reason and conscience taught us to regard with abhorrence. Atrocious cruelty, utter hardness and brutality of feeling, and a want of natural affection to our relations, are things which are not so much human vices, as monstrosities: God's revealed will is intended to carry us on further than we could have gone by our mere natural knowledge of him, not to repeat over again what we must be-more like beasts than men if we do not know already. Christians do not need to be enjoined what even common sinners are not so vile as to leave undone, nor to be warned against sins which even publicans and sinners would shrink from. "Sinners, also, love those that love them ;-sinners, also, lend to sinners, that they may receive as much again."

To apply this to the present case :-those among us who have no zeal for any kind of useful labour;-who hardly exercise at all, or exercise no more than they must, their common faculties of the understanding ;who, so far from devoting their hearts to God, have not even learnt to love their own earthly relations, but prefer their own selfish and brute enjoyments, to their own improvement or the wishes of their friends;- -they who care for nothing so much as for eating,

drinking, and playing;-with these the two latter parts of the text have, as yet, little to do; they are not advanced high enough to need them. The lesson which they require is the first and simplest part of the text: to learn diligence from Christ's example; to follow their work more earnestly, and in a better spirit; to think that there is something in life, higher and better than the enjoyments of a beast. Unless they get so far as this, there is no danger, indeed, of the seed being parched up for want of root, and much less of its being choked by over luxuriant weeds: their hearts are but the hard wayside, too dull and too degraded for the seed ever to live in them at all. No one, in short, can ever be a Christian, if he is not fit to be a man. It will be time enough hereafter to tell them of the wisdom of religious rest, even from Christian duties, when they have some notion of what Christian duty is. It will be time enough to talk of the danger of too much admiring their mere intellectual faculties, when they shall have first learnt to exert and take pleasure in them at all. Instead of thinking, then, that they are not guilty of intellectual pride, or of too highly valuing their own virtues, they should recollect why

they are not guilty of these things, and that it is only because they cannot be proud of what they have not got, and that their own faults are of a much lower order; not the pride of having conquered themselves, but gross selfishness; not loving man more than God, but themselves more than man; not trusting too much to their understandings, but altogether neglecting them. For them, therefore, much of the Gospel is as yet a dead letter; they must be far above what they are now, before they can require to be warned against the faults of Christians; they must first learn to acquire the common virtues and excellencies of men. In short, they must be not far from the kingdom of God, before they can hope to enter into it; they must be sensible to the laws of nature and reason, before they can ever understand those of the Gospel.

SERMON XXII.

MARK VI. 31.

And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much

as to eat.

BEFORE I go on with the subject of the text, it may be right to make one or two remarks, in order to prevent what I said on Sunday last from being misunderstood, and that too, so misunderstood, as to render it mischievous rather than useful. I said, that it was very important that we should all understand clearly the particular class of characters to which we ourselves belong; that so we may each apply to ourselves the particular lesson which is intended for us. And, to apply this to the case before us, I said, that they who had no zeal for any kind of labour were not concerned with exhortations

to choose rather that sort of labour which is most useful, and, still less, with warnings not to pursue their labour too eagerly. Such persons, I said, had not got far enough for lessons of this kind; but required first to learn from our Lord's example of mere diligence in his calling, without regard to the after question of what his particular calling was. But, in thus speaking of classes of characters, I never supposed that these would always go along with particular ages, or particular situations in life. Generally speaking, no doubt, mere idleness is the fault of the very young; and, generally speaking, they would less require the warning against labouring in worldly things only, or against labouring without some intervals of religious rest. Yet it would be very foolish to suppose, either that no young boy had any need to be reminded of these points, or that no older person required to be excited to simple diligence and exertion. There are many cases in which the old require what is properly the instruction of the young,—many in which the young require to be warned against the faults of more advanced age,—many also, in which both will stand in need at once of both. It happens that one fault may be partly, not entirely subdued;