·

It is a liberty, not which delivers us from re-firmed state of mind, a giving up what we straint, but which, freeing us from our sub-are, and have, and do, to God Devotedness jection to the senses, makes us find no pleas- does not consist in the length of our prayers, ure but in order, no safety but in the obedi-nor in the number of our good works, for, ence of an intelligent being to his righful though these are the surest evidences of pieLord. In delivering us from the heavy bon-ty, they are not its essence. Devotedness dage of sin, it transfers us to the easy yoke consists in doing and suffering, bearing and of Christ,' from the galling slavery of the forbearing in the way which God prescribes. world to the light burden' of him who over- The most inconsiderable duty performed came it. with alacrity, if it oppose our own inclination; the most ordinary trial met with a right spirit, is more acceptable to him than a greater effort of our own devising. We do not commend a servant for his activity, if ever so fervently exercised, in doing whatever gratifies his own fancy: we do not consider his performance as obedience, unless his activity has been exercised in doing what we required of him. Now, how can we insist on his doing what contradicts his own humour, while we allow ourselves to feel repugnance in serving our heavenly Master, when his commands do not exactly fall in with our own inclination?

This liberty in giving a true direction to the affections, gives them amplitude as well as elevation. The more unconstrained the will becomes, the more it fixes on the object; once fixed on the highest, it does not use its liberty for versatility, but for constancy, not for change, but for fidelity, not for wavering,

but adherence.

6

It is, therefore, no less our interest, than our duty. to keep the mind in an habitual posture of submission. Adam,' says Dr. Hammond, after his expulsion, was a greater slave in the wilderness than he had been in the inclosure.' If the barbarian ambassador came express to the Romans to negociate from his country for permission to be their servants, declaring, that a voluntary submission, even to a foreign power, was preferable to a wild and disorderly freedom, well may the Christian triumph in the peace and security to be attained by a complete subjugation to Him who is emphatically called the God of order.

We must also give God leave, not only to take his own way, but his own time. The appointment of seasons, as well as of events, is his. He waits to be gracious.' If he delays, it is because we are not yet brought to that state which fits us for the grant of our request. It is not he who must be brought about, but we ourselves. Or, perhaps, he refuses the thing we ask, in order to give us a better. We implore success in an undertaking, instead of which, he gives us content under the disappointment. We ask for the removal of pain; he gives us patience under it. We desire deliverance from our enemies; he sees that we have not yet turned their enmity to our improvement, and he will bring us to a better temper by further exercise. We desire him to avert some impending trial, instead of averting it, he takes away its bitterness; he mitigates what we believed would be intolerable, by giving us a right temper under it. How, then, can we say he has failed of his promise, if he gives something more truly valuable than we had requested at his hands?

A vital faith manifests itself in vital acts. Thy will be done,' is eminently a practical petition. The first indication of the gaoler's change of heart was a practical indica tion. He did not ask, Are there few that be saved,' but, What shall I do to be saved? The first symptom St Paul gave of his conversion, was a practical symptom: Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? He entered on his new course with a total renunciation of his own will. It seemed to this great Apostle, to be the turning point between infidelity and piety, whether he should follow his own will or the will of God. He did not amuse his curiosity with speculative questions. His own immediate and grand concern engrossed his whole soul. Nor was his Some virtues are more called out in one question a mere hasty effusion, an interroga- condition of life, and some in another. The tive springing out of that mixed feeling of exercise of certain qualities has its time and awe and wonder which accompanied his first place; but an endeavour after conformity to overwhelming convictions. It became the the image of God, which is best attained by abiding principle which governed his future submission to his will, is of perpetual obligalife, which made him in labours more abun- tion. If he does not require all virtues undant. Every successive act of duty, every der all circumstances, there is no state or future sacrifice of ease, sprung from it, was condition in which he does not require that influenced by it. His own will, his ardent, to which our church perpetually calls us, impetuous, fiery will, was not merely subdu- an humble, lowly, penitent, and obedient ed, it was extinguished. His powerful mind heart.' We may have no time, no capacity, indeed lost none of its energy but his proud no special call for deeds of notorious usefulheart relinquished all its independence. ness; but whatever be our pursuits, engageWe allow and adopt the term devotion as ments, or abilities, it will intrench on no an indispensable part of religion, because it time, require no specific call, interfere with is supposed to be limited to the act; but de- no duty, to subdue our perverse will. votedness, from which it is derived, does not Though the most severe of all duties, it inmeet with such ready acceptation, because fringes on no other, but will be the mere this is a habit, and an habit involves more effectually fulfilled by the very difficulties than an act; it pledges us to consistency, it attending on other pursuits and engageimplies fixedness of character, a general con-ments.

