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of a parent, a wife bereaved of her husband, both sunk in affliction, under the sharpest anguish of their misfortunes. To visit, by which is meant to console, to comfort, to succour, to relieve, to assist such as these, is undoubtedly a high exercise of religion and benevolence, and well selected: but still it is to be regarded as an example, and the whole class of beneficent virtues as intended to be included. This is not only a just and fair, but a necessary construction; because, although the exercise of beneficence be a duty upon every man, yet the kind, the examples of it, must be guided in a great degree by cach man's faculties, opportunities, and by the occasions, which present themselves. If such an occasion, as that which the text describes, present itself, it cannot be overlooked without an abandonment of religion; but if other and different occasions of doing good present themselves, they also, according to the spirit of our apostle's declaration, must be attended to, or we are wanting in the fruit of the same faith. The second principal expression of the text, 'to keep himself unspotted from the world,' signifies the being clean and clear from the licentious practices to which the world is addicted. So that 'pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father,' consists in two things; beneficence and purity: doing good and keeping clear from sin; not in one thing, but in two things: not in one without the other, but in both; and this, in my opinion, is a great lesson and a most important doctrine.

I shall not, at present, consider the case of those who are anxious, and effectually so, to maintain their personal innocency without endeavouring to do good to others; because I really believe it is not a common case. I think the religious principle, which is able to make men confine their passions and desires within the bounds of virtue, with very few exceptions, strong enough, at the same time, to prompt and put them upon active exertions.

Therefore, I would rather apply myself to that part of the case which is more common, active exertions of benevolence accompanied with looseness of private morals. It is a very common character: but I say, in the first place, it is an inconsistent character: it is doing and undoing; killing and curing; doing good by our charity, and mischief by our licentiousness: voluntarily relieving misery with one hand, and voluntarily producing and spreading it with the other. No real advance is

made in human happiness by this contradiction; no real betterness or improvement promoted.

But then, may not the harm a man does by his personal vices, be much less than the good he does by his active virtues? This is a point in which there is large room for delusion and mistake. Positive charity and acts of humanity are often of a conspicuous nature, naturally and deservedly engaging the praises of mankind, which are followed by our own. No one does, no one ought to speak against them, or attempt to disparage them; but the effect of vice and licentiousness, not only in their immediate consequences, but in their remote and ultimate tendencies, which ought all to be included in the account, the mischief which is done by the example, as well as by the act, is seldom honestly computed by the sinner himself. But I do not dwell further upon this comparison, because I insist, that no man has a right to make it; no man has a right, whilst he is doing occasional good, and yet indulging his vices and his passions, to strike a balance, as it were, between the good and the harm. . This is not Christianity; this is not pure and undefiled religion before God and the father, let the balance lie on which side it will; for our text declares (and our text declares no more than what the Scriptures testify from one end to the other), that religion demands both. It demands active virtue, and it demands innocency of life. I mean it demands sincere and vigorous endeavours in the pursuit of active virtue, and endeavours equally sincere and firm in the preservation of personal innocence. It makes no calculation which is better; but it requires both.

Shall it be extraordinary, that there should be men forward in active charity and in positive beneficence, who yet put little or no constraint upon their personal vices? I have said that the character is common, and I will tell you why it is common. The reason is (and there is no other reason), that it is usually an easier thing to perform acts of beneficence, even of expensive and troublesome beneficence, than it is to command and controul our passions; to give up and discard our vices; to burst the bonds of the habits which enslave us. This is the very truth of the case: so that the matter comes precisely to this point. Men of active benevolence, but of loose morals, are men who are for performing the duties which are easy to them, and omitting those which are hard. They only place their own character to themselves in what view they please: but this is the truth of the case, and let any one say, whether this be reli

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gion; whether this be sufficient. The truly religious man, when he has once decided a thing to be a duty, has no farther question to ask; whether it be easy to be done, or whether it be hard to be done, it is equally a duty; it then becomes a question of fortitude, of resolution, of firmness, of self-command, and self-government; but not of duty or obligation; these are already decided upon.

