do we see who, on arriving at the age in which they become capable of thinking for themselves, seem to deem it incumbent on them, in order to evince that they actually do exercise the privilege, to behave disrespectfully to their parents-to act in opposition to all that they know to be their parents' wishes respecting the conduct which they should pursue and the principles which they should cherish; and, while they thus affect an entire independence of parental authority, how many are there who throw off all regard to their Heavenly Father likewise, and act as if it were still to wear the trammels of dependence should they still acknowledge the authority of God and His laws! All this arises from the evils of human nature, the lusts and concupiscences having selfish and worldly things for their objects, which in childhood and youth are comparatively weak, and are kept under restraint by the authority of parents and governors. Some of these, also, do not manifest themselves at all till the approach of adult age; then they break forth with violence, and unless the young person makes the right use of his reason and self-determining power, into the exercise of which he then also comes, they carry him away; and then, thinking under their influence, he either thinks decidedly against and rejects, or else lays out of sight, and abstains from thinking of at all, those knowledges of Divine things and spiritual principles of duty which, in calmer states, before the turbulence of the passions had begun to disturb the impartiality of his mind, had found an entrance and acceptance.

Independence of mind, however, does not consist in thinking against all that we have been taught in childhood, and in discarding all regard to it as matter of idle prejudice. It is every one's duty, when he comes to the age of reason, to review the sentiments upon the most important subjects which he has previously adopted upon the authority of others; but it by no means follows that such review is to terminate in their rejection. As much independence is shown in a man's adopting and confirming from his own reason the views which he had imbibed in childhood, when, after a truly impartial examination, he sees reason to believe them true, as in rejecting them; and perhaps more so, because he thus exercises the independence of his mind with much less of the parade of it. It never ought to be without full conviction that early prepossessions are abandoned; and in making the examination, especial care should be taken that it is performed under the influence of a sincere love of truth, and not of truth alone, but of goodness also, without which the mind is continually liable to deceive itself when it boasts of its love of truth. If, on arriving at adult age, we thus review the sentiments we have imbibed from

instruction in childhood, we shall not be likely to exchange them for worse. We are then making a proper use of the faculty of rationality, to the full capacity of exercising which we have attained. We shall not then be inclined to renounce what is really true merely to show our independence of mind, nor run counter in our conduct to all we have been taught, from the mere impulse of pride in being our own masters. But if we allow the passions of our nature to become our masters, and begin to cherish any opinions that may present themselves merely because less opposed to the unrestrained indulgence of evil inclinations, there is no knowing to what extremes we may at last be carried away. We then are entered on the direct path of ruin; and he who once has decidedly taken this step is in most imminent danger of proceeding to its termination.

How a person proceeds who, on arriving at the age of reason, and thus becoming his own master, is borne away by the solicitations of the natural part of his constitution, is described most significantly in the verse of our text which follows-"And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living." This, indeed, is not a description of the state of those who, on arriving at the exercise of their own reason, deliberately and determinedly reject the principles of truth and goodness which had been introduced into their minds in infancy and childhood. Such are in a far more dangerous state than even that of the prodigal son, and are not properly referred to in this parable; but by his conduct is described the case of those who, without rejecting the good principles with which their minds have been furnished, suffer the love of external pleasures to draw them aside, till the knowledges of truth and goodness, with the affection for them which they before possessed, are forgotten, and in a manner obliterated, and all the enjoyment which they found in them, and comfort which they derived from them, are altogether extinct. This is a state which inevitably ensues when a man, without positively rejecting and confirming himself against the good principles which in early years he had imbibed through instruction drawn from the Word, and the secret operations of the Lord upon his soul, lives without regard to them, and sinks the seat of his thoughts and affections altogether into his natural or external man. such a state he truly is far from his Father's house, and from his own proper home; which is beautifully intimated when it is said that "the younger son took his journey into a far country." The Lord, man's Heavenly Father, is the proper centre of every human soul; and where He is, is the proper home of all His rational offspring. When they

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depart from Him, and from the principles of love and duty by which their connection with Him is retained, little as they may think it, they are journeying into a far country, far remote indeed from all the genuine comforts that are associated by every one with the idea of home. They are becoming strangers even to themselves.

When it is said of the prodigal that he "there wasted his substance with riotous living," it describes the effect of the pursuit of merely natural enjoyments, in depriving the mind of all relish for those things which alone are substantial, the things of heaven and of eternity, with the capacities for receiving and retaining those principles of goodness and truth with which alone that relish can be associated.

