science and your affections, and retained in them by the spirit of earnest and repeated prayer, you will not, you cannot have your hearts fully set in you to do evil. Albeit that the condemnation of the wicked may linger in its course, its final consummation upon the impenitent, you will feel, is certain; and, by the knowledge of that certain issue, by the knowledge of your own dangers,-by the knowledge of that grace which is able to save you from them all,-you will shrink from the indolence of the slothful, from the false security of the presumptuous, and judge yourselves, that ye be not judged of the Lord, when He appeareth. None shall be too mighty to withstand, none too lowly to escape the judgment of that Great Assize. Both we who speak, and you who hear, must then render our account to the Searcher of all hearts. They who now stand above their fellows to guide, and to admonish, and who in obedience to their country's laws, are called upon to bear their part in the just enforcement of them, must themselves bow down before the Great Lord of all. Yea, the earthly judge shall himself be judged. The secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed; and the unprofitable and faithful servant shall be for ever separated. "To day," then, "if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts :-but exhort one another daily, while it is called to day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin '."

1 Heb. iii. 7.

SERMON VII.

THE PARABLE OF THE UNJUST STEWARD.

LUKE xvi. part of ver. 2.

Give an account of thy stewardship.

THERE are probably few persons, who, in reading or hearing the well-known Parable from which the text is taken, the Parable of the unjust steward,-have not felt some misgiving as to the sense in which certain parts of it are to be understood, and the practical bearing upon themselves of the lessons which it professes to inculcate.

The commendation, for instance, of the unjust steward, for the wisdom of his injustice, and, again, the precept to "make to ourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness,"-directly and openly as they both seem, at first sight, to oppose not only our instinctive notions of what is right, but the

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whole tenor and analogy of God's unerring sanctions, certainly deserve, on that account, a careful and patient examination. And although I do not believe it to be a pursuit that tends much to edification, to be for ever canvassing difficulties; neither do I consider the habitual seeking after such topics to be a sound and healthful state of feeling, either on the part of those who discuss them, or of those who love to hear their discussion; yet,-where the difficulties lie, as they do in the present instance, upon the surface of a Parable, which, from the days of childhood, has been familiar to us all; which is so frequently recurring either in our private perusal of the Scriptures, or in the daily and weekly services of the House of Prayer, and which we believe to be fraught with admonitions so needful to our souls; -it surely may be accounted a seasonable and needful duty to make it, from time to time, the subject of our thoughtful contemplation, and of our earnest prayer to God through Christ, that, from this, as well as from every other portion of the Inspired Volume, we may derive lessons that are profitable for our improvement in righteousness.

The first part of the Parable before us, viz. that which describes the dishonest stratagem of the steward to screen himself from the consequences of his misconduct, is, of course, easy to be understood. None of us can be at a loss to discover the motive which prompted him, in the moment of his detection

and disgrace, to call his lord's debtors unto him; and,-learning from one of them, that he owed an hundred measures of oil, and from another, that he owed an hundred measures of wheat,-to bid the first sit down quickly and reduce his bill to fifty measures, and the other to fourscore. It was clearly purchasing the favour of his lord's creditors at the expense of the lord himself; diminishing, by his own counsel, the amount of the debt for which they were respectively liable to another; and so securing for himself a refuge in their houses, when he should be put out of his stewardship.

"And the lord commended the unjust steward because he had done wisely." What lord, my brethren? not He who spake this Parable, and whom we acknowledge to be "God and Lord:" but, as the whole context of the passage authorizes us in interpreting the words, the lord of the unjust steward; he who had summoned the unfaithful

1 I am aware that some commentators are to be met with, who understand the commendation passed upon the unjust steward, as having been pronounced not by his master, but by our Lord Himself. Their number, however, is but small and insignificant, when compared with the long train of high authorities upon the other side; nor should I have thought it necessary to dwell upon the matter, were it not that, in Mr. Greswell's Exposition of the Parables,-an exposition which, for the vast range of laborious research, and profound learning comprised within it, and for the spirit of piety which pervades it, must command the respect and attention of every Christian student, the name of

servant to his presence, and bade him render an account of his stewardship; he, at whose expense

Jerome has been added,—I think erroneously, to the list of those who ascribe to our Lord the commendation spoken of in this passage. Mr. Greswell, after having clearly shown that it ought to be regarded as having been pronounced by the master of the steward, and not by our Lord, adds, that " among commentators of old, however, Jerome understood it in the latter sense. 'Alteram de Evangelio Lucæ quæstiunculam proposuisti: quis sit villicus iniquitatis, qui Domini voce laudatus est. Epistola ad Algasiam.' Operum IV. pars. i. 195. ad med." (Greswell on the Parables, Vol. iv. p. 39.)

Now, upon referring to the passage in question, I find that the words above quoted, (and which, if taken alone, would certainly bear out Mr. Greswell's statement,) occur at the beginning of the answer which Jerome is about to give to the Sixth Question proposed to him by Algasia for solution. And by examining the sequel, it is quite evident that they ought to be regarded, not as conveying Jerome's own interpretation, but as embodying the substance of the difficulty which had presented itself to the mind of Algasia. Thus, after having shown the connexion of the present Parable with the three which are recorded in the preceding chapter, and having touched briefly upon some of the duties which belonged to the office of steward in those days, the words of Jerome, with reference to the commendation bestowed upon the steward, are these, 'Si ergo dispensator iniquæ mammonæ, domini voce laudatur, quòd de re iniquâ sibi justitiam præparârit; et passus dispendia dominus, laudat dispensatoris prudentiam, quòd adversus dominum quidem fraudulenter, sed pro se prudenter egerit: quantò magis Christus, qui nullum damnum sustinere potest, et pronus est ad clementiam, laudabit discipulos suos, si in eos, qui credituri sibi sunt, misericordes fuerint.' The words marked in Italics show with