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commending it to your imitation, therefore, I am pleading the cause of your own elevation and happiness, as well as the cause of God, and the cause of mankind.

My young female friends! it ought to be your ambition to possess and to evince a sound understanding, and a respectable portion of literary knowledge. All that has been said, serves to show that the cultivation of female intellect is as important, and as necessary, as the intellectual culture of the other sex. But it ought to be more especially your ambition, to cultivate your hearts. The Heart-I repeat it-the Heart-sanctified by religion, warmed and softened by benevolence, and taught to throb in affectionate response to every sigh of suffering, and every claim of humanity-this is the grand ornament of womanthis is the strong hold of woman. To be so many Tabithas, adorning the doctrine of God, your Saviour, and diffusing happiness among all around you, would be infinitely more to your honor as well as your comfort, even in the present life, than to stand in the list of those masculine females, who, while they gain a proud civil pre-eminence, really disgrace their sex.

When therefore, I see a young female devoting her supreme attention to external accomplishments; absorbed in the love of ornament, and of admiration; habitually venturing, 'in obedience to fashion, to the very verge of decorum; never satisfied but when either preparing for the splendor of a public appearance, or discussing the merits of a past exhibition-I say within myself---The hand of some infatuated parent, or of some incompetent or unfaithful guardian is here. What perversion of talents! What misapplication of exertions! What waste of time! What pains to treasure up sorrow and tears for after life! How much more attractive would be that fair form, were it employed in works of charity, and more frequently seen bending over the couch of poverty and suffering!

How much more beautiful would be that lovely face, were it habitually beaming with benevolence and pie. ty! And how unspeakably more happy, and more respectable its possessor, if the cultivation of her heart, and the employment of her time, on evangelical principles, were the great object of her care!

Let the young, let females of all ages, be induced to consider the duties incumbent upon them in their respective situations in life. A sphere of action is assigned you by your Creator, and you are capable of being eminently useful in the age in which you live! Your exertions are calculated not merely to relieve present disstress, but to improve the condition of society, to cultivate the hearts of the young, and confer blessings on generations yet unborn. How great the satisfaction, how exquisite the pleasure of doing good, of adding to the sum of human happiness! What is there in all the pageantry of state, in all the gratifications of sense, in all the delirious joys of giddy dissipation, once to be compared with this? O pleasures cheaply purchased, placidly enjoyed; ever rising, ever new; never languid, never remorseful, why are you pursued so seldom, and attained by so few ?""*

Brethren! the time is short, and the fashion of this world passeth away. Like Dorcas, we must all soon sicken and die. Are we habitually anticipating the solemnities of that hour? Are we daily directing our pursuits, employing our property, and framing our lives, agreeably to this anticipation? Do we resemble the excellent Woman, on whose example we have been meditating, in our character and hopes, as well as in our mortality? We cannot resemble her, unless we are disciples indeed. We may give all our goods to feed the poor,' and our bodies to be burned,' and yet be nothing more than a sounding brass,

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* Hunter's Occafional Sermons, II. p. 140.

and a tinkling cymbal.' But those deeds of charity which spring from a living faith in a living Redeemer; those works of obedience which are performed from a principle of love for his name ;---these are 'the good works, and the alms-deeds,' which shed a lustre around the bed of death, and upon which, in a dying hour, we may look back with holy satisfaction, with heavenly joy :--not as the ground of our confidence; not as the price of pardon; not as our title to everlasting life :---no; the righteousness of Him, who, through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God,' is the only foundation of a sinner's hope: but as means by which a Divine Saviour has enabled us to glorify the riches of his grace; as the fruits of his blessed Spirit; as evidences of a vital union to his body; and as pledges of admission to the glories of his presence.

May that God, who has declared himself the Father of the fatherless, and the Judge of the widow, in his holy habitation,' fill us all with the spirit and the consolations of his children, enable us to imitate his holy benevolence, and prepare us, in due time, for his heavenly kingdom! And to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, one God, be all the praise, both now and ever! Amen!

MESSIAH'S THRONE.

A SERMON

PREACHED BEFORE THE LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY 1802.

BY

JOHN M. MASON. D. D.

PASTOR OF THE ASSOCIATE-REFORMED CHURCH, IN THE CITY OF

NEW-YORK.

HEB. i. viii.

But unto the Son he faith, Thy Throne, O God, is for ever and ever.

IN the all important argument which occupies this epistle, Paul assumes, what the believeing Hebrews had already professed, that Jesus of Nazareth is the true Messiah. To prepare them for the consequences of their own principle; a principle involving nothing less than the abolition of their law, the subversion of their state, the ruin of their city, the final extinction of their carnal hopes, he leads them to the doctrine of their Redeemer's person in order to explain the nature of his offices, to evince the value of his rpiritual salvation, and to shew in both, the accomplishment of their economy which was now ready to vanish away. Under no apprehension of betraying the unwary into idolatrous homage by giving to the Lord Jesus greater glory than is due unto his name; the apostle sets out with ascribing to him excellence and attributes which belong to no

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creature. Creatures of most elvated rank are introduced; but it is to display, by contrast, the pre-eminence of Him who is the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of his person." Angels are great in might and in dignity; but unto them hath he not put in subjection the world to come. કે Unto which of them said he, at any time, Thou art my son? To which of them, Sit thou at my right hand? He saith they are spirits, ministering spirits, sent forth to minister unto them who are the Heirs of salvation,' But unto the SON, in a style which annihilates competition and comparison, unto the SON he saith, thy throne, O God, is forever and

ever.

Brethren, if the majesty of Jesus is the subject which the Holy Ghost selected for the encouragement and consolation of his people, when he was shaking the earth and the heavens, and diffusing his gospel among the nations; can it be otherwise than suitable and precious to us on this occasion? Shall it not expand our views, and warm our hearts, and nerve our arm, in our efforts to exalt his fame? Let me implore then, the aid of your prayers; but far more importunately the aids of his own Spirit, while I speak of the things which concern the king:' those great things contained in the text-his personal glory-his sovereign rule.

I. His personal glory shines forth in the name by which he is revealed; a name above every name, THY throne...O GOD!

To the single eye nothing can be more evident, in the

First place, than that the Holy Ghost here asserts the eessential deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. Of his enemies, whom he will make his footstool,' some have, indeed, controverted this position, and endea voured to blot out the text from the catalogue of his witnesses. Instead of thy throne, O God; they

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