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avoids whatever enervates our vigor, and abates our speed in the Christian course. It is more than mere moderation in respect to the possessions and pleasures of life. It aims at the entire conquest of those inordinate passions and appetites which spring in a luxuriant growth from the soil of human corruption. It is the denial of all ungodliness and worldly lusts. It requires a sober, chaste, virtuous, and godly life. It demands the total renunciation of all sinful enjoyments. It by no means allows of that degree of indulgence which possibly may consist with genuine piety, but which can hardly promote spirituality of mind. It insists on a deliberate, quiet, patient, and resigned surrender of every valuable possession, to the demand of God; and is it not wisdom as well as piety to exchange earthly possessions for a treasure in heaven? to give up all the pleasures of sense for the consolations of religion? to deny ourselves that we may win Christ ?. to walk mournfully here by mortifying "the deeds of the body," for the sake of everlasting blessedness hereafter? All this is implied in true religious grief-in that sorrow which mingles with joy-in that mourning which has springs of perpetual consolation.

4. But it implies still more. It includes a spirit of constant dependence upon God. This is its principal excellence, its grand support, and the source of its purest consolations. To this the mind must recur from a serious survey of its actual state and character, from its penitent recollection of former sins, from a careful watchfulness over its existing dispositions, and from all its deep emotions of self-denial and self-abhorrence. Here the mind reposes. A discovery of its own weakness strengthens its reliance

A view of personal guilt and ill-desert fastens a stronger trust on the proffered grace and mercy of God. Self-vigilance evinces its perpetual need of Divine aid. Every exercise of selfdenial, every emotion of self-abhorrence, elevates its apprehensions of the glorious character of Jehovah. It is this spirit of dependence upon him which sweetens the cup of pious sorrow and mitigates every pang of penitential regret. It dissipates the gloom of religious despondency. It is the support and stay of the mind when woes cluster" around it, and fixes its hold on the unfailing promises and purposes of the Eternal. It does not bear it beyond the reach of trouble, but assures it of endless "joy and gladness," when "sorrow and mourning shall flee away."

The nature of religious sorrow has been thus briefly considered. And is there any thing unlovely in a religion which is tinged with such a sorrow? Let the votaries of thoughtless gayety and noisy mirth approach and take a nearer view of a religion which is cheerful, but not thoughtless, is "sorrowful, but always rejoicing.' Let them contemplate the entireness of her resignation, the strength of her faith, the fervor of her love, and the brightness of her prospects, until by the influence of her attractions, they shall

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be secured from the seductions of unreal pleasures. Let them consider her serious, repentant, watchful, and self-denying spirit, until they feel its inspiration; and let them remember, that a rejection of offered mercy, a refusal to yield to the influence of religion, because it implies sorrow for sin, will deprive them of much present blessedness, and exclude them from all participation in those spiritual and undecaying consolations with which those who "now have sorrow" shall hereafter be comforted.

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THE NATIONAL PREACHER. And Village Pulpit.

Vol. IV.-New Series.] SEPTEMBER, 1861. [No. 9.-Whole No. 417.

SERMON XXV.

BY REV. S. D. PHELPS, D.D.,

-PASTOR OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, NEW-HAVEN, CT.

THE TRUE ESTIMATE OF MEN A POWERFUL MOTIVE FOR THEIR EVANGELIZATION.* "HONOR all men."-1 PETER 2: 17.

Two grand objects, yet blending together, stimulate us in the missionary work. They are the glory of God, and the salvation of men. And from these come the influential motives to the efficient prosecution of that work. The Infinite Being we would glorify in a faithful obedience to his commands, is ever before us. We endure as seeing Him who is invisible. We have a profound sense of his majestic and loving nearness. It inspires a reverential fear, and a sweet and blessed confidence. That we may do the pleasure of our God, that we may ever vindicate his honor and authority, that we may advance and defend his kingdom

* Preached before the American Baptist Missionary Union, at Brooklyn, N. Y., May 28th, 1861.

against all obstacles and assailants, is a supreme and governing principle of our renewed nature. The great I AM sends us to our work, and holds us to it by obligations the most sacred; and because HE IS, and is what he is, we feel bound both submissively and affectionately to do his will. I am the Lord thy God that hath brought thee up from the thraldom of sin to the privileges of salvation, therefore execute my pleasure. This is an all-controlling motive with us; and we lay ourselves upon the altar of God. We pledge supreme honor to him.

