of every Christian will respond to the confession of St Paul, "In me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing." The soul, however, which was created in the image of God, and which has lost that likeness, is capable of having that image restored. It is capable of much which our reason tells us is good in itself, and which Scripture tells us is pleasing in the sight of God. How beautiful is the conduct of Abraham, as recorded in Genesis, xiii., when the land in which they were dwelling grew too strait for himself and his nephew Lot, and it became needful that they should separate: "And Abraham said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be brethren. Is not the whole land before thee? Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left." How admirable is the affection of Moses towards the Israelites, and the disinterestedness with which he entreats God to spare them. God had said, “I will smite them with pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of thee a greater nation and mightier than they." Moses thus might have become the stem, from whose seed all the nations of the earth might be blessed; but Moses pleads with God, pleads against himself the promise of God, and the glory of God, and the mercy of God, and entreats him by all his attributes: "Pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people, according unto the greatness of thy mercy, and as thou hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now." I will not take example from the perfect excellence of the Lord Jesus, because in him, it may be argued the divine nature was added to the human nature.

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even though I might reply, that every soul is capable of this union, and that every sincere believer partakes of it, and is only good in proportion as he partakes of it. He dwells in Christ, and Christ in him; he is one with Christ, and Christ with him. But to leave this, look at the resignation of Job: "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord." Look at the piety of Daniel, who though he knew the writing was issued, which should condemn him before an earthly tribunal, yet, "his window being opened in his chamber before Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and he prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime." Once more, admire the spirit of the martyr Stephen, who returned blessing for cursing, and kneeled down and cried with a loud voice, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge."

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Even at a very early age the soul is capable of this goodness. All who are in the habit of attending institutions like that which asks your aid to-day, must have been convinced of this fact. Let me mention one case that fell within my own knowledge. A child, in a school of this kind, in consequence of superior docility and attention, had been set above the child of a neighbour. This so incensed the mother of that child, that she waylaid the one whose merit had been thus rewarded, and beat her severely the parents of the injured child naturally resented this, and resolved to make it a matter of serious complaint on the following morning. In the middle of the night the mother was surprised by being called by her child, who said to her, "Mother, I am afraid from what I heard you determine last night, that you have not forgiven such an one (mentioning the name of the offender.) I am taught at my school that we are to love our enemies, and to pray for them that despitefully use us. Let us forgive her, and think no more of her wickedness." The soul, then, is capable of goodness; the fruits of the Spirit may grow upon it, which are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness.

There is less need of proving that it is capable of wickedness; for "from within, out of the heart, proceed evil thoughts, adultery, murder, fornication, theft, false witness, blasphemy; and these defile the soul;" they have defiled it ever since the time that Adam transgressed the command of God, and brought sin into the world. What envy, hatred, and malice were in the heart of Cain, when he rose up against his brother Abel and slew him; or of Esau, who “hated Jacob, because of the blessing wherewith his father had blessed him: "And Esau said in his heart, The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then will I slay my brother Jacob." Look at the history of Pharoah, one while entreating and repenting, and promising obedience, and then repenting of his repentance, and defying the power of God. Or take the case of Judas, daily hearing the word of righteousness-words such as never man spake, doctrines at which the people were astonished-yet not subdued, not converted, cherishing a secret sin, indulging covetousness, and appropriating to his own use what was designed for the poor. I feel, that upon this distressing truth it is needless to enlarge, needless to prove what every man's experience too certainly convinces him to be true, if he attends to his own heart, and observes what is passing in the world around him. We must all have too intimate a knowledge of the wickedness of which the soul is capable.

Let me now proceed to remind you, in the third place, that BETWEEN THIS WICKEDNESS AND MISERY, AS ALSO BETWEEN GOODNESS AND HAPPINESS, GOD HAS APPOINTED AN INSEPARABLE CONNEXION. "The righteous shall go into life eternal; into that world where is fulness of joy, and pleasures for

evermore; and where "there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away: but the unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." We do not stop to enter into the question of what is meant by this "second death:" whether it speaks of actual material fire, or whether the fire be figurative, it expresses the greatest imaginable misery. But this we know, that the unrestrained wickedness of the unrenewed heart leads on to misery in the way of natural consequence ; it needs not the idea of material fire to form an addition to bodily anguish. The souls of the wicked, as well as of the good, are immortal; separated, indeed, into their respective folds, as a shepherd separates his sheep from the goats, but still continuing immortal. The luxurious and unpitying Dives had his immortal soul, as well as the patient afflicted Lazarus. The wicked collected together, with all their evil passions—one like Cain with his envy, another like Esau with his revenge, another like Pharoah with his pride and cruelty, another with his lust, and another with his covetousness-and with the power of tormenting themselves and one another (and it is very great, the power which evil passions can furnish,) but without the power of destroying or being destroyed, that is, of putting an end or limit to their misery and imagine over them Satan and his bad angels, not for the proper purpose of government, to restrain the wrath, but to stir up all that is malicious in their na ure, and ferocious in their daring; and it is this to which Scripture leads you when it speaks of those who are "cast into outer darkness, where is weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth." This then, brethren, is the natural end of wickedness in the immortal creature. It may be called its punishment; but it is, in fact, its natural consequence. He dies; his body perishes; but the soul remains unchanged and unchangeable. Instead of growing better, it has been sinking deeper and deeper in sin; and what is there to change it in the process of dying? What room for repentance and reformation in the grave? He, then, that is unjust, will be unjust still, (mark how the conclusions of reason and how the words of revelation agree): "he that is unjust let him be unjust still; he that is holy let him be holy still." The unholy men, with the wicked, and the devilish, shall be shut out from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.

