violence and injustice his fellow-servants, will meet with some punishment extraordinarily severe. Social duties have a high rank in our Gospel-obligations: and "this commandment have we received, that he who loveth God, love his neighbour also."

1. The necessity of preparation for our Lord's return, may be urged from the certainty of it. With these very eyes, we shall see our Redeemer. How shall we look him in the face, if, during his absence, we have eaten and drank, in a spirit of worldly sensuality? One great test of fidelity is to regard the Master's interests and commands, when he is at a distance; more especially of a Master who hath redeemed us from slavery with his own precious blood.

2. The uncertainty of the precise time of his coming should excite us to be in a fit posture to receive him. Christ often compares his coming to that of a thief in the night, who gives not previous notice. He likens himself (v. 36) to one who is attending a marriage solemnity: because, on such occasions, people are not usually masters of their own time; and, consequently, their return to their homes is more uncertain. How then, O man, dost thou know, but that to-morrow thy Master may come to thee? or may summon thee to him? Show thy security for one day and then claim that day as thine own: but if thou canst not, how mad art thou to leave thy task unfinished! Are not so many sudden deaths sufficient to convince us of the folly of depending upon life, and assuring ourselves of one single moment; though Christ had not given us any warning against it? No state, no condition, is excused from watching: because death is the punishment of all: and it is nature which is condemned to death. There is no safer way we can take, than to count ourselves in the number of those who are to be surprised: the only reason why so many fall into this misfortune, is, because they flatter themselves they shall not.

When the Master shall

He comes to judge us not to call us to perfect

3. Preparation may be too late. have returned, working time is over. according to what we have done, and unfinished labours. We are now sowing the seed for eternity: and what we sow, that shall we reap.

4. A powerful motive of preparation for our Master's coming may be derived from the glorious reward of watchful servants: He shall gird himself, and cause them to recline at

table, and will come forth, and wait upon them. Surely, this is a reward, not of debt, but of grace: how can the most perfect obedience merit anything like this? The words cannot be literally fulfilled: but they imply some extraordinary marks of respect which Christ will bestow upon his faithful servants. "If any man serve me; where I am, there shall my servant be." Our Master is now absent: but he will come again, and receive us unto himself. Blessed, therefore, are those servants whom the Lord, when he cometh, shall find watching! (WALKER, of Edinburgh.)

Our Lord, at Capernaum, delivers the parable of the Relapsed Demoniac. MATTHEW, xii. 43-45; LUKE, Xi. 24–26. 43. BUT when the unclean spirit hath gone out of a man, he traverses parched and desert regions, seeking a place of rest, but findeth not. Then he saith, I will return to my dwelling, whence I came out and when he cometh, he findeth it unoccupied, swept, and set in order. Then he goeth, and taketh with him as companions seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter and dwell there: so that the last state of that man is worse than the former. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.

In this scripture, our Lord describes the danger of the unbelieving Jews, under a parable formed on the case of a demoniac. An evil spirit, called unclean, since all sin is uncleanness before a holy God, is here supposed to quit reluctantly a possessed victim, lest he should be violently expelled. As he cannot obtain permission to possess any other person, he wanders about disconsolate, in dry or desert places which (in the notions of the Jews) demons were supposed to haunt. But finding no place of rest, he at length attempts to regain possession of him from whom he had departed. On his return, he finds his former dwelling empty; without any possessor to oppose his entrance; even swept and garnished, as if ready prepared for his reception. On this discovery, he hastens and fetches seven other evil spirits more malignant than himself: they take up their abode in that man; and the possession becomes more dreadful and incurable

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than ever. The number seven denotes a large and complete, yet uncertain and indefinite number.

Our Lord declares, that the case would be similar with that generation. Though, by the preaching of Christ and his disciples, the powers of darkness had been expelled from many, yet Satan finding the Jewish nation, by their prodigious wickedness and incredulity, still more than ever prepared to receive him, would resume his influence; and render the Jews more incredulous, obdurate, and blasphemous than before.

This passage, applied more immediately to ourselves, conveys an awful warning, That although the house of our conscience be once made clean, and the evil spirit be expelled from us by baptism or repentance; yet, by our indolence and carelessness, he may return with many worse spirits; and render our condition more desperate than before.

The aggravation of a relapse in sin consists, partly, in the infatuation; partly, in the ingratitude, of such conduct.

