The great object of the Christian is duty; his predominant desire to obey God. When he can please the world consistently with these, he will do so; otherwise it is enough for him that God commands, and enough for them that he cannot disobey.

The gospel breathes the spirit of love. Love is the fulfilling of its precepts, the pledge of its joys, and the evidence of its power.

The highest point of Christian experience is to press forward. It is a distinguishing trait in the character of every good man that he grows in grace. Grace in the heart as certainly improves and advances, as a tree thrives in a kindly and well watered soil.

Faith from, its essential nature implies the fallen state of man, while it recognizes the principles of the covenant of grace. It is itself the condition of that covenant. It is a grace which is alike distinguished from the love of angels and the faith of devils. It is peculiar to the returning sinner. None but a lost sinner needs it; none but a humbled sinner relishes it.

Serve God, and God will take care of you. Submit to His will, trust in His grace, and resign yourself into His hands with the assurance that the Lord is well pleased with those that hope in His mercy.

The act of the soul, in surrendering itself into the hands of Christ, forms a connecting bond between Him as the Vine and the soul as the branches, which communicates life, strength, nourishment, and beauty. In a word, with a just view of the character, and a supreme attachment to the person of Christ, the believer yields himself into His hands as a full and complete Saviour. Him he receives; upon Him he rests, and rests for time and eternity.

If you have nothing of the spirit of prayer, nothing of the love of the brotherhood, nothing of mortifying the spirit of the world, nothing of growth in grace, of cordial, habitual, persevering obedience to the Divine commands, how can it be that you have been brought nigh by the blood of Christ?