But least of all (and this is the inference from the text, which I wish most to press upon your attention,) least of all does he conceive the hope of reaching heaven by that sort of compromise, which would make easy, nay perhaps, pleasant, duties, an excuse for duties which are irksome and severe. Το recur, for the last time, to the instance mentioned in our text, I can very well believe, that a man of humane temper shall have pleasure in visiting, when by visiting he can succour, the fatherless and the widow in their affliction: but if he believes St James, he will find that this must be joined to and accompanied with another thing, which is neither easy nor pleasant; nay, must always almost be effected with pain and struggle, and mortification, and difficulty, the 'keeping himself unspotted from the world.'

XXII.

THE AGENCY OF JESUS CHRIST SINCE HIS ASCENSION.,

HEBREWS XIII. 8.

Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.

THE assertion of the text might be supported by the consideration, that the mission and preaching of Christ have lost nothing of their truth and importance by the lapse of ages, which has taken place since his appearance in the world. If they seem of less magnitude, reality, and concern, to us at this present day, than they did to those who lived in the days in which they were carried on, it is only in the same manner as a mountain or a tower appears to be less, when seen at a distance. It is a delusion in both cases. In natural objects we have commonly strength enough of judgment to prevent our being imposed upon by these false appearances and it is not so much a want or defect of, as it is a neglecting to exert and use, our judgment, if we suffer ourselves to be deceived by them in religion. Distance of space in one case, and distance of time in the other, make no difference in the real nature of the object; and it is a great weakness to allow them to make any difference in our estimate and apprehension. The death of Jesus Christ is, in truth, as interesting to us, as it was to those who stood by his cross his resurrection from the grave is a pledge and assurance of our future resurrection, no less than it was of theirs who conversed, who eat and drank with him, after his return to life.

But there is another sense, in which it is still more materially true, that Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, to-day, and for ever.' He is personally living, and acting in the same manner; has been so all along, and will be so to the end of the world. He is the same in his person, in his power, in his

office.

First, I say, that he is the same individual person, and is at this present time existing, living, acting. He is gone up on high. The clouds, at his ascension, received him out of human sight. But whither did he go? to sit for ever at the right hand of God. This is expressly declared concerning him. It is also declared of him, that death hath no more dominion over him, that he is no more to return to corruption. So that, since his ascension, he hath continued in heaven to live and act. His human body, we are likewise given to believe, was changed upon his ascension, that is, was glorified, whereby it became fitted for heaven, and fitted for immortality, no longer liable to decay or age, but thenceforward remaining literally and strictly the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. This change in the human person of Christ is in effect asserted, or rather is referred to, as a thing already known, in that text of St Paul's. Epistle to the Philippians, wherein we are assured, that hereaf ter Christ shall change our vile body, that it may be like his glorious body. Now, the natural body of Christ, before his resurrection at least, was like the natural body of other men, was not a glorious body. At this time, therefore, when St Paul calls it his glorious body (for it was after his ascensión that St Paul wrote these words), it must have undergone a great change. In this exalted and glorified state our Lord was seen by St Stephen, in the moment of his martyrdom. Being full, you read, of the Holy Ghost, Stephen looked up steadfastly unto heaven, and saw the glory of God, * and Jesus standing on the right hand of God. At that seemingly dreadful moment, even when the martyr was surrounded by a band of assassins, with stones ready in their hands to stone him to death, the spectacle, nevertheless, filled his soul with rapture. He cried out in ecstacy, Behold I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God.' The same glorious vision was vouchsafed to St Paul, at his conversion; and to St John, at the delivery of the Revelations. This change of our Lord's body was a change, we have reason to believe, of nature and substance, so as to be thenceforward incapable of decay or dissolution. It might be susceptible of any external form, which the particular purpose of his appearance should require. So when he appeared to Stephen and Paul, or to any of his saints,

*The 'glory of God,' in Scripture, when spoken of as an object of vision, always, I think, means a luminous appearance, bright and refulgent, beyond the splendour of any natural object whatever.

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