The true riches of man-his very living-the things on which depends his well-being in eternity-inevitably waste away in proportion as man gives himself over to what is here called riotous living, or, as it might perhaps be better expressed according to our present application of words, living extravagantly; the spiritual idea attached to which is, in the disorderly pursuit of merely natural enjoyments. Most expressly is it said of the Children of Israel, when they lusted for flesh-by which is meant a desire for natural delight-that though this was given them, leanness was sent into their soul—that is, as the natural man is exclusively pampered the spiritual man suffers or starves in proportion, till at length all its enjoyments are extinct, and all the good things inseminated from infancy disappear. Thus, of the living which man originally derives from his Heavenly Father, all is spent or wasted. All that man enjoyed in his natural mind by communication through his spiritual, vanishes, by the closing up of the latter, the consequence of which is described in the case of the prodigal by its being said that "when he had spent all there arose a mighty famine in that land." That "land" is here the natural mind of man, considered as separate from his spiritual mind, in which there is a complete defect, failure, or absence of all perceptions of truth and affections of good, when the spiritual mind is closed, and when thus the remains of good inseminated from infancy are either destroyed or withdrawn. Thus, indeed, the man, with the prodigal, "begins to be in want;" he feels an absence of all spiritual life and enjoyment, and experiences a lamentable change of state in consequence.

But perhaps he thinks to supply the want of it by giving himself up more entirely to the pursuits of the natural man, seeking to indemnify himself in the enjoyments which he hopes to obtain from this source for what he has lost, by his extravagance in dissipating the spiritual riches which he had derived from the care of the Lord and of his parents or

friends during infancy. This is what is meant when it is said that the prodigal went and joined himself with a certain citizen of that country, or entered into a covenant with him to be his servant, and by the citizen sending him into the fields to feed swine. A citizen of that country signifies the natural principle itself, as separate from the spiritual; by the prodigal's covenanting with him is meant the giving himself up altogether to the views of the natural man, so as to look to natural ends alone to acknowledge, in a manner, the ruling attributes of the natural man as our master; and to be sent into this person's fields to feed swine, is to be removed altogether from all interior principles and states, so as to cultivate the lowest appetites and concupiscences of the natural man, of which, in the Word, swine are mentioned as the types—such, in particular, as the love of worldly objects for their own sake alone, or the love of riches without any view whatever to use. Such is the specific signification of swine; but here they appear to denote the lowest and most grovelling pursuits of the natural man in general. Yet such was the state of destitution to which our prodigal was now brought, through his having squandered his spiritual property or substance, and thus having lost the capacity of every higher enjoyment, that, as is added to complete the description of his misery, "he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat, and no man gave unto him.” Fain would he have taken up with such enjoyments, or satisfied the craving desires of his mind with such things as nourish the principles of which swine are the representatives-the low delights and frivolous thoughts which are pursued with avidity by those who are wholly sunk in sordid, carnal, earthly pursuits. Yet here, also, he could not find rest. In such things there is nothing truly satisfying; and all who are not utterly abandoned to wickedness without check, who have any remains of good principle and correct sentiment, the consequence of what had been inseminated in their minds in youth, feel, even when seeking oblivion in such low pursuits as these, that there is nothing in them to satisfy the soul. Though they would fain take up with these, they cannot truly do so; which is intimated by its being said that " no man gave unto him." This, however, also evinces that, great as is the misconduct and wretchedness of those who are represented by the prodigal, they yet are not such as reject and confirm themselves against Divine things altogether, but those who still retain such a degree of regard to them as prevents them from finding rest in low pursuits, though they may be mad enough to seek it.

Having now attended the prodigal to his lowest state of debasement, we will there leave him for the present, with a few reflections.

I have observed upon the disposition which so many exhibit, on coming to the age when they begin to think and act for themselves, to run counter to the principles which they had imbibed from infancy, even to the extent of denying and confirming themselves against them; and I have shewn that these are not they who are meant by the prodigal in our text,—a circumstance which seems necessary to be borne in mind, lest any should suppose that there is no depth of wickedness to which man can descend, the ill consequences of which may not be completely remedied by afterrepentance. The enormity of all evil, and the degree to which it can afterwards be repaired, depends upon the degree in which it involves a rejection of the opposite good; and how far this is the case with individuals cannot be judged of from outward acts, and can only be known to the Lord. It may be possible that some of those whose transgressions bring down upon them the penalties of the law of the country are not so confirmed in evil as some who maintain fair characters in society; because they may not have acted from a deliberate and determined rejection of good and divine things, but have been hurried into excesses without opportunity for reflection. It is of those whose faults are more of this character, that the class of persons consists of whom the prodigal son is the type. Let then all be aware how they deliberately yield to evil solicitations; and, especially, how they confirm the evils into which they have been hurried, by afterwards thinking of them as allowable, and by undervaluing or despising the divine law by which they are condemned. Let the sinner sincerely turn from his evil, and it shall be forgiven him; but let none rush into sin, with the thought beforehand that it does not signify, because he may afterwards repent and obtain forgiveness at pleasure. Descent into evil is easy; but none can be assured, when once he gives way to it, that ever he shall again turn from it. There are those who would not only fill their belly with the husks eaten by swine, but who become altogether of the quality of swine themselves, to which those husks are the natural nourishment; and of such characters, what room is there for hope? what probability of amendment?

Let, then, every one who wishes to be safe, take care how he walks in the steps of the prodigal, and wastes his substance-his living-his capacities for the graces and blessings of the heavenly kingdom, by riotous or disorderly conduct. Yet, in some respects, alas! we have all done so; and it is well for us if we feel this from the heart, and are humble enough to appear, as best becomes us, in the character of penitents before our Heavenly Father!