love to his parents, so our obedience to God is the strongest evidence of our love to Him. (John xiv. 23.)

3. Love to the Word of God. The Scriptures teach everything that is pure and good, and denounce everything that is impure and vicious. Hence this love is attached to them, and makes them the Book of its choice and delight.

4. Love to the House of God. Here the beauty of the Lord is seen, His praises sung, and His worship celebrated. (Ps. xxvii. 4; xx. 2; xcvi. 6.) Hence this love.

5. Love to the People of God. These are the children of God, the witnesses of God, the co-workers with God; the salt of the earth, the light of the world. Hence this love to them. (Ps. cxix. 63; Ps. xvi. 3; Gal. vi. 10; 1 John iii. 14.)

6. Love to the Service of God. This is promotive of the highest interest of man, and the glory of the Lord; therefore love to it is beautifully consistent with itself.

III. THE UNION OF LOVE AND HATRED IN THE ONE SUBJECT.

1. This union is necessary to a religious life. (Romans xii. 9.) True religion is love and hatred combined-the power of love and hatred in the centre of the moral nature. (Amos v. 14-15.) As we love God so we hate sin. A Christian woman, who was urging the claims of holiness, received for reply:-"I understand there are two kinds of holiness; one a sweet, kind, loving holiness; the other a censorious, fighting holiness; which kind is yours?" She said, "I feel nothing but love in my soul, and a peace as sweet as heaven; but these very elements make me hate the devil, and oppose sin with all my might." Without the development of these principles there can be no real religion -no true change of heart. (Micah iii. 1-2.)

(a) We must hate sin, or we cannot love God. As one dram of poison will destroy the body, so one reigning sin will destroy the soul.

(b) We must love God or we cannot love His people. One is an evidence of the other. (1 John iv. 12-21.)

(c) We must love God and His people or we cannot love the service and house of God. As we love God and His people, so we hate everything that is prejudicial to the interests of His Kingdom and to the happiness of His people. The love we have to God and His people is the measure of the love we possess to His service and His house. Hence the Psalmist says, "I will delight myself in Thy statutes: I will not forget Thy word. I will delight myself in Thy commandments, which I have loved; Oh, how I love Thy law," &c. Without the union of love and hatred

2. Our lives cannot be characterised by the beauty of holiness with which they should be adorned. This union

(a) Makes the life beautiful. This is seen in fervent prayer, in strong faith, and in perfect love; in the holy dispositions and actions of all who truly love the Lord and hate evil. Are we Christians? Our deportment gives the reply. This is the way of knowing what we are, and, indeed, of showing what we are. We profess to be the children of God, but what are our dispositions and actions? Do these say we are? Christ says "By their fruits ye shall know them."

(b) This union of love and hatred makes the life fragrant. Mary loved the Lord, and break her alabaster box of precious ointment and anointed Him. The fragrance of the ointment filled the room only, but the fragrance of the love which moved her to wash the Master's feet with her tears and wipe them with her hair, filled the Saviour's heart, and perfumes the Church to the present day. (Matt. xxvi. 13.) "The lovely picture of simple and elevated piety in Mary stands for ever in the record, for the admiration and imitation of all. Docility, attention, spirituality, and affection, are its characteristics."

The spiritual life in which these two affections operate is useful. Like the fragrance of flowers its influence delights the strong, and revives the drooping. Its subjects are not "religious perambulators," who are more useful anywhere than at home. True Christians are useful everywhere. (1 John iv. 16.) They seek not their own, but others' good.

This spiritual life is characterised by true happiness. Find "the way of holiness," in which it is the will of God you should walk, and you find true happiness. The Rev. Thomas Collins, just before he died, said to his sister, who had made a remark to him with joy, about his long testimony before the Church of the bliss and duty of perfect love, "I GOT IT; I KEPT IT; I HAVE IT NOW, AND IT IS HEAVEN." Yes, all who seek full salvation find it; all who find it possess it; and all who possess it find that it is heaven.

"Their pleasures rise from things unseen,
Beyond this world of time,

Where neither eyes nor ears have been,
Nor thoughts of mortals climb."

J. B. HORBERRY.

LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR AS THYSELF.-The Rev. John Howe, one of the chaplains to Cromwell, was applied to by men of all parties for protection, nor did he refuse his influence to any on account of difference in religious opinions. One day the Protector said to him, "Mr. Howe, you have asked favours for everybody beside yourself; pray when does your turn come?" He replied: "My turn, my Lord Protector, is always come, when I can serve another."

MATERIALS FOR SERMONS.

[It will be seen that the following Plans, and Materials for filling them up, are meant only to assist the Preacher in making Plans and Sermons of his own.]

JESUS AND HIS PEOPLE NOT OF THE WORLD. "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.”—JOHN xvii. 16.

I.-Explain the meaning of the term "world" in the text. The meaning of the term "world," is the same as in the following passages:-"Be not conformed to this world." "The friendship of this world is enmity against God." "If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him; for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." "Love not the world." "They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them."

