and vague notions upon religious subjects; but study and understand the doctrines and precepts of scripture, as fully as men understand a trade or a profession. Indeed, if it is a shame for a mechanic not to be master of his trade, much more must it be a shame for a Christian to be ignorant of scripture. You must have right ideas of the depravity of human nature, of repentance towards God, of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, of the influences of the Holy Ghost. For this purpose you must read the Bible, read it much, and read it with prayer for the divine blessing. Let it not be enough for you to remain always in the elements of religion; press forward, seek for great advancement in piety, not for ostentation, but for your own comfort and for God's glory.

Keep the Lord Jesus in view as your hourly example. St. John tells us," He that hath this hope-the hope of a blessed immortality-purifieth himself even as Christ is pure. Another apostle says,

"Consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest you be wearied and faint in your minds." In all things he must be our pattern. And how high is the standard that Christ hath placed before his disciples: "Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect." Take no saint, no man for your model, but the man Christ Jesus. And while you follow him, keep your faith in lively exercise. Faith can do all things, conquer every enemy, overcome every temptation. It is to faith that all the successes of God's people are attributed in scripture. Faith in Christ delivers both from the guilt and the influence of sin; faith preserves us by engaging God's power to defend us, and faith will bring us to heaven. The exercise of every grace depends on faith, and thus through faith, we may hope to endure to the end and be saved.

"The same shall be saved." Upon this blessed consummation of the perseverance of the saints, I need not now say much. When

the end of our earthly existence shall come, then shall come the commencement of eternal life, and then will the Christian who has endured unto the end, enter upon his everlasting inheritance, incorruptible and undefiled. He will need no more his earthly temple and his earthly habitation; the confusions and distractions, the temptations and persecutions of this world, will all have passed away. All that he may have lost that he might win Christ, will then be abundantly recompensed; and will be counted as nothing and less than nothing in comparison of that glorious salvation to which he hath attained. With such prospects before us, what shall turn our steps from the narrow path that leadeth unto life; or what shall separate us from the love of God through Christ Jesus our Lord?

In the apostolic age, as in all that have succeeded it, there were many false teachers who corrupted the simplicity of the gospel. False philosophy, vain speculations, pagan superstitions, human traditions, were by turns mingled with christian truth and sullied its purity. Many Jewish converts clung to remnants of the Mosaic ritual; many heathen ones to some of their former idolatry, and, instead of receiving the truth as it had been revealed, introduced into it their own false notions. Christianity has, indeed, never recovered

the fatal influence of these early corruptions; and in subsequent ages they increased and grew to so great a height, as to obscure and debase it almost to the level of heathenism. But they did not arise unrebuked. The epistles abound with warnings and exhortations to beware of such errors: the text forms a part of one of these passages. St. Paul thus addresses the Colossians: "And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words. For though I be absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in the spirit, joying and beholding your order and the stedfastness of your faith in Christ. As ye, therefore, have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him; rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world and not after

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