the wild misrule of all those depravities | much such a state of things must multiply which agitate and deform our ruined na- the temptations to injustice over the face

ture.

of the country; and how desirable, therefore, that it were put an end to-not by the abolition of that venerable church, but by a fair and liberal commutation of the revenues which support her-not by bringing any blight on the property of her ecclesias tics, but by the removal of a most devouring blight from the worth of her population-that every provocative to justice may be done away, and the frailty of human principle be no longer left to such a ruinous and such a withering exposure.

This instance we would not have mentioned, but for the sake of adding another experimental proof to the lesson of our text; and we now hasten onward to the lesson itself, with a few of its applications.

propensity that seems inseparable from the constitution of every sentient being-and by which man is, in one point, assimilated either to the most worthless of his own species, or to those inferior animals among whom worth is unattainable.

The very same exhibition of our nature may be witnessed in almost every parish of our sister kingdom, where the people render a revenue to the minister of religion, and the minister renders back again a return, it is true-but not such a return, as, in the estimation of gross and ordinary selfishness, is at all deemed an equivalent for the sacrifice which has been made. In this instance, too, that law of reciprocity which reigns throughout the common transactions of merchandise, is altogether suspended; and the consequence is, that the law of right is trampled into ashes. A tide of public odium runs against the men who are outraged of their property, and a smile of general connivance rewards the successful We trust you are convinced, from what dexterity of the men who invade it. That has been said, that much of the actual hoportion of the annual produce of our soil, nesty of the world is due to the selfishness which, on a foundation of legitimacy as of the world. And then you will surely firm as the property of the soil itself, is al-admit, that in as far as this is the actuating lotted to a set of national functionaries-principle, honesty descends from its place and which, but for them, would all have as a rewardable, or even as an amiable virgone, in the shape of increased revenue, to tue, and sinks down into the character of a the indolent proprietor, is altogether thrown mere prudential virtue-which, so far from loose from the guardianship of that great conferring any moral exaltation on him by principle of reciprocity, on which we strong-whom it is exemplified, emanates out of a ly suspect that the honesties of this world are mainly supported. The national clergy of England may be considered as standing out of the pale of this guardianship; and the consequence is, that what is most rightfully and most sacredly theirs, is abandoned to the gambol of many thousand depreda- And let it not deafen the humbling imtors; and in addition to a load of most un-pression of this argument, that you are not merited obloquy, have they had to sustain distinctly conscious of the operation of selall the heartburnings of known and felt in-fishness, as presiding at every step over the justice; and that intercourse between the honesty of your daily and familiar transacteachers and the taught, which ought surely tions; and that the only inward checks to be an intercourse of peace, and friend- against injustice, of which you are sensible, ship, and righteousness, is turned into a are the aversion of a generous indignancy contest between the natural avarice of the towards it, and the positive discomfort you one party, and the natural resentments of would incur by the reproaches of your own the other. It is not that we wish our sister conscience. Selfishness, in fact, may have church were swept away, for we honestly originated and alimented the whole of this think, that the overthrow of that establish- virtue that belongs to you, and yet the mind ment would be a severe blow to the Chris-incur the same discomfort by the violation tianity of our land. It is not that we envy that great hierarchy the splendor of her endowments-for better a dinner of herbs, when surrounded by the love of parishioners, than a preferment of stalled dignity, and strife therewith. It is not either that we look upon her ministers as having at all disgraced themselves by their rapacity; for look to the amount of the encroach-pendence. This may be seen, in all its ments that are made upon them, and you will see that they have carried their privileges with the most exemplary forbearance and moderation. But from these very encroachments do we infer how lawless a human being will become, when emancipated from the bond of his own interest; how

of it, that it would do by the violation of any other of its established habits. And as to the generous indignancy of your feelings against all that is fraudulently and disgracefully wrong, let us never forget, that this may be the nurtured fruit of that common selfishness which links human beings with each other into a relationship of mutual de