This is no abstract speculation; though, if it were, it would still be interesting and astonishing: but it is not; we must not so consider it: it concerns ourselves and those around us. Those around us have sou's capable of all that suffering, and all that enjoyment, which I have feebly endeavoured to describe. And we, too, have souls which may add to faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kinduess charity. We, too, have souls which on the other hand may be filled with idolatry, lasciviousness, adultery, hatred, wrath, strife, deceit, heresies, and may have all the characters of which the Apostle tells us, that they who are marked with them shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven.

Here, then, you see-and this is one point to which I would bring you—you sce the importance of that culture which we this day entreat you to bestow upon the infant soul; on those souls which are springing up under your eye, and in your neighbourhood, either for everlasting misery or for everlasting glory. I have shewn that the soul which is to dwell in glory must be prepared

for it; but there is a process going on in all for the one destination or the other. You know, and well know, whether without a careful Christian education there is any hope of a Christian life; whether without culture, and restraint, and instruction in righteousness, there is any hope of a righteous practice; and whether those whose youthful minds are left neglected, are likely to follow the example of good, and not of evil. Even the most careful culture is sometimes counteracted by the wickedness, by the badness of the soil, by the unfavourable elements of a deceitful world. But where no culture is bestowed, no good seed sown, there can be only tares. Nay, I will go further, and say, that such is the difficulty and labour, that had the consequences been less momentous, had the soul less capacity to suffer or to enjoy, as the description of eternal misery or eternal happiness and glory, we must be content to leave these infants in the condition of their fallen nature; leave them to the grossness of ignorance, or to the habits of vice; but we cannot do this with the confession on our lips, that we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come;" we cannot do it with the title on our foreheads of disciples of Christ, who, because such was the need of ruined and corrupted nature, came from heaven to redeem us from ruin, to seek that which was lost, to save that which was condemned. Brethren, let the love of Christ constrain you; let the example of Christ instruct you; he pitied the condition, not only of those, but of all mankind but especially shewed a tender compassion for those young children that were brought to him. He took them up in his arms and blessed them. He knew too well the nature of that world to which they were exposed, to send them into it without his blessing. And, in truth, in every case, even in what may seem the most favourable circumstances of life, the child is an object of trembling anxiety to a Christian mind: he has the world (and what a world!) to pass through, and it leads him to eternity. This we cannot alter, this we cannot change; the soul, whose present joys or griefs hardly extend beyond the moment that is fleeting, is destined either to joys or griefs which will be infinite and everlasting. This, I say, is the condition in which it hath pleased the Almighty to place man; if I ought not rather to say, that it is the condition to which sin has reduced him.

But that condition may well excite pity, which moved the compassion of the Son of God; and we may well do all that is in our power to render this his mercy available. These children whose cause I plead, are placed within your reach by the dispensations of Providence. Let it be your care, that souls so precious be fed with the sincere milk of the Word of God. Provide that in their early thoughts, happiness should be associated with obedience to their Maker, and misery with the ways of sin: they will find it to be too surely so associated in their own experience; oh, let them know it by caution and by Christian teaching. Provide that they may be taught to bring under their passions, and keep them in subjection, before they are cast among those, as it is too probable they may be, by whom passions are commonly indulged; before they learn to blaspheme the Name of God, as it is too much to be feared they would find those who would so instruct them, let them be taught His name is holy; before they are plunged into a world which is their passage to eternity, acquaint them with Him who stands forth in righteousness, mighty to save; acquaint them with the true Shepherd, that they may hear his voice and follow him, for it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish

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THE SUPERIORITY OF CHRISTIAN LOVE.

RIGHT REV. H. RYDER, D.D., LORD BISHOP OF LICHFIELD AND COVENTRY. SIR G. WHELER'S CHAPEL, SPITAL SQUARE, APRIL 20, 1834.

"And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.” 1 CORINTHIANS, xiii. 13.

THIS is indeed a text and a subject which seems, at first, particularly familiar and trite to the generality of hearers. Converted, as it has too often been, into a simple exhortation to alms-giving, it has met with the ready acquiescence and approbation-it has flattered the vanity, and soothed the misgivings, of many a soul on account of deficiencies in innumerable other Christian duties. It has built up many in self-righteousness and fatal security; it has afforded others a convenient compromise or compensation for general ungodliness, and even for practical unbelief. It has been singularly wrested by perversion, and abused to the injury and perdition of the unlearned and unstable, and even of those who are wise only as to this world.

But, rightly understood, combined with the context, this text is surely fraught with profitable admonition, and, engrafted by the influence of the Holy Spirit on the heart, and put forth into action, admirably calculated to hear the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ to the praise and glory of God. It will then be found amply and adequately to promote the object entrusted this evening to my ministerial care, in instilling right and scriptural motives; it will be calculated to draw forth from well instructed and willing hearts a liberal contribution. Instruction, thus in season, may bless those who have to give, as well as those who have to receive.

For the right understanding of the text, we must premise, that the word "charity," in the original language, and in the primitive meaning of our own language, signifies love: as it is well expressed by the divine Hooker: “ The Christian virtue of universal love: love to man, in obedience to the command of God, and for the sake of our Redeemer; love to our brethren for whom our Christ died." Let us then, inserting "love" for "charity," enter into the text, in conjunction with the chapter of which it is the close and consummation.

The members of the Corinthian Church appear to exhibit a considerable remainder of indwelling sin, manifesting much that is satisfactory and pleasing as evidence of their faith in Christ, and these amidst a remarkably rich abund ance of spiritual gifts and endowments. The Apostle, therefore, suited his address to their proper wan's and necessities, and after a suitable introduction, deals much in direct and in indirect reproof. Originally brought up in the lap of wealth and luxury, and addicted to the indulgence of the licentious and malignant passions, the Corinthian disciples were, by the operation of con

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