Matt. 12; Mark, 17. And when he was entered into the house from the multitude, then came his disciples, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended after they heard this doctrine relative to their traditions?

Matt. 13-15: But he answered and said, Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up. [The unfounded traditions and false doctrines, (which, as so many sceds, the Pharisees have sown in the field of their followers' minds) must be rooted up, like weeds, and make room for the plants of true religion.] Regard them not [the Pharisees] what they say or do against my doctrine: they and their disciples are under a cloud of mental darkness: they are blind leaders of the blind: and if the blind lead the blind, both fall into the same ditch and pit of destruction.

Then Peter answered and said unto him, Explain unto us this parable [maxim] respecting pollution.

Matt. 16, 17; Mark, 18, 19. And Jesus said unto the disciples, Are ye also even yet without understanding? Do ye not still understand, that whatsoever thing, as food, from without entereth into the man, at the mouth, it cannot defile him; because it entereth not into his heart, but goeth into the stomach, and is cast out into the sink, purifying, and fitting for nourishment, all the meats and food which remain in the body.

Matt. 17-20; Mark, 20-23. And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man: for those things which proceed out of the mouth, come forth from the heart; and they defile the man: for from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil reasonings, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, false witness, insatiable desires, malevolent affections, deceit, lasciviousness, envy, calumny, pride, levity of mind; all these evil things come from within, and have the origin in the soul: and these are the things that defile the man: but to eat with unwashen hands, defileth not the man.

One great peculiarity of the morality of the New Testament, is the stress, which is laid by our Saviour upon the regulation of the thoughts.

"Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications," &c. "Wo unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and the

platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Ye are like unto whited sepulchres; which indeed appear beautiful outward; but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men; but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity." "Whosoever looketh on a woman, to lust after her, hath committed adultery already with her in his heart."

There can be no doubt with any reflecting mind, but that the propensities of our nature must be subject to regulation : but the question is where the check ought to be placed, upon the thought; or only upon the action. In this question, our Saviour has pronounced a decisive judgment. He makes the control of thought essential. Internal purity with him is every thing. In proving a point which depends upon experience, and upon the knowledge of the human constitution, there is no better method than to cite the judgment of persons who appear to have given great attention to the subject, and to be well qualified to form a true opinion about it. Boerhaave, speaking of this very declaration of our Saviour, "Whosoever looketh on a woman, to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart,"-and, understanding it, as we do, to contain an injunction to lay the check upon the thoughts, was wont to say, that (6 our Saviour knew mankind better than Socrates." Haller, who has recorded this saying of Boerhaave, adds to it the following remarks of his own: "It did not escape the observation of our Saviour, that the rejection of any evil thoughts was the best defence against vice. For when a debauched person fills his imagination with impure pictures, the licentious ideas which he recalls, fail not to stimulate his desires with a degree of violence which he cannot resist. This will be followed by gratification, unless some external obstacle should prevent him from the commission of a sin, which he had internally resolved on. Every moment of time, which is spent in meditations upon sin, increases the power of the dangerous object, which has possessed our imagination." (PALEY.)

Salutary rules are not wanting for the regulation of our thoughts, which our Saviour has considered to be the true source of good or evil conduct.

I. Let us avoid idleness. The mind of man is busy and active. What a number of monstrous, giddy, frothy, revengeful,

ambitious, lustful conceits, seize upon the brain, for want of better employment. The field of Solomon's sluggard, overgrown with thorns and nettles, is a fit emblem of the field of the human mind, overgrown with sinful thoughts, for want of better cultivation. The idle mind is blank paper, upon which the enemy of souls may write whatever he pleases; it is the house. swept and garnished for the reception of impure demons. It would be a hard case, if rational beings, as man, could not find in the pursuit of science useful or innocent, in the visible works of God, in the contemplation of his providence, in the wonders of his redeeming love,-some foundation for other thoughts, than what an idle, roving, and unbridled imagination will supply.

2. For the right government of thoughts most essential is a due regard of God's continual presence. Who of us will not confess, that if the workings of his mind were all known to his parents, his children, his neighbours, his friends, and his enemies, he would be as careful that his thoughts might appear as rational and virtuous, as he wishes his words and actions to seem? But shall we dread to have our childish, revengeful, and wanton thoughts to be exposed before mortals, and think it a matter of indifference that all the operations of our hearts are clearly beheld by the great God of heaven and earth; the God who will bring every secret thought into judgment? If we were really and deeply convinced, that God is about our path, and about our bed, and spieth out all our ways;' we should labour to cherish no other thoughts than such as we should not wish to have inscribed on our foreheads.