We are so fond of having our own will, that it is astonishing we do not oftener employ it for our own good; for our inward peace is augmented in exact proportion as our repugnance to the Divine will diminishes. Were the conquest over the one complete, the enjoyment of the other would be perfect. But the Holy Spirit does not as sume his emphatical title, the COMFORTER, till his previous offices have operated on the heart, till he has reproved us of sin, of righteousness, of judgment.'

obvious method. The same effect could not be any otherwise produced, except by miracles, and God is an economist of his means in grace as well as in nature. He deals out all gifts by measure. His operation in both is progressive. Successive events operate in one case as time and age in the other. As suns and showers so gradually mature the fruits of the earth, that the growth is rather perpetual than perceptible, so God commonly carries on the work of renovation in the heart silently and slowly, God makes use of methods inconceivable by means suitable and simple, though to us to us, to bring us to the submission which imperceptible, and sometimes unintelligible. we are more ready to request with our lips, Were the plans more obvious, and the pro than to desire with our hearts. By an im-cess ostensible, there would be no room perceptible operation he is ever at work for left for the operations of faith, no call for our good; he promotes it by objects the the exercise of patience, no demand for most unpromising, by events the most un the grace of humility. The road to perfeclikely. He employs means to our shallow tion is tedious and suffering, steep and rugviews the most improbable to effect his own ged; our impatience would leap over all the gracious purposes. In every thing he evin-intervening space which keeps us from it, ces that his thoughts are not as our thoughts. He overrules the opposition of our enemies, the defection of our friends, the faults of our children-the loss of our fortune as well as the disappointments attending its possession -the unsatisfactoriness of pleasures as well as the privation-the contradiction of our desires the failure of plans which we thought we had concerted, not only with good judgment but pure intentions. He makes us sensible of our faults by the mischiefs they bring upon us; and acknowledges our blindness by extracting from it consequences diametrically opposite to those which our actions were intended to produce.

Our love to God is stamped with the same imperfection with all our other graces. If we love him at all, it is as it were traditionally, bereditarily, professionally; it is a love of form and not of feeling, of education and not of sentiment, of sense and not of faith. It is at best a submission to authority, and not an effusion of voluntary gratitude, a conviction of the understanding, and not a cordiality of the affections. We rather assume we have this grace than actually possess it, we rather take it for granted on unexamin ed grounds, than cherish it as a principle from which whatever good we have must proceed, and from which, if it does not proceed, the principle does not exist.

Surely, say the oppugners of divine Providence, in considering the calamities inflicted on good men, if God loved virtue, he would not oppress the virtuous. Surely Omnipotence may find a way to make his children good, without making them miserable. But have these casuists ever devised a means by which men may be made good without being made humble, or happy without being made holy, or holy without trials? Unapt scholars indeed we are in learning the lessons taught But the Teacher is not the less perfect because of the imbecility of his children.

If it be the design of Infinite Goodness to disengage us from the world, to detach us from ourselves, and to purify us to himself, the purification by sufferings seems the most

rather than climb it by slow and painful steps. We would fain be spared the sorrow and shame of our own errors, of all their vexatious obstructions, all their dishonourable impediments. We would be completely good and happy at once without passing through the stages and gradations which lead to goodness and happiness. We require an instantaneous transformation which costs us nothing; the spirit of God works by a gradual process which costs us much. We would combine his favour with our self-indulgence; we would be spared the trials he has appointed without losing the felicity he has promised. We complain of the severity of the operation, but the operation would not be so severe if the disease did not lie so deep.

Besides, the afflictions which God appoints, are not seldom sent to save us from those we should bring on ourselves, and which might have added guilt to misery.He threatens, but it is that he may finally save. If punishment is his strange,' it is also his necessary work.' Even in the sorest affliction, the loss of those we love, there may be a mercy impenetrable to us.-God has, perhaps, laid up for us in heaven that friend whom he might have lost in eternity, had he been restored to our prayers here. But if the affliction be not improved, it is, indeed unspeakably heavy. If the loss of our friend does not help to detach us from the world, we have the calamity without the indemnification; we are deprived of our treasure without any advantage to ourselves. If the loss of him we loved does not make us more earnest to secure our salvation, we may lose at once our friend and our soul To endure the penalty and lose the profit, is to be emphatically miserable.

Sufferings are the only relics of the true cross, and when Divine grace turns them to our spiritual good, they almost perform the miracles which blind superstition ascribes to the false one. God mercifully takes from us what we have not courage to offer him; but if, when he resumes it, he sanctifies the loss, let us not repine. It was his while it was

ours. He was the proprietor while we were the possessors.

