cious beyond all price and calculation: or even to employ the loudest and noblest language to celebrate its worth. The essential step is to come out from the crowd of negligent and unawakened bystanders: to produce our title to it, and lay claim to all the blessings and privileges it is calculated to convey. Nor am I stating this upon mere hypothesis. Scripture calls for this approach to God. "I will be inquired of by the house of Israel"-" draw nigh unto God." And every man, who is seriously interested in religion, is conscious of an act of his mind, by which, under the power of his God, he has disengaged himself from other pursuits to surrender himself to this; by which he has forsaken "the cisterns that hold no water," to search out for himself the "fountains of living water." And the result of this search is, that he is no longer a Christian by mere prescription, or inheritance, or accident, or authority; but a Christian upon principle, a Christian in conscience, a Christian in heart; and is able, in the spirit of the men of Samaria, after they had themselves personally communicated with the Saviour, to say, "Now we believe, not because of thy saying; for we have seen him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Son of the living God."

2. The Psalmist then adds, with regard to these testimonies, "I have claimed them as my heritage."-The expression has probably a reference to the heritage, or inheritance, assigned by God himself to his people in the land of Canaan. The Psalmist, it would appear, considered the various blessings offered in the book of God, as, like the hills and valleys of that land of rest, the portion appointed and bestowed by the sponta

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neous goodness and bounty of his Heavenly Father. To the Christian worshipper, the word heritage" suggests still more tender and delightful recollections. The privileges and blessings of the Gospel are to be considered as a property inherited through the voluntary death of the Redeemer of sinners. The "testament," the documentary title contained in the word of God, to all the present peace and future joys of the Gospel, is said to be purchased by the "death of the Testator;" and we are called "heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ."

And it is as a gift thus dearly bought and freely bestowed upon the guilty, that the Christian delights to contemplate all the temporal and spiritual blessings offered to him in the word of God. There are those, indeed, who conceive that the value of our privileges is lessened by the persuasion that they are not the wages of our own desert, but the spontaneous gift of God. But such views are not founded, I conceive, upon just conceptions of human nature. To what part of your earthly possession, I would ask, do you especially turn with a delighted eye and heart? Is it not to that which is the precious gift of some friend whom you fondly loved, and who is now removed beyond the reach of your tenderness and care? Is it not, perhaps, to some homely volume on the glittering shelf, which assures us at least of the living or dying regard of the giver; which reminds us, whenever the eye rests upon it, of some scene of familiar intercourse, of domestic love, of unreserved sympathy and affection? And the same mode of reasoning will apply to spiritual gifts and privileges. Whatever be the extent of their

intrinsic value, it is immeasurably enhanced by the persuasion that all are the gift of a Father and a Friend; that his love is bound up with them; that they are a sort of visible symbol of his affection, a pledge and earnest of all the glories of his kingdom. Such a feeling will give a costliness to the meanest possession. And it will ever be among the most delightful occupations to a Christian mind, to take its stand in the world as in a vast store-house of the bounties of God; to look at every possession as his free gift; to trace every mercy to his tender hand; to consider every ray which shines upon the paths of life as a ray of his essential brightness; and every stream which waters it, as a stream from the living fountain of his compassion. "Thy testimonies have I claimed as mine heritage."

3. But, again: the Psalmist says in the text, "Thy testimonies have I claimed as mine heritage for ever." The heritage of God is an eternal inheritance: and it is in their reference to eternity that the servant of God chiefly regards the promises of his Heavenly Father. In this world, he is, at best, but the stranger of a moment. But he has a home, "a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." And if, for a time, when all the prospects of life were bright and cheering, he has been tempted here to pitch his tent, and here to expect the enjoyments of a Father's house; the storms of life have soon swept over the plain, carried away his flimsy dwelling, and driven him out as a wanderer and a fugitive. Disease, or disappointment, or calamity, has taught him the necessity of building the house of his comforts firmer and higher. What wę evidently need, my Christian brethren, is a

world that will last-a heritage which is something more than the dew on the grass, or the cloud of the morning. And of such a heritage, need I say, there are no traces or records but in the testimonies of God? Change and decay are stamped on every thing else around us. Every other happiness withers, like the gourd of Jonah, in a night. Every other possession abandons us, or we abandon it. Like the proud monarch of Babylon, the man a king to-day, may be an idiot or an outcast to-morrow. Like Herod, the idol of the multitude at one moment, may in another be food for worms. Of God alone, as a Friend and Saviour, can it be said, "The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary;" and of his kingdom alone, "It is an everlasting kingdom," "a dominion that endureth through all generations." Oh, would to God that every man among us might rise from his place this day convinced that his own anxious pursuit of any thing, in this world, is like the feverish longing of the patient in that disorder in which the mariner fancies that he discovers beneath the waves enamelled meads and living fountains, and plunges into the devouring waters, and is seen no more.

III. But, finally, consider the REASON STATED

BY THE PSALMIST IN THE TEXT FOR THUS CLAIMING THE TESTIMONIES OF GOD AS HIS OWN. "I have claimed them," he says, "as my heritage: and why? they are the very joy of my heart."

In the first stages of religion, my Christian brethren, fear is apt to predominate over every other feeling and passion of the mind, because, in that state, the sinner often discovers his danger, without becoming acquainted with his Deliverer:

he feels his chains, without seeing the " Angel of the covenant," by whom they are to be broken. But, after a time, he makes such large and bright discoveries of the goodness and love of God, that by degrees his bonds fall from him, and he exchanges trembling for hope, and disquietude for peace and joy. There is, indeed, a salutary fear of offending the God he loves, which accompanies him through every stage of life. But this is as distinct from the fear by which he was once disquieted, as the terror of the slave is from the tender anxiety of the child. That slavish terror is for ever. gone The Voice which said to the waves" be still," has spoken peace to his distracted soul. This change, however modified and various as to some particulars in the case of different individuals, is universal in the real servants of God. "Love," by degrees, "casteth out fear." So that although, if asked, at one point of their history, "Why do you cleave to the testimonies of God?" they might, perhaps have been compelled to answer, Chiefly because they are the terror of our hearts;' they will, in a more advanced stage, assuredly reply, "Because they are the very joy of our

heart."

If, therefore, there is an individual amongst us, who, laying aside all reference to eternity, determines to try the Gospel only by its present fruits, by the addition it makes to our daily comforts-though all decisions formed on such evidence must be inaccurate-yet, for the sake of argument, we are willing to meet that deluded person on his own ground. We will forget, for a moment, that we are any thing more than tenants for a few anxious years in this vale of tears.