You will at once perceive that the term "world" in these passages, as in the text, has no reference to the material world, of which God is the Creator, Sustainer and Sovereign King; and of which we are inhabitants by His will; and which it is our privilege to study, to admire, and to enjoy; and in which we should see His wisdom, power, and goodness.

The term "world" in the text denotes that portion of mankind which is under the dominion and rule of sin and Satan. Jesus speaks of it when He says, "The prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in Me," and so Paul when he speaks of the "God of this world blinding the minds of them that believe not."

When, therefore, our Lord says, His people are "not of the world," He means they do not belong to that division of mankind, in which sin is the predominant power, and over which Satan is the presiding prince.

II.-Show in what respects Christ was not of the world, in order to see how His people are not of it.

I. He had not the sin of the world: its original or practical; neither have His people, being regenerated by His grace, and kept from it by His love.

2. He had not the spirit of the world; neither have His people, for they have received the Spirit which is of God. 3. He was patronised by none of the rulers, societies, and schools of the world.

4. He entered not into the pleasures of the world.

5. He cared not for the frowns of the world.

6. He courted not the smiles of the world.

7.

He conformed not to the customs of the world.

8. He entered not into its companies or societies as one of them.

9. He coveted none of the possessions of the world. 10. He received none of the honours of the world.

II. He cared for none of the power and government of the world.

12. His incarnate and posthumous glory was not of the world.

13. Had Jesus been of the world, He could not have done what He did to save the world from its sin, &c. Nor can His people, if they are of the world.

14. Jesus did not trim; He allowed no compromise.

15. He overcame the world, and was, in the sense of living above it, its King, ruling over it.

16. Though not of the world, He was in it. Its teacher, &c. So His people are in it, as fellow subjects of states, &c., but not of it.

I. How do we appear in relation to the world, examined by Christ as the standard?

2. If we are of the world we shall meet with the doom of the world.

Parallel Texts. "Ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world." (John xv. 19.) "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." (1 John ii. 15.) "We are of God and the whole world lieth in wickedness.' (1 John v. 19.) "Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world, is the enemy of God." Jas. iv. 4.) "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them." (Eph. v. II.) [See also 2 Cor. vi. 14-17, Eph. ii. 2-3, Eph. iv. 17-24, 1 Pet. iv. 2-3, Tit. ii. 12, Gal. i. 4, Josh. xxiii. 12-13.]

(a) "Consider your condition: you are strangers and pilgrims. (b) We are called to better things than the world can give. (c) Consider how hard it is to have Christ and the world, to have heaven and the world. (Matt. xvi. 26.)

(d) Thou art as thy love is.

If thou lovest the world thou art worldly; if thou lovest God thou art godly.

1.

Be not of a worldly spirit when thou wantest the things of the world.

2.

Be not of a worldly spirit when thou hast not the things of the world.

3. Be not dejected and over sorrowful when thou losest them."-MANTON.

How blessed is the Christian, who when he has finished his work in this world, like a workman, can go and receive his wages -like a ship, bear a valuable cargo into port-like a warrior, having fought many battles and gained a final victory, receive the many honours of his king.

The general example of the apostles and primitive Christians, as given in the Acts of the Apostles, show how Christians are not of the world, as their Master Himself was not. So the holy living of all His people.

There is no need for any one to become a recluse or an anchorite in order to show that he is not of the world. The light of the sun is not of the earth, yet it shines upon it. The ship sails through the waters, but is not of the waters. The fragrance of the flower, or of the anointing oil, spreads through the atmosphere, but it is not of it. The workman labours at, and on the materials of his work, but he is not of them. Thus may a Christian shine in the world, travel through it, work in it, and not be of it.

"Christ's people have little of the world's respect, and the world hath little of theirs. (Gal. vi. 14.) 'The world is crucified to me, and I unto the world.' A dead man hanging on the cross is a miserable and ignominious spectacle. I despise the world and the world despises me, as a crucified man is made an object of shame and scorn. Paul sought not after the world, nor did the world seek after him. All the honours, pomps, delights, which the world doteth upon, were as a crucified man in whom there is no form and comeliness why He should desire them."-MANTON.

"Christ's disciples are, indeed, in the world, and were to remain in it, like His kingdom, and like Himself at first (ch. xiii. 1; xvii. 14-18; 1 John iv. 17); but no more from and of the world, since He had chosen, and implanted in them a new principle of life from above-since they had become branches of the Vine, planted by the Father upon the earth." -STIER.

"After the creation of the new man, which is now their proper person; after their union with Christ through the regeneration by the word, they are no longer of the world."-STIER.

"Christ Himself, otherwise than we, was originally not of it. During the whole time of His being in the world, He had not been for one moment of the world; but had been elevated above it in kingly majesty."-ALBERTINI.

"Here, indeed, Christ's people have their commoration; but their conversation is in heaven: they are clothed with the sun of righteousness, and have the moon (all earthly things) under their feet. Pearls, though they grow in the sea, yet they have