SERMON IX.

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MATT. VI. 24.

No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.

(PART II.)

In our last discourse we explained the nature of the impossibility here stated, by shewing that the obedience of this precept insured a blessedness to the creature which could never be derived from any sublunary good. While we pointed out the vain pursuit of all mortals after that chief good, which man had irrecoverably lost, we propounded with equal clearness, that God himself was the sole object upon which the faculties and affections of the soul must be concentrated for the perception and fruition of this immeasurable good. We shewed that all expenditure of thought upon the greatest possible accumulation of materials, which could be gathered within the circumscribed boundary of Nature, would never produce a suitable return to that

stock of human intellect, which could be laid out with so much greater advantage upon heavenly merchandise, with the certain gain of everlasting peace.

The scheme of revelation is not only the restoration of the moral faculties of the soul, and reconciliation with God through the sanctification of the Spirit, and the propitiatory blood of Christ; but it is the placing within the sphere of human action a subject, which, while infinite in itself, might be reduced within the scope of the mental powers of man. This is effected by the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which, by the manifestation of God in the flesh, without deteriorating the majesty and dignity of the Almighty, reduces him to the capacities of his creatures, and brings him within the range of human intellect. The Almighty, being thus made manifest in the flesh, could be better contemplated by man; since being, as it were, tangible and acted upon by the senses, his nature, character, and perfections could be better understood and admired by us, who gain all our knowledge through these organs of the body, these subsidiary ducts to the mind of all intelligence.

A provision is now made for every power of the mind and affection of the heart. The mind can now range into unexplored regions of light, without the charge of impiety and presumption, and without any checks, except those which produce humi

lity and adoration towards God, and content and acquiescence in the soul. The subjects, too, upon which our minds are to be employed, are ready at hand; adapted to the meanest capacity and most exalted mind; and have, consequently, this advantage over every other science, that in the pursuit of them, all are upon a par, and none are precluded from making the farthest advances in them, except from their own sloth, and love of other things. To this advantage may be added, the impossibility of the intrusion of satiety in the enjoyment, or disappointment in the pursuit. The horizon, which at first may seem to bound our prospect, extends itself as we advance, opening to our view fresh and unknown beauties, which it had concealed only to make them more enchanting by their variety, and agreeable by their surprise. In the prosecution of other studies, and amassment of other wealth, knowledge and riches may be acquired, but happiness and enjoyment may be withheld. But the peculiar nature of this wisdom and these treasures is, that happiness is a natural sequence to the former, and enjoyment inherent in the latter. And it is very observable, that while happiness and enjoyment are not proportionate to the acquisition of human knowledge and earthly wealth; the beatitude and fruition of every believer is in strict accordance to the extent of his knowledge of God, and amassment of his treasures in heaven. This I

mean to be understood concerning the intrinsic and comparative value of human knowledge and godly wisdom, independent of any external circumstances which may raise the former and depreciate the latter.

In the advancement of human knowledge, every fresh acquisition we only consider as a steppingstone that leads to the temple of science; or as a portion which, by cultivation, we have appropriated to ourselves from the wild and hitherto barren tracts of knowledge, and from which, with the ardor of adventurers, we issue forth to "add field to field;" and by thus making continual encroachments upon the dominions of ignorance and error, we extend those of truth.

But the best of the enjoyment, which can be derived from the pursuit, is only a pleasurable pain. The acquisition produces rather ambition than content. Gain only produces a hope of gain, not the power of real enjoyment. Knowledge only teaches us that we are ignorant, and the most that we can learn from her is, that what we want she can never supply. If this be the result of all our labour, surely ignorance seems almost preferable to that knowledge, which only informs us that the race we thought ended is only just begun. But if upon arriving at this point, which is the utmost ever gained by unenlightened wisdom, we are deeply impressed with the vanity and wretchedness of man ;

we have learned a lesson, the first which Christianity, and the last that Philosophy can teach. Revelation commences where human wisdom ends. It takes from the hand of Philosophy this gordian knot, which she in vain had attempted to unravel, and, by the dissolution of it, gains the mastery over the world.

But while human knowledge only excites in the soul a desire for a still greater acquisition, without any solid satisfaction from its gain; and while the amassment of wealth and a round of pleasures pro→ duce only that avarice and insipidity inherent in them; the spiritual wisdom that is from above, and those treasures which are in heaven, while extending the sphere of knowledge, give a correspondent blessedness and enjoyment to the soul. To this knowledge a peculiarity is attached, to these treasures an excellence belongs, which are characteristic of their nature, and inseparably connected with their being. Nothing perhaps is more calculated to foster pride in the heart, than superiority of intellect and attainment; and surely nothing is so ready to swell the heart with insolence and elation, as a more than ordinary possession of the riches of Mammon. Nor do the pleasures of this world come less under our reprehension; as nothing tends so much to harden the heart against all the finer feelings of our nature, and to promote and foster that selfishness that occupies so large a por