perfection, among the leagued and sworn banditti of the highway; who, while execrated by society at large for the compact of iniquity into which they have entered, can maintain the most heroic fidelity to the virtues of their own brotherhood-and be, in every way, as lofty and as chivalric with

with the truth of this monstrous indictment that you live without God in the world; that however you may be signalized among your fellows, by that worth of character which is held in highest value and demand amongst the individuals of a mercantile society, it is at least without the influence of a godly principle that you have reached the maturity of an established reputation; that either the proud emotions of rectitude which glow within your bosom are totally untinctured by a feeling of homage to the Deityor that, without any such emotions, Self is the divinity you have all along worshipped, and your very virtues are so many offer

be, in fact, the nakedness of your spiritual condition, is it not high time, we ask, that you awaken out of this delusion, and shake the lying spirit of deep and heavy slumber away from you? Is it not high time, when eternity is so fast coming on, that you examine your accounts with God, and seek for a settlement with that Being who will so soon meet your disembodied spirits with the question of what have you done unto me ?-And if all the virtues which adorn you are but the subserviences of time, and of its accommodation-if either done alto

their points of honour, as we are with ours; and elevate as indignant a voice against the worthlessness of him who could betray the secret of their association, or break up any of the securities by which it was held together. And, in like manner, may we be the members of a wider combination, yet brought together by the tie of reciprocal interest; and all the virtues essential to the existence, or to the good of such a combination, may come to be idolized amongst us; and the breath of human applause may fan them into a lustre of splendid estimation; and yet the good man of society on earth be, in common with all his fellows, an utter outcast from the society of heaven-ings of reverence at her shrine. If such with his heart altogether bereft of that allegiance to God which forms the reigning principle of his unfallen creation-and in a state of entire destitution either as to that love of the Supreme Being, or as to that disinterested love of those around us, which form the graces and the virtues of eternity. We have not affirmed that there is no such thing as a native and disinterested principle of honour among men. But we have affirmed, on a former occasion, that a sense of honour may be in the heart, and the sense of God be utterly away from it. And we affirm now, that much of the ho-gether unto yourselves, or done without the nest practice of the world is not due to honesty of principle at all, but takes its origin from a baser ingredient of our constitution altogether. How wide is the operation of selfishness on the one hand, and how limited is the operation of abstract principle on the other, it were difficult to determine; and such a labyrinth to man is his own This, then, is the terminating object of heart, that he may be utterly unable, from all the experience that we have tried to set his own consciousness, to answer this ques- before you. We want to be a schoolmastion. But amid all the difficulties of such ter to bring you unto Christ. We want an analysis to himself, we ask him to think you to open your eyes to the accordancy of another who is unseen by us, but who is which obtains between the theology of the represented to us as seeing all things. We New Testament and the actual state and know not in what characters this heavenly history of man. Above all, we want you witness can be more impressively set forth, to turn your eyes inwardly upon yourthan as pondering the heart, as weighing selves, and there to behold a character the secrets of the heart, as fastening an at- without one trace or lineament of godlitentive and a judging eye on all the move-ness-there to behold a heart set upon toments of it, as treasuring up the whole of man's outward and inward history in a book of remembrance; and as keeping it in reserve for that day when, it is said, that the secrets of all hearts shall be laid open; and God shall bring out every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil. Your consciousness may not distinctly inform you, in how far the integrity of your habits is due to the latent operation of selfishness, or to the more direct and obvious operation of honour. But your consciousness may, perhaps, inform you distinctly enough, how little a share the will of God has in the way of influence on any of your doings. Your own sense and memory of what passes within you, may charge you

recognition of God on the spontaneous instigation of your own feelings-is it not high time that you lean no longer to the securities on which you have rested, and that you seek for acceptance with your Maker on a more firm and unalterable foundation?

