they determine on another line of conduct, and vainly strive to sway the Almighty, the undeceivable, from his resolution, and to influence Him to let them go. This last shade in the character of Balaam, and in that of those who resemble him, is so very remarkable, that I am induced to dwell upon it a little longer. That he was vain and mercenary, may be attributed to the inherent ruling passion of his nature; that he was insincere and deceitful, was perhaps the result of his intercourse with jugglers and wizards; but that he should be so infatuated as to suppose it possible to sway the Almighty to the bent of his own evil inclinations, may appear to those who have formed any thing like correct notions of their Creator, as the very climax of human absurdity. But neither is this instance of folly and wickedness without its parallel. There are those among us, whose mercenary spirits anchor on the ground of wealth and worldly prosperity, with such a deadly grasp, with such a fatal pertinacity, that not only will no warning of Scripture repel their ungodly desires, but they are even induced to pray to the God in whom they believe, for assistance to their unjust acquisitions. Every prayer we breathe to heaven for gifts which the Gospel has pronounced as dangerous; every secret wish we indulge for possessions which Heaven has denied us, and to which we are only excited by our evil

passions; every petition for dangerous talents or for inordinate riches, is, like Balaam's impo- tent endeavour, an insolent attempt to level divine providence, not to our necessities, but to our lusts, and a direct reversal of the real end and usefulness of prayer.

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Finally, I shall very briefly observe upon what I proposed as the second topic of this discourse, that the failure of the Prophet's character and conduct makes nothing against the justice of his professed sentiment, which should be a rule of constant practice to every one who boasts the honourable name and calling of a Christian man. The moral law of God, the moral obligation of humanity are eternal and the same; subsisting at this day in the same force that they did four thousand years ago, and are, like the mind of their Originator, immutable for ever. In no re

velation which God has vouchsafed to man; in no communication of his will on the great points of morality, do we trace the slightest shade of change or alteration. The laws of communities, the laws of states and nations, may vary and conform to the varying circumstances of the times; but the law of God remains at unity, unaltered by human conduct, uninfluenced by human folly. For the sins of man, we are distinctly told, that the lamb was slain since the foundation of the world; and for the guidance of man the Gospel will be preached, till "time shall be no

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longer." Bound therefore by every feeling of love and gratitude, and on every principle of reason and of duty to take him for our Lord and director, who has manifested so much grace to serve, so much providence to guide, and so much power to punish us; let us make this sentiment of the Prophet, the influential principle of our life, when incited either by our own passions, or by the influence of others, to proceed upon any questionable business; let us meet the question fairly and openly with this text upon our hearts, and see that it be not contrary to the will of God. Let us not go, if the Lord says, go not; let us not hesitate, if the Lord bids us to proceed. Though every lust should be gratified by disobedience; though all the Balaks in the world should combine their silver and their gold, their honours, and their offices, to tempt us from our duty, let us never go beyond the word of the Lord our God to do less or more.'

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By following this path we shall journey on in safety through all the pricks and briars of a thorny life, and we shall not finish our peregrination without finding that the Lord has been our shepherd, that his rod and his staff comfort us; therefore need we fear no evil.

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SERMON XXX.

ON SELFISHNESS AS PROSCRIBED BY THE
CHRISTIAN RELIGION.

ROMANS XIV. 1.

For none of us liveth to himself.

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THE latent principle in human nature, from which most of its vices spring, is the principle of selfishness. I call it latent, because it lies hid not only from the observation of strangers, but frequently from our own consciences also; and I call it a natural principle, because it is undoubtedly more or less woven into our composition; and unless counteracted partly by the better impulses of our nature, and partly by the influence of education, it advances with our years, grows with our growth, and strengthens with our strength," till it reduces us to the con→ dition of sordid and unamiable beings, the very reverse of what we ought to be according to the declaration of the text.

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There is a rational way of preaching the evan

gelical doctrine of human corruption, to which reason and experience easily assent, and which by inculcating a becoming humility is productive of very happy effects. But there is a way also of enforcing the same subject, in which many who arrogate to themselves the exclusive title of Gospel preachers indulge, which is alike adhorrent to a good taste and a good understanding. To insist upon the blackness and totality of human guilt to the gloomy extent to which we have sometimes seen it pushed, what is it but to throw a veil of cheerless gloom over the brightest features of revelation, and to confound in general depravity the distinctions of virtue and of vice? What is it but to quench those noble aspirations of the human heart which, almost coeval with its formation, are the best proofs of its divine original, and to spread over the fair face of society the sad and unearthly darkness of an unkindly and unnatural fanaticism? That man is deplorably fallen from the happy state in which the mercy of his heavenly Father first created him; that he is polluted by sin, influenced by evil passions, subject to death, and amenable to an awful judgment, are facts which it would be vain to dispute and wicked to deny. But to assert that man is naturally and entirely the slave of selfishness; that he has nothing amiable, nothing generous, nothing virtuous in his composition, is as false, thank heaven, as it is