into action, one has no flint, another has no cartridge; the arms of one are rusty, and another has not learned to handle them. This was not the complaint equally at all times. It belongs too peculiarly to the present day. The fault lies in the muster. We are like Falstaff- he took the king's money to press good men and true, but got together such ragamuffins, that he was ashamed to muster them. What is the consequence? People groan under their connexions. High pretensions to spirituality, and warm zeal for certain sentiments! Priding themselves in Mr. such-a-one's ministry! But what becomes of their duties? Oh, these are beggarly elements indeed! Such persons are alive to religious TALK; but if you speak to them on religious TEMPERS, the subject grows irksome." What is conveyed in Mr. Cecil's language will be better received than what is expressed in mine. SOCIAL DUTIES, &c. CHAPTER I. THE heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handy work; but it was man whom Jehovah formed in the image of himself. In the likeness of God made He man. Man is the image of God; the representative of creation's universal Lord. Dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowls of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, was given into his hands. Man is the vicegerent of God over every living thing that creepeth upon the earth. But man has higher destinies still. He is to show, in the ages to come, the exceeding. riches of God's grace in his kindness towards us through Christ Jesus. (Eph. ii. 7.) Man B is ordained to set forth throughout eternity the being, attributes, and character of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. God will gather under the headship of Christ, all things which are in heaven and in earth. (Eph. i. 10.) They who are born, not of the will of man, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God, by the Spirit, thereby united to the Son, constitute the body of Christ, which, under Him as their Head, do form the kings and the priests, who are to carry on the rule, and conduct the worship, of the regenerated creation. The Holy Spirit is shed abroad in the hearts of Christ's members, as the earnest of the inheritance, until they enter into the promised possession; and in order that they may be made to know Him, and through him know the Father, that God may be honoured, loved, and worshipped aright likewise, that they may discern, by comparing themselves with Christ, and with the written word, how far they are removed from that standard of holy manhood in which alone God delights; how unholy, |