tally other things than those which constitute the portion and the reward of eternity

there to behold every principle of action resolvable into the idolatry of self, or, at least into something independent of the authority of God-there to behold how worthless in their substance are those virtues which look so imposing in their semblance and their display, and draw round them here a popularity and an applause which will all be dissipated into nothing, when hereafter they are brought up for examination to the judgment seat. We want you, when the revelation of the gospel charges you with the totality and magnitude of your corruption, that you acquiesce in that charge; and that you may perceive the

trueness of it, under the disguise of all forgiven the sin of every one evil work of those hollow and unsubstantial accomplish-which he had aforetime been guilty, but ments, with which nature may deck her he is created anew unto the corresponding own fallen and degenerate children. It is good work. And therefore, if a Christian, easy to be amused, and interested, and in- will his honesty be purified from that taint tellectually regaled by an analysis of the of selfishness by which the general honesty human character, and a survey of human of this world is so deeply and extensively society. But it is not so easy to reach the pervaded. He will not do this good thing, individual conscience with the lesson-we that any good thing may be done unto are undone. It is not so easy to strike the him again. He will do it on a simple realarm into your hearts of the present guilt, gard to its own native and independent and the future damnation. It is not so easy rectitude. He will do it because it is hoto send the pointed arrow of conviction nourable, and because God wills him so to into your bosoms, where it may keep by adorn the doctrine of his Saviour. All his you and pursue you like an arrow sticking fair dealing, and all his friendship, will be fast; or so to humble you into the conclu- fair dealing and friendship without interest. sion, that in the sight of God, you are an The principle that is in him will stand in accursed thing, as that you may seek unto no need of aid from any such auxiliary— him who became a curse for you, and as but strong in its own unborrowed rethat the preaching of his Cross might cease sources, will it impress a legible stamp of to be foolishness. dignity and uprightness on the whole variety of his transactions in the world. All men find it their advantage, by the integrity of their dealings, to prolong the existence of some gainful fellowship into which they may have entered. But with him, the same unsullied integrity which kept this fellowship together, and sustained the progress of it, will abide with him through its last transactions, and dignify its full and final termination. Most men find, that, without the reverberation of any mischief on their own heads, they could reduce beneath the point of absolute justice, the charges of taxation. But he has a conscience both towards God, and towards man, which will not let him; and there is a rigid truth in all his returns, a pointed and precise accuracy in all his payments. When hemmed in with circumstances of difficulty, and evidently tottering to his fall, the demand of nature is, that he should ply his every artifice to secrete a provision for his family. But a Christian mind is incapable of artifice; and the voice of conscience within him will ever be louder than the voice of necessity; and he will be open as day with his creditors, nor put forth his hand to that which is rightfully theirs, any more than he would put forth his hand to the perpetration of a sacrilege; and though released altogether from that tie of interest which binds a man to equity with his fellows, yet the tie of principle will remain with him in all its strength. Nor will it ever be found that he, for the sake of subsistence, will enter into fraud, seeing that, as one of the children of light, he would not, to gain the whole world, lose his own soul.

Be assured, then, if you keep by the ground of being justified by your present works, you will perish: and though we may not have succeeded in convincing you of their worthlessness, be assured that a day is coming when such a flaw of deceitfulness, in the principle of them all, shall be laid open, as will demonstrate the equity of your entire and everlasting condemnation. To avert the fearfulness of that day is the message of the great atonement sounded in your ears-and the blood of Christ, cleansing from all sin, is offered to your acceptance; and if you turn away from it, you add to the guilt of a broken law the insult of a neglected gospel. But if you take the pardon of the gospel on the footing of the gospel, then, such is the efficacy of this great expedient, that it will reach an application of mercy farther than the eye of your own conscience ever reached; that it will redeem you from the guilt even of your most secret and unsuspected iniquities; and thoroughly wash you from a taint of sinfulness, more inveterate than, in the blindness of nature, you ever thought of, or ever conceived to belong to you.

But when a man becomes a believer, there are two great events which take place at this great turning point in his history. One of them takes place in heaven -even the expunging of his name from the book of condemnation. Another of them takes place on earth-even the application of such a sanctifying influence to his person, that all old things are done away with him, and all things become new with him. He is made the workmanship of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. He is not merely

DISCOURSE IV.

