Page images
PDF
EPUB

the Scribes and Pharisees. They desired to be thought holy and religious men not that they valued a religious character; but they had private ends to obtain, which could not be obtained without it. What was still worse, it was the great endeavour of their lives to spread wickedness. They would compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he was made, they made him ten times more the child of hell than themselves.

After all, one should have hoped, these sinners might have seen their evil ways, and having such a teacher as the blessed Jesus, might have repented. Many applications he made to them; but nothing like repentance appears. We have Abraham to our father, was their grand plea of righteousness. Nothing was less in their hearts than to bring forth fruits meet for repentance.

.The scorning of divine grace is a signal for every wickedness to enter. During the whole of our Saviour's ministry, these impenitent wretches grew worse and worse; too proud to acknowledge their faults too hardened to amend them, till at length they filled up the measure of their iniquities by putting the blessed Jesus to death.

Thus,

· Thus, my brethren, I have described to you the character of the Scribes and Pharisees, as we have it in Scripture. Let us now, as I proposed, secondly, make an application of it to ourselves: let us see whether our righteousness exceeds theirs or whether, at the bottom, we may not be of the sect of the Scribes and Pharisees ourselves.

The great use of these bad examples is to show us, that when people begin to sit loose to religion, there is no point of wickedness to which they may not be carried. Here and there we see what the world calls a good moral man: but morality is often but a slight tie; whereas religion is an anchor which holds all fast. Whether the wretched people we have been describing were ever moral men, may be doubted. It is certain they had no regard to the religion they professed, but attended only to a few showy ceremonies. Instead, therefore, of proceeding to greater heights of piety, as their minds might have been opened by the Gospel, they fell from one wickedness to another, and at length to the greatest. Let us, therefore, try ourselves by our Saviour's

rule,

rule, and see how far our religion may be corrupted, after the examples before us.

We may all, probably, think that if we had lived in those days, we should not have had a hand in putting the blessed Jesus to death. Perhaps not. But do none of us, by living in opposition to his laws, crucify, as it were, the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame? Perhaps none of us would devour widows' houses: but are we never guilty of doing a hard thing to a neighbour? Or, though we would not compass sea and land to make wicked proselytes, do we never set a bad example to those beneath us, and take that most successful way of making wicked proselytes?

Again. Do we never feel in our hearts that coldness and indifference to the duties of religion which the Scribes and Pharisees felt?-Do we feel nothing like their inattention to instruction -hearing the word, and not improving under it? -Do we never imitate them in the vile practice of swearing, or in their hypocritical pretences to religion? Or do we never feel in ourselves any thing like their envy, their malice, and defamation? Or like their spiritual pride — their lessening their own offences, and diminishing crimes

into errors or, perhaps, like their worldlymindedness and covetousness or, what is worst of all, their impenitent, hardened hearts, and deafness to all the calls of repentance?—If we do find any thing like these vices and bad dispositions in our hearts, let us not lay it to the Scribes and Pharisees, but consider whether our own unrighteousness may not be of a piece with theirs. Let us repent in time, and do every thing in our power to amend what is like so bad an example. Let it be our great point to hold fast our religious principles. While we preserve these, through God's mercy, we are safe. But when these give way, we may become mere Scribes and Pharisees in our conduct our righteousness may not exceed theirs, and we shall, in no case, enter into the kingdom of heaven.

SERMON VII.

PSALM 1xxvii. 6.

IN THE NIGHT Ι COMMUNE WITH MINE OWN HEART.

THE night is here taken for those times of solitude and silence, those calm, and quiet seasons, when the busy mind enjoys some pausewhen it is uninterrupted by the restless trade of life, and unsolicited by its vanities. In these happy intervals; which the wise man finds as often as he can, and the thoughtless as seldom we commune with our own hearts. we seek into all the little deceits, which are so apt to get entrance there - we set a watch over our thoughts -we bring the mind home to that best of all pursuits, the knowledge of itself-we consider ourselves as the destined inhabitants of another world-we call our sins to remembrance, and endeavour, by our sincere resolutions of amendment,

VOL. III.

F

« PreviousContinue »