thy side. In this, as in all other instances, "by grace we are saved through faith." Sanctification too is "not of works, lest any man should boast." "It is the gift of God," and is to be received by plain, simple faith. Suppose you are now labouring to "abstain from all appearance of evil," " zealous of good works," and walking diligently and carefully in all the ordinances of God; there is then only one point remaining: the voice of God to your soul is, "Believe, and be saved."* First, believe that God has promised to save you from all sin, and to fill you with all holiness: secondly, believe that he is able thus" to save to the uttermost all that come unto God through him :" thirdly, believe that he is willing, as well as able, to save you to the uttermost; to purify you from all sin, and fill up all your heart with love. Believe fourthly, that he is not only able, but willing to do it now! Not when you come to die; not at any distant time; not to morrow, but to day. He will then enable you to believe, it is done, according to his word: and then patience shall have its perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing."

14. Ye shall then be perfect. The apostle seems to mean by this expression, Tλ01, Ye shall be wholly delivered from every evil work; from every evil word; from every sinful thought; yea, from every evil desire, passion, temper; from all inbred corruption, from all remains of the carnal mind, from the body of sin; and ye shall be renewed in the spirit of your mind, in every right temper, after the image of him that created you, in righteousness and true holiness. Ye shall be entire, oλoxλnpo: (the same word which the apostle uses to the Christians in Thessalonica.) This seems to refer, not so much to the kind, as to the degree of holiness, as if he had said, "Ye shall enjoy as high a degree of holiness, as is consistent with your present state of pilgrimage," and ye shall want nothing; the Lord being your Shepherd, your Father, your Redeemer, your Sanctifier, your God, and your All, will feed you with the bread of heaven, and give you meat enough. He will lead you forth beside the waters of comfort, and keep you every moment: so that loving him with all your heart, (which is the sum of all perfection,) you will "rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing, and in every thing give thanks," till " an abundant entrance is ministered unto you, into his everlasting kingdom!"

SERMON LXXXIX.-The Important Question.

"What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" Matt. xvi, 26.

1. THERE is a celebrated remark to this effect, (I think in the works of Mr. Pascal,) That if a man of low estate would speak of high things, as of what relates to kings or kingdoms, it is not easy for him to find suitable expressions, as he is so little acquainted with things of this nature but if one of royal parentage speaks of royal things, of what concerns his own or his father's kingdom, his language will be free and easy, as these things are familiar to his thoughts. In like manner, it a mere inhabitant of this lower world speaks concerning the great things * See the sermon on The Way of Salvation.

of the kingdom of God, hardly is he able to find expressions suitable to the greatness of the subject. But when the Son of God speaks of the highest things, which concern his heavenly kingdom, all his language is easy and unlaboured, his words natural and unaffected: inasmuch as, known unto him are all these things from all eternity.

2. How strongly is this remark exemplified in the passage now before us! The Son of God, the great king of heaven and earth, here uses the plainest and easiest words: but how high and deep are the things which he expresses therein? None of the children of men can fully conceive them, till emerging out of the darkness of the present world, he commences an inhabitant of eternity.

3. But we may conceive a little of these deep things, if we consider, first, What is implied in that expression, A man's gaining the whole world: secondly, What is implied in losing his own soul: we shall then, thirdly, see in the strongest light, What he is profited, who gains the whole world, and loses his own soul.

I. 1. We are first, to consider, What is implied in a man's gaining the whole world. Perhaps, at the first hearing, this may seem to some equivalent with conquering the whole world. But it has no relation thereto at all and indeed that expression involves a plain absurdity. For it is impossible, any that is born of a woman should ever conquer the whole world; were it only because the short life of man could not suffice for so wild an undertaking. Accordingly, no man ever did conquer the half, no, nor the tenth part of the world. But whatever others might do, there was no danger that any of our Lord's hearers should have any thought of this. Among all the sins of the Jewish nation, the desire of universal empire was not found. Even in their most flourish. ing times, they never sought to extend their conquests beyond the river Euphrates. And in our Lord's time, all their ambition was at an end: "the sceptre was departed from Judah;" and Judea was governed by a Roman procurator, as a branch of the Roman empire.

