sins will be laid on Him. Look to this; and you will hate the sins, which caused His sufferings and painful death. Gratitude and love will fill your souls. The Spirit of the Father and of the Son, will cleanse your hearts from all iniquity. You will then know and feel that peace of God, which passeth all understanding. Freed from the chains of misery and iron, you will run, at liberty, the way of God's commandments. The night of restless dreams will be over; and the sober dawn of eternity open upon your souls. Passed from death to life, you will, in a measure, feel that your heaven is begun; that you have reached the borders of the Promised Land; that God is your happiness now, not less than your portion for ever. You will then feel life a real blessing; and thank God, with new emphasis, for having called you into being. Your works will not then be done, "to be seen of men." You will, indeed, be rich in good works; rich in every fruit of faith. Your daily and delightful task will be, to do good to men; but not to receive your reward from man. Your eye will be singly fixed on Him, who seeth in secret, and who will reward you openly.

129

SERMON IX.

ST. MATTHEW, xxiii. 5.

"BUT ALL THEIR WORKS THEY DO, FOR TO BE SEEN OF MEN."

I SHOULD be truly sorry, that my choosing these words, a second time, for my text, could be construed into a desire to dwell, in undue proportion, upon the severities of religion. It is my firm persuasion, the nearest and dearest conviction of my soul, that Christianity is, in its inmost nature, the opposite of severity; that it is peace, and gentleness, and joy, and love. I think I can appeal to the all-seeing God, that my heart's desire and prayer to God, is that you may all taste, and bring forth, the happiest fruits of this seed of God's own planting: and that, where I endeavour, with an unsparing hand, to tear the mask from those deceptions, by which an evil world would delude us in our search for happiness, and leave us, at last, a miserable wreck, upon the shores of an undone eternity, I do this, often, with greater pain, than I can well describe; fearing lest what I mean in real anxiety for your best

interests, may be thought the effects, merely, of an unkind, unsocial, and gloomy temperament.But with this short preface, I proceed to the exercise of my duty.

The principle, which I endeavoured, in my last discourse, to establish, is that there is a system fully understood, assented to, and acted on in the world, which virtually supersedes and sets aside the law of God; and, in reality, puts man's opinion in the place of God. And this, I affirm, is not the practice of a few, stigmatized, wicked characters, but the prevailing and received principle of action; and, consequently, that the words of my text apply not to some exceptions from, but to the average of society. "All their works they do, for to be seen of men."

A charge like this can be proved, only by adducing instances. And the more familiar the instances are, the better they will be understood; and the more easily their connexion with the principle laid down, will be traced. Let this, then, be my apology, if I appear to advert to topics, which some might think below the level of the pulpit.

Where the world makes a law, it is received with all that solemn reverence, and obeyed with that alacrity, which suits the commands of the Supreme God. And, on the other hand, where

God propounds a law, it has just the force, which the authority of a weak and tottering government has. The law is heard-it is not disputed: but it is not obeyed. One instance which I mentioned last Sunday, was the wide distinction which is made, between men and women, as to the sin of drunkenness. But it will be said, there is a material difference between the sexes in point of delicacy, which, surely, should be taken into account. Whatever weight we may allow to this, yet, in the very sin of drinking, an instance could be shewn, where, respecting the same sex, the same complete triumph of man's authority, over God's authority, evidently appears. It might seem ludicrous, almost, to mention it gravely, were it not a part of an awfully important system. If, then, in worldly society, a man of the world appears, evening after evening, I will not say intoxicated, but evidently affected or changed, by what he has drunk, it is thought a comparative trifle. But if, in the morning, the same symptoms appeared, is it not true, that a significant murmur, a mysterious whisper, would go round among his acquaintances, that he was a lost man? And if the habit continued, that he would gradually be avoided as infectious, and cast out of the pale of reputable society ? Now why this broad, excessive, exaggerated distinction, between two crimes, surely not

in themselves, very far removed from each other? Has the Scripture, which reveals God's will, pronounced it a deadly, unpardonable sin, to be drunk before dinner; and a harmless levity, to be drunk after dinner? No. How, then, is this to be accounted for? In this way alone: in the former instance, the offence is considered, as being merely against God; but in the latter, it is an offence against the majesty of man's opinion.

Here, again, however, it may be said, in extenuation, that the world's authority is on the right side, however disproportionately exercised. But this authority, I answer, can take the wrong side; and be just as implicitly obeyed. For example; it can make it a greater crime, not to pay a gambling debt, than an honest tradesman's bill. If a young, inexperienced man, loses a great part, nay, the whole of his property, at play, to a person whom, in his conscience, he thinks a villain, for entrapping him; yet if he does not proceed instantly to sell all that he has,—to announce, perhaps, to a new-married wife, while her prospects are in all their bloom, that they both are ruined, and must forthwith, bid adieu to home and every earthly comfort, to pay the wages of iniquity to a sharper;—if he demur about this, he feels that the world will spurn him from its presence, and cast him forth, like Cain, as a