pel was dispensed. He "came to the lost sheep of the house of Israel," and "his Gospel is the power of God unto salvation, to those that believe, to the Jew first, and afterwards to the Gentile." Howsoever gone, howsoever lost in wickedness, the sinner may be, the day of repentance in this world is never closed against him; but since narrow is the gate and strait the way that leadeth unto life, even to the best among us; how strait, how narrow, how difficult, must be their entrance, to those whose sins encumber them on the road, and almost incapacitate them for their journey!

To break off immediately and wholly from the practices of sin, is the first duty and best policy of them who are aware of their guiltiness. The struggle of getting clear may be a severe one, but continuance in the trammels of vice will only aggravate the difficulty, which, if ultimate salvation be our object, must be undergone at last. To secure victory in the struggle too, the strength of man is insufficient: if he means to be successful, "his strength must be from on high." However great may be our pretensions to moral character, however bright our reputation in the eyes of the world, it is a melancholy truth, that we have all gone out of the way, and, in strictness of law, must be held guilty before God. Let us not however despair; as there is one way through which sinners may be reconciled

unto God, so is there one way through which those who are accustomed to do evil, may learn to do well." This is in the study and application of our religion; without this we can do nothing, but with it we may accomplish every thing. And do thou, O Lord God of our fathers, accept our penitence, and remit us all our sins; not through our own merits, but through those of thy blessed Son, do we approach thy footstool. In his mediation we trust, on thy mercy we depend. Grant that we may so hear thy word, that it may work in us a resolution to do thy will, to abandon all evil habits, and to be followers in truth and honesty of Him, who lived to teach, and died to save us.

SERMON XIV.

ON THE IMPERFECT FOLLOWING OF OUR SAVIOUR.

MATTHEW VIII. 19, 20.

And a certain Scribe came and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.

THERE is not in the annals of mankind a more touching picture of patient suffering and unmerited destitution than these verses convey in describing the earthly situation of the Saviour of the world; and it is difficult to conceive a greater contrast than that which was exhibited between the power with which he controled the ordinary laws of nature, and the ignominious treatment to which he was himself subjected. To add to the effect of this portrait, we may also call to mind the very different expectations which had been long and generally entertained of his advent. In the imaginations of the Jews, their Messiah was not 66 a man of sorrows and

acquainted with grief," but a prince of temporal magnificence, and a conqueror who should reinstate them in their earthly rank of a royal and a chosen people. Blind to the purport of those prophecies which described his humiliation and sufferings, they attended only to those which spake of his latter and infinite exaltation. They could not conceive how majesty, and glory, and power, could be conjoined with meekness and lowliness of heart; and the humility which his doctrines prescribed was as ill relished by the high-minded Pharisees, as the abjectness of his condition. Nevertheless we see that some were staggered at the manifestation of a power which so ill accorded with his humble origin, and the scribe in the text, probably with some hope of sharing the honors and benefits to which our Saviour's miraculous faculty might be made conducive, professes himself ready to forego his own occupation, and to follow him; but our Lord, who well knew the real sentiments of his selfish and worldly heart, at once repulses him by his answer, "The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head."

In the prosecution of this discourse, My Brethren, I shall first offer a few remarks on the character of the Scribe, and his resemblance to many of the modern professors of Christianity, and I shall then endeavour to set before you the true

nature of those promises and consolations which a sincere following of our Saviour will afford.

And first, My Brethren, of the history of the Scribe we have no other particulars recorded than the transaction contained in the text, a transaction which, though summed up in a few words, is sufficient to throw considerable light on his character, and to afford us ample matter for reflection. He was not one of the ignorant and heedless multitude who followed Jesus in idle wonderment at the novelty of his preaching, and at the signs and miracles which he performed among them. He was a man of education and authority; he was a professor of the laws and a commissioned teacher of the people; he was one of that hitherto respected body whom they now seemed on the point of deserting for a new guide, and whose interest it therefore seemed to be, to oppose and put down this daring innovator who taught " as one having a different authority, and not as the Scribes and Pharisees."

When therefore, we first hear of such a man, abandoning his rank in society, renouncing his sect, and abjuring their errors, resigning at once whatever vested him with a superiority over his countrymen, and offering all up in a splendid sacrifice at the feet of Jesus, with a "Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest;" we are apt to applaud his generous conduct, and to set him down as a perfect pattern of firm, and