sible for us to continue a week longer in the world. If, for instance, we were bound to pray without ceasing, and to take no thought whatever for the morrow, we must all of us quickly perish for want of the common necessaries of life.

2dly. It must be observed that all oriental writers, both sacred and profane, are accustomed to express themselves in bold ardent figures and metaphors, which, before their true meaning can be ascertained, require very considerable abatements, restrictions, and limi

tations.

3dly. What is most of all to the purpose, these abatements are almost constantly pointed out by scripture itself and whenever a very strong and forcible idiom is made use of you will general find it explained and modified by a different expression of the same sentiment, which either immediately follows, or occurs in some other passage of Scripture.

Thus in the present instance, when Christ says, Ye cannot serve God and mammon; therefore, take no thought for your life what ye shall eat and what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body what ye shall put on:" this is most clearly explained a few verses after, in these words, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you."* The meaning therefore of the precept is evidently this; not that we are absolutely to take no thought for our life, and the means of supporting it; but that our thoughts are not to be wholly or principally occupied with these things. We are not

to indulge an immoderate and unceasing anxiety and solicitude about them: for that indeed is the true meaning of the original word merimnab. In our English Bible, that word is translated take no thought; but at the time when our translation was made, that expression signified only be not too careful. Our hearts, as it is expressed in another place, are not to be overcharged with the cares of this life,* so as to exclude all other concerns, even those of religion.

Luke, xxi. 34.

1

In the same manner with respect to pleasures, we are not forbid to have any love for them; we are only commanded not to be lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.*

When therefore it is said, ye cannot serve God and mammon, the point contended for in respect to God is not exclusive possession, but exclusive dominion. Other things may occasionally for a certain time, and to a certain degree, have possession of our minds, but they must not rule, they must not reign over them. We cannot serve two masters; we can serve but one faithfully and effectually, and that one must be God. The concerns and comforts of this life may have their due place in our hearts, but they must not aspire to the first; this is the prerogative of religion alone; religion must be supreme and paramount over all. Every one, it has been often said, has his ruling passion. The ruling passion of the Christian must be the love of his Maker and Redeemer. This it is which must principally occupy his thoughts, his time, his attention, his heart. If there be any thing else which has gained the ascendency over our souls, on which our desires, our wishes, our hopes, our fears, are chiefly fixed, God is then dispossessed of his rightful dominion over us; we serve another master, and we shall think but little of our Maker, or any thing belonging to him.

His empire over our hearts must, in short, at all events be maintained. When this point is once secured, every inferior gratification that is consistent with his sovereignty, his glory, and his commands, is perfectly allowable; every thing that is hostile to them must at once be renounced.

It is

This is a plain rule, and a very important one. the principle which our blessed Lord meant here to establish, and it must be the governing principle of our lives.

Next to this in importance is another command, which you will find in the 12th verse of the seventh chapter;"All thing whatsoever ye would that men

* 2 Tim, i. 4.

should do to you, do ye even so to them; for this is the law and the prophets." As the former precepts which we have been considering relate to God, this relates to man; it is the grand rule by which we must in all ca ses regulate our conduct towards our neighbour; and it is a rule plain, simple, concise, intelligible, comprehensive, and every way worthy of its divine author.Whenever we are deliberating how we ought to act towards our neighbour in any particular instance, we must for a moment change situations with him in our own minds, we must place him in our circumstances and ourselves in his, and then whatever we should wish him to do to us, that we are to do to him. This is a process, in which, if we act fairly and impartially, we can never be mistaken. Our own feelings will determine our conduct at once better than all the casuists in the world.

But before we entirely quit the consideration of this precept, we must take some notice of the observation subjoined to it, which will require a little explanation. "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them; for this is the law and the prophets."

The concluding clause, this is the law and the prophets, has by some been interpreted to mean, this is the sum and substance of all religion; as if religion consisted solely in behaving justly and kindly to our fellow creatures, and beyond this no other duty was required at our hands. But this conclusion is as groundless as it is dangerous and unscriptural.

There are duties surely of another order, equally necessary at least, and equally important with those we owe to our neighbour.

There are duties, in the first place owing to our Creator, whom we are bound to honor, to venerate, to worship, to obey, and to love with all our hearts and souls, and mind, and strength. There are duties owing to our Redeemer, of affection, attachment, gratitude, faith in his divine mission, and reliance on the atonement he made for us on the cross. There are lastly, acts of dis

cipline and self-government to be exercised over our corrupt propensities and irregular desires. According ly, in the very chapter we have just been considering, we are commanded to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. We are in another place informed, that the love of God is the first and great commandment, and the love of our neighbour only the se cond; and we are taught by St. James that one main branch of religion is to keep ourselves unspotted from the world.* It is impossible, therefore, that our blessed Lord could here mean to say, that our duty towards our neighbour was the whole of his religion; he says nothing in fact of his religion; he speaks only of the Jewish religion; the law and the prophets; and of these he only says that one of the great objects they have in view is to inculcate that same equitable conduct towards our brethren, which he here recommended.†

Let no one then indulge the vain imagination that a just, and generous, and compassionate conduct towards his fellow creatures constitutes the whole of his duty, and will compensate for the want of every other Christian virtue.

This is a most fatal delusion; and yet in the present times a very common one. Benevolence is the favourite, the fashionable virtue of the age; it is universally cried up by infidels and libertines as the first and only duty of man; and even many who pretend to the name of Christians, are too apt to rest upon it as the most essential part of their religion, and the chief basis of their title to the rewards of the gospel. But that gospel, as we have just seen, prescribes to us several other duties, which require from us the same attention as those we owe to our neighbour; and if we fail in any of them, we can have no hope of sharing in the benefits procur ed for us by the sacrifice of our Redeemer. What then God and nature, as well as Christ and his apostles, have joined together, let no man dare to put asunder. Let no one flatter himself with obtaining the rewards, or See chap. xxii. 40. Rom. xiii. 8. Gal. v. 14 and

* James i. 27. Grotius on this verse.

even escaping the punishments of the Gospel, by performing only one branch of his duty; nor let him ever suppose that under the shelter of benevolence he can either on one hand evade the first and great command, the love of his Maker; or on the other hand that he can securely indulge his favorite passions, can compound as it were with God for his sensuality by acts of generosity, and purchase by his wealth a general licence to sin. This may be very good pagan morality, may be very good modern philosophy, but it is not Christian godliness.

As it is my purpose to touch only on the most important and most generally useful parts of our Saviour's discourse, I shall pass over what remains of it, and hasten to the conclusion, which is expressed by the sacred historian in these words; "And it came to pass, that when Jesus had finished these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine; for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes."* Both his matter and his manner were infinitely beyond any thing they had ever heard before. He did not, like the heathen philosophers, entertain his hearers with dry metaphysical discourses on the nature of the supreme good, and the several divisions and subdivisions of virtue; nor did he, like the Jewish rabbies, content himself with dealing out ceremonies and traditions, with discoursing on mint and cummin, and estimating the breadth of a phylactery; but he drew off their attention from these trivial and contemptible things to the greatest and the noblest objects; the existence of one supreme Almighty Being, the Creator, Preserver, and Governor of the universe: the first formation of man ;" his fall from original innocence; the consequent corruption and depravity of his nature; the remedy provided for him by the goodness of our Maker and the death of our Redeemer; the nature of that divine religion which he himself came to reveal to mankind; the purity of heart and sanctity of life which he required;

Matth. vii. 28, 29.