he remain in his ignorance. If the sufferings and the glory of Christ are things into which the angels desire to look, 1 Pet. i. 12. shall we despise them as unworthy of our notice?

2dly. In your enquiry after truth, study the holy scriptures. They are the field where lie the precious pearls. And therefore such as never set foot on the one, cannot expect to be enriched with the other. It is by revelation only that we can come to the knowledge of evangelic truth. Let us therefore acquaint ourselves with the inspired volumes. To them let us daily go, that we may hear what the God of truth has said. To these wells of salvation let us often come, that thence we may draw the living water.

3dly. To the reading of the scriptures, let us add fervent prayer to the Father of Lights that he may send his Holy Spirit, to lead us to the knowledge of the truth. Let us never look into the scriptures without looking up to him whose word they are, crying with the Psalmist," Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law," Psalm cxix. 18. To think that reading, without prayer, may suffice to lead unto truth, is to trust on ourselves. There must be a divine agency on our minds, else we shall never see the truth so as to love it. Unless taught of God, we cannot know the truth as it is in Jesus. He who has wrote the truth to us by means of men, must also write it in us with his own hand.

4thly. Walk according to your light, as you would wish to have it increased. Being faithful in a little, is the high way to be entrusted with more. The ulti mate end of light is to direct, and so is it with evangelic truth. To know the truth, and not to walk in it, is a fearful abuse, which God will not fail to avenge. The secret of the Lord is with them only who fear him. If any man, says Christ, will do his will who sent me, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself, John vii. 17.

5thly. Hold fast the truth which you have learned. Having bought it, so to speak, sell it not, for its price

is above rubies. Be not soon shaken in mind by the subtile disputes of men. Plain scripture may bear you up against a thousand subtilties. Be not moved with mockers. They can laugh who cannot reason. The higher that the winds of error blow, cleave more closely to the truth. Hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown, Rev. iii. 11. Struggle for every truth as the high priest would have done for the stones of his breastplate. The attempt of some miscreant to have torn one of these out of its place, would not have been more unhallowed than that of those, who would rob you of the truth revealed in the glorious gospel.

6thly. Beware of every thing which may have the remotest tendency to confirm enemies in their prejudices against the truth. All the New Testament writ ers, whether historical or epistolary, set us a notable example as to this. They do not launch out into pro. voking language against the heathens with whom they were surrounded. How pitiable to see numbers of dis putants, who throw much more mire and dirt upon one another, than light upon the subject concerning which they profess to contend. It is not in wrath, but in meekness, that we should deal with those who oppose themselves, 2 Tim. ii. 25.

7thly and Lastly. Shun, however, all unnecessary familiarity with them. It is sacred to a proverb, that a companion of fools shall be destroyed, Prov. xiii. 20. To be discreet is one thing, familiar another. By forming an unnecessary connection with the enemies of truth, we are ready to blunt the edge of our zeal, to learn of them their way, and to bring our own character under suspicion.

Now unto him, who being in the form of God, and thought it no robbery to be altogether equal with God, nevertheless took upon him the form of a servant, to him be glory and dominion, for ever and ever.

FINIS.

Amen.