2. Leaving this, we may find a far more easy and natural sense of the expression. To gain the whole world, may properly enough imply, to gain all the pleasures which the world can give. The man we speak of, may, therefore, be supposed to have gained all that will gratify his senses. In particular, all that can increase his pleasure of tasting; all the elegancies of meat and drink: likewise, whatever can gratify his smell, or touch; all that he can enjoy in common with his fellow brutes. He may have all the plenty and all the variety of these objects which the world can afford.

3. We may farther suppose him to have gained all that gratifies "the desire of the eyes;" whatever (by means of the eye chiefly conveys any pleasure to the imagination. The pleasures of immron bion arise from three sources: grandeur, beauty, and novelty. Accordingly, we find by experience, our own imagination is gratified by surveying either grand, or beautiful, or uncommon objects. Let him be encompassed then with the most grand, the most beautiful, and the newest things that can any where be found. For all this is manifestly implied in a man's gaining the whole world.

4. But there is also another thing implied herein, which men of the most elevated spirits have preferred before all the pleasures of sense and of imagination put together; that is, honour, glory, renown:

VOL. II.

15

Virûm volitare per ora.

It seems, that hardly any principle of the human mind is of greater force than this. It triumphs over the strongest propensities of nature, over all our appetites and affections. If Brutus sheds the blood of his own children; if we see another Brutus, in spite of every possible obli gation, in defiance of all justice and gratitude,

"Cringing while he stabs his friend;"

if a far greater man than either of these, Paschal Paoli, gave up ease, pleasure, every thing, for a life of constant toil, pain, and alarms;— what principle could support them? They might talk of amor patriæ, the love of their country; but this would never have carried them through, had there not been also the

Laudum immensa cupido:

the immense thirst of praise. Now the man we speak of, has gained abundance of this: he is praised, if not admired, by all that are round about him. Nay, his name is gone forth into distant lands, as it were, to the ends of the earth.

5. Add to this, that he has gained abundance of wealth; that there is no end of his treasures; that he has laid up silver as the dust, and gold as the sand of the sea. Now when a man has obtained all these pleasures, all that will gratify either the senses or the imagination; when he has gained an honourable name, and also laid up much treasure for many years; then he may be said, in an easy, natural sense of the word, to have "gained the whole world."

II. 1. The next point we have to consider is, What is implied in a man's losing his own soul? But here we draw a deeper scene, and have need of a more steady attention. For it is easy to sum up all in a man's 'gaining the whole world ;" but it is not easy to understand all that is implied in his "losing his own soul." Indeed none can fully conceive this, until he has passed through time into eternity.

2. The first thing which it undeniably implies, is the losing all the present pleasures of religion; all those which it affords to truly religious men, even in the present life. "If there be any consolation in Christ; if any comfort of love;" in the love of God, and of all mankind; if any "joy in the Holy Ghost;" if there be a peace of God; a peace that passeth all understanding; if there be any rejoicing in the testimony of a good conscience towards God; it is manifest, all this is totally lost, by the man that loses his own soul.

3. But the present life will soon be at an end: we know it passes away like a shadow. The hour is at hand, when the spirit will be summoned to return to God that gave it. In that awful moment,

eaving the old, both worlds at once they view, Who stand upon the threshold of the new."

And whether he looks backward or forward, how pleasing is the prospect to him that saves his soul! If he looks back, he has "the calm remembrance of a life well spent." If he looks forward, there is an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away; and he sees the convoy of angels ready to carry him into Abraham's bosom. But how is it in that solemn hour, with the man that loses his soul? Does he look back? What comfort is there in this? He sees nothing but scenes of horror, matter of shame, remorse, and self condemnation; a

foretaste of "the worm that never dieth." If he looks forward, what does he see? No joy, no peace! No gleam of hope from any point of heaven! Some years since, one who turned back as a dog to his vomit, was struck in his mid career of sin. A friend visiting him, prayed, "Lord, have mercy upon those who are just stepping out of the body, and know not which shall meet them at their entrance into the other world, an angel or a fiend!" The sick man shrieked out with a piercing cry, "A fiend! a fiend!” and died. Just such an end, unless he die like an ox, may any man expect who loses his own soul.

