about us; we should have been beggars, if God had not cared for us. There was an eye that watched more narrowly than we did or could, or our wealth had long since taken to itself wings and had flown away. You will own, my Christian friends, that it was the blessed God that watered your fields, and gave success to your commerce, and health to your children, that guarded your house from fire, and your lives from danger, else you would have been pennyless or have perished years since. How many, once as rich as you, are now poor; or as healthy as you, are now in the grave; had a home as you have, but it burned down; had children, as it may be you have, but the cold blast came over them, and they died. And was it not the kindness of God that saved to you what you have? May he not then lay a tax upon your wealth, as large as he pleases?

God has never

But. I am not through the argument. alienated his right. He has suffered Satan to be styled the God of this world, the prince of the power of the air; but he owns nothing. The territories that he promised the Lord Jesus, if he would fall down and worship him, were not a foot of them his. And though men are permitted to hold under God certain rights, and which they sometimes term unalienable, still God never has, and never will, renounce his right to dispose at pleasure of all that we term ours. In a moment if he pleases, day or night, he puts us out of our possessions, and the places that knew us know us no more forever. Hence we can serve God only with what is his already, what he has never alienated. “Of thine own we give thee." Now that which God has put into our hands, and the right to which he has never relinquished, we may not, without the charge of embezzlement, appropriate otherwise than as, he shall command us..

But I have not done. claim to what we term ours. whole world, and by a sudden and fearful dispensation, displaced every tenant that had ever occupied its soil, providing afterward for the single family that loved him. And none will say that God went without his own dominions, to lay a world waste that was the property of another. When he burned the cities of the plain, he but asserted, though loudly and fearfully, his right, and pressed home to the bosom and the conscience of every foe and friend he had, his claim to be served and honoured, in every valley that he had made fertile, and by every people whom his kindness had rendered pros

God has often asserted his
Once he claimed the

perous.

In the ruin of all the ancient monarchies, God is seen in the attitude of asserting his claim to the kingdoms of men, as sections of his own empire, to which he will send other rulers, and other subjects, whenever he shall please. The desolating pestilences by which he has depopulated towns and cities, and the thousand nameless sweeps of death written in our gloomy history, had all their commission from heaven,. to take back the life, and health, and comforts he had loaned to men. There was one kingdom we read of whose whole population went seventy years into bondage, because their land had not been allowed to keep its Sabbaths, and they had not paid their tithes, and emancipated their servants at the appointed jubilee.

The storms that have wrecked our merchandize, and the fires that have devoured our cities, and all the misnamed casualties that have ruined our fortunes, have been so many claims put in by the rightful owner of all things, to what we had appropriated too exclusively to

our own use.

And the occurrences of every day are of

the same character.

I know that this is not the world of retribution, and that "No man knoweth either good or evil, by any thing that is done under the sun;" but let us not deny that God is known by the judgment that he executeth. Will he not, by repeated demands, keep men in mind that they cultivate his territory, and feed on his bounty, and are happy under his auspices? In thus asserting his claim to be served with the talents that he loans his creatures, he teaches us that one unchangeable law of his kingdom is, that he never alienates what was once his own.

I shall not offend the good man when I claim, that this has been a disastrous, because a disobedient world. Perhaps the aggregate of property lost by the various calamities that God has sent upon us, would have exactly met the claims he made upon our charity. Had that wealth been expended as he directed, it would have made the world wise and happy. "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." "There is that withholdeth more than is meet, and it tendeth to poverty."

It is impossible to say how much more prosperous this world might have been, if men had expended their wealth as God would have them; how much more frequently the showers had fallen, or more genial had been our sun, or more gentle our breezes, or mild our winters, or fertile our soil, or healthful our population, if we had been a

better people, and had served the Lord with our substance. His promise must have failed, or he would have filled our barns with plenty, and caused our presses to burst out with new wine.

As the churches shall wake to their duty, and give the world the gospel, I hope, and if infidelity scoffs, still I will hope, that much of the curse will be removed from this ill-fated territory, and God kindly stay his rough wind, in the day of his east wind. How many of its plagues will be cured, its wars prevented, its heaths made fertile, and its earthquakes stilled; and what the amount of blessings bestowed upon this poor world, when it shall become more loyal and more benevolent, none but God can know..

I cannot believe, that when we shall do as he bids us, he will so often rebuke us. When we cease to waste his goods, he will allow us to continue longer in the stewardship; when we shall be faithful in the few things, he will make us rulers over many things., If you will now consider me as having established the divine claim, to you, and all that you have, I will proceed to say,

II. Christians who have the means, should contribute to disseminate the gospel, because they are heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. They belong to that kingdom which the gospel was intended to establish. This fact is quite enough to give the cause I plead a strong hold upon every pious heart. Ye disciples of the Lord Jesus, read for once the charter of your hopes, and while it warms your heart, tell me if you have done half your duty. "All things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present or things to come; all are yours,

and

ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's." God and his people have but one interest.

Thus it seems

Hence when he commands them to spread his gospel, he but bids them buy themselves blessings, bids them foster their own interest, and make their own kingdom happy. The Christian has by his own act identified his whole interest with that of the church of our Lord Jesus Christ. If God is honoured, he is happy, and God is honoured in the salvation of sinners, and in the joy of his people. Hence God can command his people to do nothing but that which will bless themselves.

Now when did you know a king's son who would not joyfully expend his father's treasures to enlarge, and strengthen, and beautify the kingdom to which he was heir? He thus polishes his own crown, and blesses his own future reign. What believer has not the same interest that God has in lengthening the cords and strengthening the stakes of Zion? He is one of the little flock, to whom it is his Father's good pleasure to give the kingdom. He is to be a king and a priest to God and the Lamb forever. And has he still an interest distinct from his heavenly Father? And if not, he will hold all he has at the control of God, and will need only to know his duty, and will act most cheerfully. A

III. Reason why Christians who have the means, should contribute to disseminate the gospel is, that they must be merciful, as their Father in heaven is merciful. Over that mass of misery which the apostacy has produced their pious hearts have long bled in sympathy. And their charity is not of that kind that it can content itself with saying, "Be ye warmed, and be ye filled." They have read, and have strongly felt that