the gospel stimulates us to realize as far as possible here, and promises us in ampler measure hereafter, when, by the transformation of death, this mortal shall put on immortality. And it is God who is working all this; in us and by us; in others and by others; he is all, in all; the universal spirit, and in that spirit the universe is blessed. Let our bosoms glow with his love, and our voices sing his praise, making melody in our hearts.

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SERMON VIII.

THE LAW OF LABOUR.

2 THESSALONIANS iii. 10.

"For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat."

THE First Epistle to the Thessalonians seems to have been so interpreted, as to induce the expectation that the end of the world was at hand. This expectation was the occasion, or the pretext, of various disorders. Amongst other evils was this, that some of the disciples abandoned their worldly occupations, and claimed support from the funds, which had been, it is probable, collected only for the maintenance of the poor. They thought they had only to exist till the great convulsion came. The apostle, having first explained that this speedy anticipation was a mistake, proceeds to reprobate the irregularities which had resulted. He especially reminds them of the example he had set, and the precepts he had given, before that urgent occa

sion for their application had arisen. While with them, he had laboured with his own hands, and had commanded that if any would not work, neither should he eat.' They had, therefore, been rebuked by anticipation-by language and by conduct which was not got up for the particular emergency, but which had internal evidence of its arising out of the permanent spirit and general principles of the Gospel. The rebuke was the better adapted to impress their minds with a sense of its truth and justice. Often has this early instance of the errors and wanderings of enthusiasm been repeated or imitated, and it has been needful, like the apostle, to appeal to the plain and everlasting principles of morality.

And the apostle's maxim is a valid appeal to those principles. The laws of revelation are the laws of nature; and the precepts of Christianity are expositions of the dealings of Providence. The text declares concerning the individual, that which creation declares of universal humanity. The earth is the Lord's, and he hath given it to the sons of men and mankind collectively have a divinely chartered property in, and dominion over, the land, the waters, the air, and their various animate and inanimate productions; but it is only by labour that this gift is accepted, that this property is realized, that this dominion is exercised, and the treasures of the world rendered available for the

purposes of support and of enjoyment. Profusely as earth pours forth her stores to the hand of industry, it is only to the hand of industry that she Fours them forth; and notwithstanding the spontaneous fertility of some particular spots, it is true of the human race, as a whole, that if they did not work, neither could they eat. Without toil, all the palmy state and beautiful adornments of existence; all the memorials of the past and the prospects of futurity; all the overflowings of intellect, and the comforts of civilization, would disappear; the populous city would soon become a wilderness; marshes and forests would reassume their ancient reign over the wide lands redeemed by art and industry; the human race would dwindle to a few savages, whose subsistence would be not more wretched than precarious; and the world would retrograde, first to a moral and mental, and then almost to a physical, chaos. Human labour is the hand of the Lord by which, in nature's wilderness, gardens of Eden are planted, and watered, and stored with all that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food, till, in their energetic fruitfulness, there grow the trees of knowledge and of life. And it is a wise and blessed condition of things. This necessity for labour has been the main-spring of human improvement. It has stimulated inventions, and conducted to discoveries, and developed sciences, and organized society. 'Labour and sorrow may have been