ful disharge of present duty, and the patient endurance of present trials, committing the future into the hands of God. The present moment alone is ours. We know not what shall be on the morrow. Perhaps that dark cloud, believer, which seems charged with a thousand evils, is fraught with ten thousand blessings, which to-morrow shall be showered upon thy head. Roll thy burden of care upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee. "Plead the promise at the footstool, "As thy day is, so shall thy strength be." Art thou afraid that to-morrow's sun shall see thee and thy beloved little ones plunged into poverty, and overwhelmed with the deepest earthly cares and anxieties? Be assured, believer, that "to-morrow shall take thought for the things of itself." If its duties are to be weighty, and its difficulties many, the God of Jacob will still be thy refuge, and underneath thee will be the everlasting arm. Why so anxious, so alarmed about the future? Are present trials not sufficient to exercise all the grace that has been committed to thee, and wilt thou take upon thee an additional load of cares, which thy heavenly Father never designed thee to bear? Thy covenant God hath taken thy future provision into His own hands, and He would have thee to come to the footstool as a daily pensioner upon His bounty, crying, "Give me this day my daily bread." "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

How peaceful, how tranquil, how serene, may the bosom of the child of God be! He is invited to "be careful for nothing," to commit all to God in believing prayer, and his shall be the experience of the promise, "The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your heart and mind through Christ Jesus." "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee." But what a contrast does the heart of the worldly man exhibit! It is agitated and distracted with ten thousand cares, and anxieties, and fears. It is like the troubled sea that cannot rest. There is no loving Saviour present, to say to its disturbed and heaving billows, Peace, be still. "There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." And what is the commotion, worldling, that now stirs from their very depths the strongest feelings of thy soul, but a precursor of that fearful agony of spirit which shall be thy portion in the place of torment? Seek peace now through Him, that hath made peace by the blood of His cross. Lay hold of the skirt of the Redeemer's garment; claim an interest in the Prince of Peace; then shall thy peace flow like a river, and thy righteousness like the waves of the sea.

CHAPTER III.

SOCIAL LIFE OF THE PHARISEES.

SECTION I.-UNCHARITABLE JUDGMENTS.

MAT. VII. 1 6.

The

THROUGHOUT the whole ofthe sixth chapter of Matthew's gospel, the Redeemer has been laying down the great leading principles by which His disciples ought ever to be actuated in so far as God is concerned. Pharisees, or formalists of that day, like the formalists of our own, though they made a high outward profession of Christianity, were in reality hypocritical worldlings, who engaged in religious duties with no other view than to be seen and admired of men, and instead of setting their hearts upon God as the chief treasure of the soul, the whole desires of their hearts, and the whole energies of their life, were devoted to the things of the world. Our blessed Lord accordingly lays it down as an established law of His kingdom, that God must be the all in all of our religious duties, and He must be the all in all of the affections of our hearts.

But the formalist is not only living in a practical

violation of his duty to God; he is also living in a practical violation of his duty to man. The two tables of the Moral Law are essentially and inseparably connected. The religion of the Bible requires us to love God with all our heart, and soul, and strength, and mind, and it requires us, with equal authority, to love our neighbour as ourselves. The Pharisee was unsound in his views of the one, and he was just as unsound in his views of the other. If he falsely trusted that he was righteous in the sight of God, this very error led him to despise others. If he could say, “I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess," the same spirit led him to say, "God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are." In both cases he was puffed up with pride, and therefore he fell into the condemnation of the devil. Self-righteousness is the offspring of pride; it is pride towards God,-one of the most hateful forms which pride can possibly assume; and its invariable accompaniment is pride towards man—an unseemly and odious preferring of ourselves to our fellow-men.

In opposition to such a spirit, our blessed Redeemer issues the pointed exhortation

V. 1. "Judge not, that ye be not judged."

It is scarcely necessary to observe, that our blessed Lord is not forbidding the administration of justice in courts of law, or by the authorised judges of

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the land; neither is He to be understood as forbidding the exercise of our own private judgment on what is properly within our sphere. On the contrary, we are commanded, 1 Thess. v. 21, "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." Still less does our Lord mean to discountenance the strictest self-examination, with a view to discover our own principles, and sentiments, and character. This plain scriptural duty the apostle enforces upon us, when he exhorts us, that if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged." The true design of our Lord in the text may be learned, not only from the context, but from the parallel passage in Luke vi. 37, "Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven." From these words, it is plain that our Lord warns His disciples against all rash, censorious, condemnatory judgments upon their fellow-men. He wishes that all His people should avoid the presumptuous conduct of the formalist who, puffed up with a high opinion of his own excellence, recklessly usurps the tribunal of the Searcher of Hearts, and ventures to give forth his judgment upon the motives and secret feelings of others, while all the time he is in utter ignorance of himself.

Against all such unwarrantable and censorious judgments in reference to our fellow-men, the Redeemer gives His solemn warning, "Judge not, that ye be not judged." We must not be ready to take up