4. But in what situation is the spirit of a good man, at his entrance into eternity? See,

The convoy attends,

The ministering host of invisible friends:"

They receive the new born spirit, and conduct him safe into Abraham's bosom; into the delights of paradise; the garden of God, where the light of his countenance perpetually shines. It is but one of a thousand

commendations of this anti-chamber of heaven, that "there the wicked cease from troubling; there the weary are at rest." For there they have numberless sources of happiness, which they could not have upon earth. There they meet with "the glorious dead of ancient days." They converse with Adam, first of men; with Noah, first of the new world; with Abraham, the friend of God; with Moses and the prophets; with the apostles of the Lamb; with the saints of all ages; and above all, they are with Christ.

5. How different, alas! is the case with him who loses his own soul! The moment he steps into eternity, he meets with the devil and his angels. Sad convoy into the world of spirits! Sad earnest of what is to come! And either he is bound with chains of darkness, and reserved unto the judgment of the great day; or, at best, he wanders up and down, seeking rest, but finding none. Perhaps he may seek it, (like the unclean spirit cast out of the man,) in dry, dreary, desolate places; perhaps

"Where nature all in ruins lies,
And owns her sovereign, death :"

And little comfort can he find here! seeing every thing contributes to increase, not remove, the fearful expectation of fiery indignation, which will devour the ungodly.

Yet a little

6. For even this is to him but the beginning of sorrows. while, and he will see "the great white throne coming down from heaven, and him that sitteth thereon, from whose face the heavens and the earth flee away, and there is found no place for them." And "the dead, small and great, stand before God, and are judged, every one according to his works." "Then shall the King say to them on his right hand," (God grant he may say so to you!) "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." And the angels shall tune their harps and sing," Lift up your heads, oh ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, that the heirs of glory may come in.' And then shall they "shine as the brightness of the firmament, and as the stars for ever and ever."

7. How different will be the lot of him that loses his own soul! No joyful sentence will be pronounced on him, but one that will pierce him through with unutterable horror: (God forbid that ever it should be

pronounced on any of you that are here before God!) "Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels!" And who can doubt, but those infernal spirits will immediately execute the sentence; will instantly drag those forsaken of God into their own place of torment! Into those

"Regions of sorrow, doleful shades; where peace

And rest can never dwell! Hope never comes,
That comes to all,"

all the children of men who are on this side eternity. But not to them:
the gulf is now fixed, over which they cannot pass.
From the moment

wherein they are once plunged into the lake of fire, burning with brimstone, their torments are not only without intermission, but likewise without end. For "they have no rest, day or night; but the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever!"

III. Upon ever so cursory a view of these things, would not any one be astonished, that a man, that a creature endued with reason, should voluntarily choose ;-I say choose; for God forces no man into inevitable damnation: he never yet

"Consign'd one unborn soul to hell,

Or damn'd him from his mother's womb;"

should choose thus to lose his own soul, though it were to gain the whole world! For what shall a man be profited thereby, upon the whole of the account?

But a little to abate our astonishment at this, let us observe the suppositions which a man generally makes, before he can reconcile himself to this fatal choice.

1. He supposes, first, "That a life of religion is a life of misery." That religion is misery! How is it possible that any one should entertain so strange a thought? Do any of you imagine this? If you do, the reason is plain; you know not what religion is. "No! But I do, as well as you."-What is it then? " Why the doing no harm." Not so: many birds and beasts do no harm, yet they are not capable of religion. "Then it is going to church and sacrament." Indeed it is not. This may be an excellent help to religion; and every one who desires to save his soul, should attend them at all opportunities: yet it is possible you may attend them all your days, and still have no religion at all. Religion is a higher and deeper thing than any outward ordinance whatever.

2. What is religion then? It is easy to answer, if we consult the oracles of God. According to these, it lies in one single point: it is neither more nor less than love: it is love which "is the fulfilling of the law, the end of the commandment." Religion is the love of God and our neighbour; that is, every man under heaven. This love ruling the whole life, animating all our tempers and passions, directing all our thoughts, words, and actions, is "pure religion and undefiled."

3. Now will any one be so hardy as to say, that love is misery? Is it misery to love God? to give him my heart, who alone is worthy of it? Nay, it is the truest happiness; indeed, the only true happiness which is to be found under the sun. So does all experience prove the justness of that reflection which was made long ago, "Thou hast made us for thyself; and our heart cannot rest, until it resteth in thee." Or Coes any one imagine, the love of our neighbour is misery; even the loving