upon you. Let not those visitings pass away "as the morning cloud and the early dew 1." Surely, you must still have occasional compunctions of conscience for your neglect of Him. Your sin stares you in the face; your ingratitude to God affects you. Follow on to know the Lord, and to secure His favour by acting upon these impulses ; by them He pleads with you, as well as by your conscience; they are the instruments of his Spirit, stirring you up to seek your true peace. Nor be surprised, though you obey them, that they die away; they have done their office, and, if they die, it is but as blossom changes into the fruit, which is far better. They must die. Perhaps you will have to labour in darkness afterwards, out of your Saviour's sight, in the home of your own thoughts, surrounded by sights of this world, and showing forth His praise among those who are cold-hearted. Still be quite sure that resolute consistent obedience, though unattended with high transport and warm emotion, is far more acceptable to Him than all those passionate longings to live in His sight, which look more like religion to the uninstructed. At the very

best these latter are but the graceful beginnings of obedience, graceful and becoming in children, but in grown spiritual men indecorous, as the sports of boyhood would be in advanced years.

1 Hosea vi. 4.

Learn to live by faith, which is a calm, deliberate, rational principle, full of peace and comfort, and sees Christ, and rejoices in Him, though sent away from His presence to labour in the world. You will have your reward. He will "see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you

1 John xvi. 22. The foregoing Sermon may be illustrated by the following passage from Jeremy Taylor, Holy Living, iv. 7. "Do not seek for deliciousness and sensible consolations in the actions of religion; but only regard the duty and the conscience of it. For, although in the beginning of religion, most frequently, and, at some other times, irregularly, God complies with our infirmity, and encourages our duty with little overflowings of spiritual joy, and sensible pleasure, and delicacies in prayer, so as we seem to feel some little beam of heaven, and great refreshment from the Spirit of consolation; yet this is not always safe for us to have, neither safe for us to expect and look for: and when we do, it is apt to make us cool in our inquiries and waitings upon Christ, when we want them : it is a running after him, not for the miracles, but for the loaves; not for the wonderful things of God, and the desires of pleasing Him, but for the pleasure of pleasing ourselves. And, as we must not judge our devotion to be barren or unfruitful, when we want the overflowings of joy running over: so neither must we cease, for want of them. If our spirits can serve God choosingly and greedily, out of pure conscience of our duty, it is better in itself, and more safe to us."

SERMON X.

PROFESSION WITHOUT PRACTICE.

LUKE xii. 1.

"When there were gathered together an innumerable multitude of people, insomuch that they trode one upon another, He began to say unto his disciples first of all, Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy."

HYPOCRISY is a serious word. We are accustomed to consider the hypocrite as a hateful, despicable character, and an uncommon one. How is it, then, that our Blessed Lord, when surrounded by an innumerable multitude, began first of all, to warn His disciples against hypocrisy, as though they were in especial danger of becoming like those base deceivers the Pharisees? Thus an instructive subject is opened to our consideration, which I will now pursue.

I say we are accustomed to consider the hypocrite as a character of excessive wickedness, and

of very rare occurrence. That hypocrisy is a great wickedness need not be questioned; but that it is an uncommon sin, is not true, as a little

examination will show us. For what is a hypocrite? We are apt to understand by a hypocrite, one who makes a profession of religion for secret ends, without practising what he professes; who is malevolent, covetous, or profligate, while he assumes an outward sanctity in his words and conduct; and who does so deliberately and without remorse, deceiving others, and not at all self-deceived. Such a man, truly, would be a portent, for he seems to disbelieve the existence of a God who sees the heart. I will not deny that in some ages, nay, in all ages, a few such men have existed. But this was not what our Saviour seems to have meant by a hypocrite, nor were the Pharisees such.

The Pharisees, it is true, said one thing and did another; but they were not aware that they were thus inconsistent; they deceived themselves as well as others. Indeed, it is not in human nature to deceive others for any long time, without in a measure deceiving ourselves also. And in most cases, we contrive to deceive ourselves as much as we deceive others. The Pharisees boasted they were Abraham's children, not at all understanding, not knowing, what was implied in the term. They were not really included under the blessing given to Abraham, and they wished the world to believe they were; but then they also themselves thought that they were, or, at least, with whatever misgivings, they were, on the

whole, persuaded of it. They had deceived themselves as well as the world; and therefore our Lord sets before them the great and plain truth, which, simple as it was, they had forgotten. "If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham 1."

for

This truth, I say, they had forgotten; doubtless, they once knew it. There was a time doubtless, when in some measure they knew themselves, and what they were doing. When they began (each of them in his turn) to deceive the people, they were not at the moment, selfdeceived. But by degrees they forgot,-because they did not care to retain it in their knowledge,— they forgot that to be blessed like Abraham, they must be holy like Abraham; that outward ceremonies avail nothing without inward purity, that their thoughts and motives must be heavenly. Part of their duty they altogether ceased to know; another part they might still know indeed, but did not value as they ought. They became ignorant of their own spiritual condition; it did not come home to them, that they were supremely influenced by worldly objects; that zeal for God's service was but a secondary principle in their conduct, and that they loved the praise of men better than God's praise. They went on merely talking of religion, of heaven and hell, the blessed

1 John viii. 39.