The Guilt of Dishonesty not to be estimated by the Gain of it.

"He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much; and he that is unjust in the least, is unjust also in much."-Luke xvi. 10.

It is the fine poetical conception of a late | which he suffers from it. He brings this poetical countryman, whose fancy too often moral question to the standard of his own grovelled among the despicable of human interest. A master will bear with all the character-but who, at the same time, was lesser liberties of his servants, so long as he capable of exhibiting, either in pleasing or feels them to be harmless; and it is not till in proud array, both the tender and the he is awakened to the apprehension of pernoble of human character-when he says sonal injury, from the amount or frequency of the man who carried a native, unborrow- of the embezzlements, that his moral indiged, self-sustained rectitude in his bosom, nation is at all sensibly awakened. And that "his eye, even turned on empty space, thus it is, that the maxim of our great beamed keen with honour." It was affirm- teacher of righteousness seems to be very ed, in the last discourse, that much of the ho- much unfelt, or forgotten, in society. Unnourable practice of the world rested on the faithfulness in that which is little, and unsubstratum of selfishness; that society was faithfulness in that which is much, are very held together in the exercise of its relative far from being regarded, as they were by virtues, mainly, by the tie of reciprocal ad- him, under the same aspect of criminality. vantage; that a man's own interest bound If there be no great hurt, it is felt that there him to all those average equities which ob- is no great harm. The innocence of a distained in the neighbourhood around him; honest freedom in respect of morality, is and in which, if he proved himself to be rated by its insignificance in respect of matglaringly deficient, he would be abandoned ter. The margin which separates the right by the respect, and the confidence, and the from the wrong, is remorselessly trodden ungood will of the people with whom he had der foot, so long as each makes only a mito do. It is a melancholy thought, how nute and gentle encroachment beyond the little the semblance of virtue upon earth landmark of his neighbour's territory. On betokens the real and substantial presence this subject there is a loose and popular esof virtuous principle among men. But on timate, which is not at one with the deliverthe other hand, though it be a rare, there ance of the New Testament; a habit of cannot be a more dignified attitude of the petty invasion on the side of aggressors, soul, than when of itself it kindles with a which is scarcely felt by them to be at all sense of justice, and the holy flame is fed, iniquitous-and even on the part of those as it were, by its own energies; than who are thus made free with, there is a when man moves onwards in an unchang- habit of loose and careless toleration. ing course of moral magnanimity, and dis- There is, in fact, a negligence or a dordains the aid of those inferior principles, mancy of principle among men, which by which gross and sordid humanity is causes this sort of injustice to be easily kept from all the grosser violations; than practised on the one side, and as easily put when he rejoices in truth as his kindred up with on the other; and, in a general and congenial element;-so, that though slackness of observation, is this virtue, in unpeopled of all its terrestrial accompani- its strictness and in its delicacy, completely ments; though he saw no interest what- overborne. ever to be associated with its fulfilment; though without one prospect either of fame or of emolument before him, would his eye, even when turned on emptiness itself, still retain the living lustre that had been lighted up in it, by a feeling of inward and independent reverence.

It is the taint of selfishness, then, which has so marred and corrupted the moral sensibility of our world; and the man, if such a man can be, whose "eye, even turned on empty space, beams keen with honour;" and whose homage, therefore, to the virtue of justice, is altogether freed from the mixIt has already been observed, and that ture of unworthy and interested feelings, fully and frequently enough, that a great will long to render to her, in every instance, part of the homage which is rendered to a faultless and completed offering. Whatintegrity in the world, is due to the opera-ever his forbearance to others, he could not tion of selfishness. And this substantially is the reason, why the principle of the text has so very slender a hold upon the human conscience. Man is ever prone to estimate the enormity of injustice, by the degree in

suffer the slightest blot of corruption upon any doings of his own. He cannot be satisfied with any thing short of the very last jot and tittle of the requirements of equity being fulfilled. He not merely shares in