3. This sense of God's presence will lead to another rule for the right government of our thoughts,-a spirit of prayer. If we have formed an attachment to a virtuous friend, we rejoice in his society, we seek his converse, we address him when absent, by many communications. These communications, in a spiritual sense, are prayers. The more frequently and the more fervently they are uttered, the more pure does the mind become by withdrawing our affections from earthly things, and fixing them on the mercy and power of a holy and spotless God. To neglect devotional intercourse will cause the world to absorb our thoughts; and from the world, they will be tinctured; from the world, they will become sensual and

impure. On this important subject, our Church has suggested a most appropriate prayer: "Almighty God, unto whom all "hearts be open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets “are hid; cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspira"tion of thy Holy Spirit; that we may perfectly love thee, "and worthily magnify thy holy name; through Christ our "Lord." (CALAMY.)

Duties suited to strength. MATT. ix. 14-17; MARK, ii. 18-22; LUKE, V. 33-39.

Matt. 14; Mark, 18; Luke, 33. WHILE Jesus was seated at the publican's table, the disciples of John came and say unto him, Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but thy disciples fast not, but eat and drink?

Matt. 15; Mark, 19, 20; Luke, 34, 35. And Jesus said unto them, Can the bridemen and guests of the bridegroom, who are the children of the nuptial-chamber, mourn and fast, while the bridegroom is yet with them? As long as they have the bridegroom among them, they cannot reasonably be expected to fast. But the days will arrive, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them; and then shall they fust in those days.

Matt. 16; Mark, 21; Luke, 36. And, by way of illustration, Jesus spake also a parable to them, saying, No man will sew a patch of new cloth, undressed by the fuller, on an old garment: otherwise, both the new, being stronger, makes a rent; and the patch that was taken from the new, and put in to fill up the old, agrees not with the old in texture and colour; but pulls away a portion from the edges of the old; and the rent or hole is made

worse.

Matt. 17; Mark, 22; Luke, 37, 38. And, on the same principle, no man puts new wine into old leathern-flasks: else, the fermentation of the new wine will burst the worn-out flasks; and so the wine will be spilt, as well as the flasks destroyed: but new wine must be put into new strong flasks; and both are preserved.

Luke, 39. The gentler discipline to which my disciples have been hitherto accustomed, cannot be suddenly altered, as ye propose, into severe restrictions: they must be inured gradually to the new doctrines and laws of the Gospel for no man who has drunk old wine mellowed by age, will immediately choose to

drink new and harsh; for he says, The old is better; and more pleasant.

The leathern bottles were made of goat-skins.

SELF-CONCEIT and contempt of our neighbour generally proceed from external mortification. The humble man looks not on the life of his neighbour, but to imitate the good which he observes therein. Thus the Pharisees who usually fasted twice a-week, though not bound by any legal ordinance to that effect, pretend to be surprised that Jesus and his disciples should observe a less rigid system of holiness. Our Lord, in reply, does not absolutely forbid fasting as an abstract duty; but considers it to be subject to the due regulation of causes and seasons. If the friends of a bridegroom were not expected to fast during marriage-festivities; neither could the disciples of Jesus be urged to fast, while they enjoyed the presence of the great bridegroom of the Church. But when after the removal of our Lord from his earthly ministry, they would be subjected to many persecutions, privations, and sufferings, then would be the appropriate season for mourning and fasting, as the passing exigence might require. All things should be estimated by their agreement and disagreement, properly adapted to persons, times, and circumstances. The institutes of the Pharisees and of Jesus cannot accord: he came to abolish them, and not to incorporate them. To urge the disciples of Jesus into the observance of unnecessary and uncalled-for austerities, would be as absurd and injurious as to patch the hole of an old and rotten garment with a piece of new and coarse cloth, not dressed by the fuller; or to put new wine, the fermentation of which had not subsided, into old, and therefore weak, leathernbottles. In the former case, the coarser cloth drags a piece from the border of the old, and makes the rent larger in the latter, the fermentation is too powerful; so that the wine is spilt, and the skin is burst. And as a palate, long accustomed to old and mellow wine, rejects the taste of what is new and harsher; so the disciples who had found rest to their souls in the easy yoke and light burden of Christ, would not relish to be heavy-laden with the rigid austerities, recommended by the Pharisees. Nor were the disciples as yet so fully established in

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