1. The language of the Tempter, in offering forbidden fruit, is nearly the same in all ages: 'Ye shall not surely die.' But is it not matter of astonishment, that when we have experienced the promised fruit to be nothing but ashes and wormwood, we should again and again be duped by his fallacious promises; and not rather remember the assurance of an Apostle, that 'the wages of sin is death.' If we had drained a poisoned bowl, believing it to be a salutary beverage; should we, upon unexpected recovery, incur knowingly a similar danger? If a mariner be rescued from shipwreck; does he instantly precipitate himself into the stormy ocean from which he has been with difficulty plucked? And yet how feebly do these images illustrate the madness of those transgressors, who again taste the cup of sin; who again plunge into the tide of corruption! Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this; and be horribly afraid: for my people hath forsaken me, the fountain of living waters: and hewed them out cisterns that can hold no water.

2. A relapse in sin is horrible ingratitude. We were the children of wrath: we had merited an infinite malediction: we had reason to expect the execution of the sentence, 'Cursed be he that continueth not in all the words of this law, to do them :' and yet, in that season of despair, in that state of sinfulness, "God so loved the world, that he gave his Only-begotten Son,

that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life." It is this God of the Gospel who has pardoned us not seven times, but seventy times seven: and where he had forgiven much, might have expected much love. What ingratitude, therefore, is comprised in continued relapses!

To those who sin wilfully, after that they have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking-for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.' (Heb. x. 26.) The quiver of an angry God is full of piercing arrows: but it may suffice to illustrate the danger of a relapse in sin, by this one consideration,- the wilful sinner dies in a state of impenitence.

The divine mercy has its limits. The day of vengeance must succeed the season of neglected grace. The candlestick of God is taken from the sinner, that it may be bestowed on such as labour to cast-off the works of darkness, and walk as children of light. The vine is no longer nourished by the dews of a favouring heaven. The barren fig-tree is no longer permitted to encumber the ground. If we read attentively the histories of a Pharaoh, a Saul, a Judas; they will enable us to appreciate this desertion on the part of God. If the soul, once purified, be again wilfully abandoned to its former pollutions; the expelled spirit takes to himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself. A sinner, thus estranged, what is he but Samson, when the Spirit of the Lord had gone from him? This terror of the Philistines becomes their mockery: he is bound with fetters of brass: his eyes are put out; and he is condemned to servile drudgery. It is thus that the mind becomes blinded. All light is extinguished; and the slave becomes the sport of a more than Egyptian task-master. We not only lose our horror of sin, but we become familiarized. The word of the Lord is unto them a reproach; and they have no delight in it. There was a time when the heart was accessible to the workings of contrition; but now if God smites, we say, They have stricken me; and I felt it not. The profane swearer multiplies his oaths without consciousness of his crime. The drunkard recounts his sinful excesses, as an idle frolic. In this brutal insensibility, arising from habits long indulged, years speedon their course; death approaches; and we expire in final

impenitence. The mind, the spirit, the imagination of sinners, have all become depraved; and the end (says St. Paul) shall be according to their works. The threat of Jesus Christ is literally fulfilled, Ye shall die in your sins.

Let us to whom the revelation of the Gospel is so clearly made, fear lest these dreadful things should come upon us; and the abuse of our advantages should render us an easy prey to Satan, and a fit habitation for the powers of darkness. Let those particularly feel it, who, having been brought to some serious impressions and some external reformation, are tempted to relapse into former vices, which would render their latter end far worse than their beginning. God has permitted some such awful instances to occur: and unhappy wretches, perhaps some of them the children of religious parents too, who were once not far from the kingdom of God, have so abandoned every principle of religion, and every sentiment of wisdom and virtue, that it seems as if seven demons had possessed them, and were driving them headlong to destruction.

Necessity of inward purity: MATTHEW, XV. 10–20; Mark, vii. 14-23.

Matt. 10, 11; Mark, 14-16. AND when he had called all the multitude, there present, unto him, he said unto them, Hearken unto me every one of you and mind what I say. There is nothing from without a man, which as meat or drink entering into him, can really defile him in the sight of God: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man. Not that which goeth into the mouth, defileth the man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth the man. If any man hath ears to hear, let him hear.

[Our Lord did not mean to overthrow the distinction which the Law had established between things clean and unclean, in the matter of man's food. That distinction, like all the other emblematical institutions of Moses, was wisely appointed; being designed to teach the Israelites how carefully the familiar company and conversation of the wicked is to be avoided. He only affirmed that in itself no kind of food can defile the mind which is the man, though by accident it may for instance, when taken in quantity or kind contrary to the commandment of God.]