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wise restraints. Does he attach pain and pleasure respectively to holiness and vice? Let the same nice discrimination be visible in your domestic economy. Is it a principle of his parental adminstration to sacrifice the present to the future? Let that grand principle prevail in your choice of schools, of society, and of employment for your children. Discipline them for eternity! Consider them as a precious deposit in your hands from the Great Author of your being, and of theirs. Grieve not the spirits who "rejoice over one sinner that repenteth," by the spectacle of a young creature destined for the "house of many mansions," for adoption into the family of God here, and the enjoyment of God and his Redeemer for ever, robbed of his high destiny; degraded from his eminency in the scale of moral being by an education which fits him only to sport his unprofitable moment in a fallen world, and then sink hopeless and helpless into the awful gulf of perdition! Pray and labour to govern your children as God has governed yourself. Love them as he loved you. Live like the "Captain of your salvation," to be the happy instrument of" bringing many sons to glory"—of presenting them at his Throne of Mercy, and saying with holy assurance, “ Behold,I and the children whom thou hast given me!"

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3. Finally, I must be permitted to speak to the young persons by whom I am surrounded.-The argument, in the earliest part of this discourse, may have appeared to some careless observers, in raising our conception of the duties owing to our heavenly Father, to lower the conception of those due to our earthly parents. If this is the case, let me not lose a moment in correct

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ing so fatal an error. Every part of Scripture inculcates these duties as of imperious necessity. And let no child imagine for an instant that there can be the smallest approach to genuine religion in a heart refusing one of the most obvious, just, natural, and powerful of all claims upon it. If you love not the parent "whom you have seen," and to whom your debts are as many as the hours of your existence, how can you love the Parent whom "you have not seen ?"-But I will not so insult the heart or understanding of any one of my hearers, as to imagine that you dispute the rights of the bosom from which you have drawn life, and subsistence, and hope, and joy. My wish is rather to prescribe to you from the text the means of satisfying those claims, to give you a simple but full and satisfactory rule of filial duty. And it is this-Consider as a model for your duties to your parent on earth, the duties required in Scripture towards your Father in heaven. Points there certainly are, in which this parallel is not complete. But this particular view of filial duty may, I humbly conceive, serve many important purposes-may assist to clear up many doubtful points-deepen the sense of filial obligationand, at least, rescue us, where excess is so difficult, from those palpable defects of conduct which are so disgraceful to religion, so injurious to domestic happiness, and so ruinous to the soul. May God bless you, my young friends, in your pious and dutiful endeavours to discharge these tender, and delightful, and sacred obligations! May that compassionate Saviour, who took the young in his arms, fold you also to his bosom! May "his word dwell in you richly

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with all wisdom!" May the Spirit of the Lord teach, and guide, and sanctify you! May you be enabled to lay the basis of love to your parents in love to your Redeemer! May you be permitted to pay back some small measure of the blessings which you owe to the authors of your existence! and may the declaration of a compassionate God be fulfilled to every member of this congregation, "I will be a Father to you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty!"

SERMON XVII.

THE TESTIMONIES OF GOD THE JOY OF THE ᎻᎬᎪᎡᎢ .

PSAL. cxix 111.

Thy testimonies have I claimed as mine heritage for ever; and why? they are the very joy of my heart.

ALL the sacred writers, in their turn, do homage to the word of God. Every impression, image, and argument, is anxiously sought out by them, by which they may best proclaim their high sense of its value. And, as might be expected, the harp of the son of Jesse is not silent amidst this chorus of praise. In a large proportion of the Psalms, more than one expression is found indicative of his admiration and gratitude for the Volume of Eternal Truth. And, as though this casual and limited declaration of his

regard were not sufficient, the whole of the 119th Psalm, by far the longest in the series of sacred songs, is dedicated exclusively to this object. Every additional verse may be regarded as the fruit of a new and stronger effort to celebrate the honours of this charter of our hopes and joys. If, in the other Psalms, we have here and there a scattered memorial of its worth; we have, in this, as it were, a whole temple dedicated to its glory.

It is my wish, on the present occasion, to examine, in dependence upon the Divine blessing, only one of the expressions of admiration and gratitude contained in this Psalm; and, in so doing, to consider,

I. THE TITLE BY WHICH THE PSALMIST here

DESIGNATES THE WORD OF GOD.

II. THE LANGUAGE IN WHICH HE CLAIMS THE

TESTIMONIES OF GOD AS HIS OWN; and, III. THE REASON WHICH he assigns FOR THUS

CLAIMING THEM.

I. We are to consider, in the first place, the title by which the Psalmist here describes the word of God. "Thy testimonies," he says, "have I claimed as mine heritage for ever."

The word testimonies is employed in different senses in Scripture. It is sometimes used for the tables of stone brought down from the mount by Moses, because these tables contained the "testimony" to the covenant then established between God and his people. It is sometimes, in like manner, applied to the Gospel, which "testifies" of the will of God under the new covenant; as where St. Paul says, "I came declaring unto you the testimony of God." But it is more commonly applied to the whole of Scripture; as to that Book

which bears testimony to all which God requires to be believed, practised, and expected, by his creatures, as where David says, "The testimony of the Lord is pure, making wise the simple." And this is the sense in which the expression appears to be employed in the text. The Psalmist may be considered as referring not merely to one page or part of the Sacred Volume, but to all; not to the promises without the precepts, or the precepts without the promises, but to all that God has revealed for the instruction, comfort, and sanctification of his creatures. And no expression can I conceive at once more briefly and emphatically designate the word of God. It is simply the testimony of God to a perishing world. It is the Book in which the Judge of heaven and earth bears evidence to the truths which fix the duties of men here, and their destiny through all eternity.

And what other testimony, my Christian brethren, can be brought into comparison with this? Every other is inaccurate. This, on the contrary, is "truth without any mixture of error." "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul."

Every other is defective; touching only a few points, and upon those imperfectly. The word of God, on the contrary, is complete, touching on all essential subjects, and noticing every essential part of these subjects. "The commandment of the Lord," it is said, "is exceeding broad."

Every other testimony is blotted by the infirmities or corruptions of human nature. This, on the contrary, is pure as the Mind of which it is the visible representation. The "com

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