Though we profess a general readiness to submit to the Divine will, there is nothing in which we are more liable to illusion. Selflove is a subtle casuist. We invent distinctions. We too critically discriminate between afflictions which proceed more imme. diately from God, and disappointments which come from the world. To the former we acknowledge, in words at least, our willingness to submit. In the latter, though equally his dispensation, we seem to feel justified in refusing to acquiesce. God does not desire us to inflict punishments on ourselves, he only expects us to bear with patience those he inflicts on us, whether they come more immediately from himself or through the medium of his creatures.

CHAP. V.

On Parable.

It is obvious, that the reason why mankind, in general, are so much delighted with allegory and metaphor, is, because they are so proportioned to our senses, those first inlets of ideas. Ideas gained by the senses quickly pass into the region of the imagination; and from thence, more particularly the illiterate and uninformed, fetch materials for the employment of their reason.

Little reaches the understanding of the mass but through this medium. Their minds are not fitted for the reception of abstract truth. Dry argumentative instruction, therefore, is not proportioned to their capacity; the faculty by which a right conclusion is Love being the root of obedience, it is no drawn, is, in them. the most defective; they test of that obedience, if we obey God only rather feel strongly than judge accurately in things which do not cross our inclinations, and their feelings are awakened by the imwhile we disobey him in things that are re-pression made on their senses. The connexion of these remarks with the pugnant to them. Not to obey except when it costs us nothing is rather to please our- subject of instruction by parable, is obvious. selves than God, for it is evident we should It is the nature of parable to open the docdisobey him in these also if the allurement trine which it professes to conceal. By enwere equally powerful in these cases as in gaging attention and exciting curiosity, it the others. We may, indeed plead in apolo- developes truth with more effect than by a gy that the command we resist is of less im more explicit exposition By laying hold ou portance than that with which we comply; the imaginations, parable insinuates itself inbut this is a false excuse, for the authority to the affections, and, by the intercommuniwhich enjoins the least, is the same with cation of the faculties, the understanding is that which commands the greatest; and it made to apprehend the truth which was prois the authority to which we are to submit, posed to the fancy. as much as to the command.

There is commonly found sufficient rectitude of judgment in the generality to decide fairly on any point within their reach of mind, if the decision neither opposes their interest nor interferes with their prejudice. If you can separate the truth from any personal concern of their own, their verdict will probably be just: but if their views are clouded by passion, or biassed by selfishness, that man must possess a more than ordinary degree of integrity who decides against himself and in favour of what is right.

There is a passage in St. Luke which does not seem to be always brought to bear on this point as fully as it ought: Unless a man forsake all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple This does not seem to be quite identical with the command in another place, that a man should sell all that he has,' &c When the Christian world indeed, was in its infancy, the literal requisition in both cases was absolutely necessary. But it appears to be a more liberal interpretation of the command, asforsaking' all that we have, In the admirably devised parable of Naextends to a full and entire consecration of than, David's eager condemnation of the unourselves to God, a dedication without re-suspected offender is a striking instance of serve, not of fortune only, but of every de- the delusion of sin and the blindness of selfsire, every faculty, every inclination, every love. He who had lived a whole year in the talent; a resignation of the whole will, a unrepented commission of one of the blacksurrender of the whole soul. It is this sur-est crimes of the decalogue, and who, to serender which alone sanctifies our best ac- cure to himself the object for which he had tions. It is this pure oblation, this offering of unshared affection, this unmaimed sacri fice, which is alone acceptable to God, through that full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction," made for the sins of the whole world. Our money he will not accept without our good will, our devotions without our affections, our services without our hearts. Like the prevaricating pair, whose duplicity was punished by instant death, whatever we keep back will annihilate the value of what we bring. It will be nothing if it be not all.*

*Acts, chap. v.

committed it, perpetrated another almost
more heinous, and that with an hypocrisy
foreign to his character, could in an instant
denounce death on the imaginary offender.
for a fault comparatively trifling. The ve-
hemence of his resentment even overstepped
the limits of his natural justice, in decreeing
a punishment disproportioned to the crime,
while he remained dead to his own deep de-
linquency. A pointed parable instantly sur
prised him into the most bitter self-reproach.
A direct accusation might have inflamed him
before he was thus prepared; and, in the one
case, he might have punished the accuser,
by whom, in the other, he was brought to the
deepest self-abasement. The prudent proph-

ples and their duties, and made every object with which they were surrounded contribute its contingent to their instruction.