But the text summons us to another duty, and suggests another motive that, if not equally high and commanding, is nevertheless of immeasurable importance and weight. This duty is as imperative as any other. We are enjoined in the same breath to "Fear God," and to "Honor all men." We look along the lines of thought, even beyond the pathways of the stars, and the homes of angels, to the dwelling-place of Him who inhabiteth eternity, and from thence survey the wondrous glories of his kingdom, and it is easy for a devout mind both to fear and honor God. But as we gaze from that holy hight, downward to the low level of our race in its fatal apostasy and reeking corruption, its consuming sins and appalling crimes-ah! what do we find to honor? What to inspire and call forth the high sentiments involved in that term? It is easy-it is a pleasure to honor some men. Their endowments, their attainments, and especially their exalted Christian virtues, elicit for them the praise of all the good, and justify an "everlasting remembrance." They are lifted up in our hearts' noblest impulses. We joy to count them worthy. But here is the divine command that bids us make no exceptions. "All men" are counted in for this distinction. As if such a sweeping declaration-so radical, so oppugnant to human practices-were liable to be misunderstood, it is specially guarded and cleared of doubt by the immediate context. The inspired Apostle says: "Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king." There is no mistaking the import of these terms. And what a world of thought, and duty, and obligation is contained in these few and brief injunctions! How suggestive they are of our relative positions and the responsibilities hence arising! Reverence for the Divine Being-loyal regard for the civil authorityaffection for Christ's disciples-and high, manly respect for human beings as such, every where, and without exception. Is not the last-placed by inspiration first-a "hard saying"?

In this exciting time of great follies and crimes, and stupendous revolt and wickedness-of violated oaths, and shameful treason, and willful perversion of truth and justice-there are some whom it has been our delight to honor, that we must now regard with the pitying lamentation: "How are the mighty fallen!" Our regard for those generally engaged in a conspiracy to overthrow our

government and institutions, is certainly lessened, if not changed to some other sentiment by no means flattering to them. And there is danger that, in the scenes that may soon transpire-if battle-fields, with their terrible accompaniments of death and carnage, are to be multiplied, which God forbid-we shall come to place a still lower estimate on human life, and more and more fail of our duty as enjoined in the text. But this duty remains, universal and perpetual, solemnly enjoined by our Divine Father and loving Saviour, in the face of all that is revolting and repelling in human character and conduct; in all the sad developments of human destiny, wretchedness and woe. Of these we see enough around us, amid the highest Christian civilization of the world, to make angels weep and demons rejoice. And if our observation could embrace the mighty masses of heathendom, in all their tyrannies and idolatries and heaven-defying vileness, we should shrink appalled from the enlarged vision, and utterly fail of terms to express the degeneracy and abominations of our race.

But here is the duty to honor all men-a divine ray of hope beaming out over the dark, dead waste of humanity a duty which, if properly understood and felt, would be most influential in the evangelization of our race. This duty Christianity imposes. It is the offspring of the Gospel, preeminently full of its principles and spirit. Not from oracles uninspired-not from sages and philosophers of lands without God and the Bible-not from the maxims of the schools in golden ages past-not from the lips of the wise and great of this world-comes such a sentiment, such a requisition as that of the text. This is the teaching of our holy religion in distinction and practical opposition to the sentiment and conduct of the world. Honor the great, the wise, the rich, the powerful; but trample on the feeble, enslave the conquered, despise the inferior--this has been the prevailing sentiment among men, and is now where Christianity has not wrought a change in society. The Gospel breaks down every barrier, and makes every man our neighbor, claiming the respect due to a human being and accountable creature of God. Even the degraded, the vicious, the far heathen, powerfully appeal to us in this Gospel duty. And if we should feel as we ought the value of human beings, and as they are divinely estimated, it would certainly be an influential motive in efforts for their evangelization.

I invite your attention to some of the reasons of this duty enjoined in the text.

I. The common parentage of all men urge it. All have the same high birth-the same original royal ancestry. Amidst the national, social, and conventional differences among men, this essential truth should never be forgotten. However wide and marked these differences may appear-however unlike each other various

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