et did not rashly reproach the king with the crime he wished him to condemn, but placed the fault at such a distance, and in such a proper point of view, that he first procured The lower ranks, who most earnestly his impartial judgment, and afterwards his sought access to his person, could form a tolself-condemnation. An important lesson, erable exact judgment on the things he not only to the offender, but to the reprover. taught, by the aptness of his allusions to what He who knew what was in man,' and who they saw, and felt, and heard. The humble intended his religion, not for a few critics to situation he assumed, also, prevented their argue upon, but for a whole world to act up-being intimidated by power, or influenced by on, frequently adopted the mode of instruct- authority. It at once made their attendance ing by allegory. Though he sometimes con- a voluntary act, and their assent an unbiasdescended to unveil the hidden sense, by dis- sed conviction. The questions proposed closing the moral meaning, in some short, with a simple desire of instruction, were anbut most significant comment; yet be usually swered with condescending kindness; those left the application to those whom he meant dictated by curiosity or craft, were repelled to benefit by the doctrine. The truth which with wisdom, or answered, not by gratifying spoke strongly to their prejudices, by the importunity, but by grafting on the reply vel in which it was wrapped, spared the shame some higher instruction than the inquirer while it conveyed the instruction, and they had either proposed or desired. Where a probably found a gratification in the ingenu- direct answer would, by exciting prejudice, ity of their own solution which contributed have impeded usefulness, he evaded the parto reconcile them to the sharpness of the re- ticular question by enforcing from it some proof. general truth. On the application of the man The most unjust and prejudiced of the whose brother had refused to divide the inJews were, by this wise management, fre- heritance with him-in declining to interfere quently drawn in to give an unconscious tes-judicially, he gave a great moral lecture of timony against themselves; this was espe- universal use against avarice, while he prucially the case in the instance of the house-dently avoided the subject of the particular holder and his servants Had the truth they litigation.

were led to deduce from this parable, been His answer to the entangling question, presented in the offensive form of a direct⚫ And who is my neighbour?' suggested the charge, it would have fired them with inex-instructive illustration of the duty to a neighpressible indignation. bour, in that brief, but highly finished apologue of the good Samaritan. The Jews, who would never have owned that a Samaritan was their neighbour, were, by this pious management, drawn in to acknowledge, that every man, without regard to country, who was even of a hostile country, if he needed their assistance, was their neighbour In this slight outline. three characters are sketched with so much spirit and distinctness, that, as Mr. Boyle says of Scripture truths in general, they resemble those portraits, whose eyes, every one who enters the room, fancies are fixed on him.

Christians who abound in zeal, but are defective in knowledge and prudence, would do well to remember that discretion made a remarkable, though not disproportionate part of the Redeemer's character; he never invited attack by imprudence, or provoked hostility by intemperate rashness. ▾ When argument was not listened to, when persuasion was of no avail, when even all his miracles of mercy were misrepresented, and his divine beneficence thrown away, so that all farther altempts to do good were unavailing, he withdrew to another place; there, indeed, to experience the same malignity, there to exercise the same compassion.

False zeal, which he generally found associated with pride and hypocrisy, was alThe divine Author of our religion gave al- most the only vice which extorted from him so the example of teaching, not only by par- unmitigated severity: if he sometimes corable, but by simple propositions, detached rected presumption and repelled malicious truths, pointed interrogations, positive in- inquisitiveness, he uniformly encouraged disjoactions, and independent prohibitions, tress to approach, and penitence to address rather than by elaborate and continuous dis- him. The most indirect of his instructions sertation. He instructed, not only by conse- inculcated or encouraged goodness. The cutive arguments, but by invitations, and most simple of his reasonings were irrefradissuasives adapted to the feelings, and intel- gable without the formality of syllogism; ligible to the apprehensions of his audience. and his brief, but powerful persuasions went He drew their attention by popular illusions, straight to the heart, which the most elabodelighted it by vivid representations, and fix-rate discussions might have left unmoved.ed it by reference to actual events. Hal- Every hearer, however illiterate, would at luded to the Galileans, crushed by the falling once seize his meaning, except those who tower, which they remembered-to local found themselves interested in not underscenery-the vines of Gethsemane, which standing it; every spectator, if they bethey beheld, while he was descanting res- lieved not him, would believe his works,' if pectively upon repentance, and upon himself, pride had not blinded their eyes, if prejudice as the true vine.' By these simple, but had not barred up their hearts. powerful and suitable methods, he brought their daily habits, and every day ideas, to run in the same channel with their princi

Thus, if in the Gospels, the great doctrines of religion are not always conveyed in a didactic form, or linked with logical arrange.