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other hand, to forget that the more perfect rule of life is unquestionably this which the Great Exemplar himself pursued; which can in its own actual practice manifest the discrimination between the occasions of sin and sin itself; which can exemplify how widely different is the Creator's purpose in forming our social nature from the disorders that sin has introduced into it; and can shew that what vicious or worldly men abuse can be joined and shared in without sin.

What then is, finally, to us the example of these heathen Rechabites? To imitate, doubtless, their affectionate loyalty, their self-denial and piety, their steadfast testimony to truth and goodness in the midst of a corrupt and apostate generation: so much is universally applicable in their case. It were an unhealthful and disproportionate sort of piety which should attempt to imitate them in abstinence from social pleasures, while it overlooked their equal abstinence from all gainful or enriching occupations. This, to which some one-sided views of sanctity induce many amongst ourselves, is no true contemplation of these or other great examples: the eminent saints of God at all times are those who sit the loosest in their attachment to boththe gainful business, as well as the pleasure, of this world; or, rather, their chief solicitude is against the first, as the greater danger: our Lord, who has little to say in proscription of mere amusement, is most earnest against the care and the love of earthly possessions. And who will say that something resembling the spirit, if not the conduct, of the Re

chabites, is now enforced on the attention of us all; who see, in proportion to the growth of that comfort and luxury which we are all so much disposed to identify with social well-being and happiness, the gulf growing continually wider between us and the necessary instruments and producers of that luxury, and a dominion of moral and physical evil beyond what our good forefathers could have seen or imagined? Who does not see that this is a time to pray for a larger infusion of that which is the true spirit of Christ's religion, the spirit of self-sacrifice for others; a time, when trouble and confusion are menacing us, to chasten our souls with fasting and weeping and mourning, if perchance the Divine judgments which our sins have provoked may be averted from our highly-favoured but too thankless country.

But to conclude. Let not the universal application of this example be forgotten. Seeing that to all who dutifully take it up, Christ's yoke is indeed easy, and his burden light,—since his commandments are not grievous, as his beloved disciple has declared, either in what they enjoin or what they forbid,-what shall be said to those among us, who, from mere self-will and the darkness of their carnal mind, throw off all concern for that service which is perfect freedom? What will they say in the day of account, when shown the martyrs and confessors, the monks and hermits of other days, and it shall be said; These cheerfully obeyed the strict and hard service imposed on them; while the far easier walk-the plain walk

of ordinary godliness, soberness, and charity, has been by you set at nought. Think of this ere the Judge is at hand: seek through Him, who is the Only Source and Giver of grace, the spirit enjoined in this day's Gospel', which sinks all worldly anxieties in one engrossing pursuit, that of the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Thus, and thus alone, shall all things really needful be added to you.

1 Matt. vi. 24-34.

SERMON XIV.

JOB PENITENT.

(Preached at St Mary's, on the First Sunday in Lent, March 5, 1843-1).

JOB XLII. 5, 6.

I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.

THESE words stand at the close of a debate, which is among the most remarkable, whether we consider the age, the subject matter, or the parties, that ever was recorded by man. With respect to the age, it is the most ancient composition of which we have any knowledge. Its subject matter is that which has, above all others, exercised and perplexed the minds of the highest order in every time, the apparent inequality of the divine proceeding, the strange uncertain distribution of good and evil in the world. And as to the parties concerned; they are men with hearts deeply interested in this great question, -simple, yet elevated and fervent, in their conceptions respecting it, as might be imagined of the purer and more pious inhabitants of the primeval world; and the concluding speaker, the summer up of this great controversy, is the Al

1 Preached before in India, in Lent, 1834, &c.; and since in the Temple Church, London, on Passion Sunday, March 9, 1845.

mighty Himself. We need not, at this time, turn our more curious thought to the author of this dramatic work, or rather to the reporter of its events and dialogue; nor point attention to the singular manner, in which the total absence of all reference or allusion to Israelitic matters, the purely Arabian character of the imagery and discourse, joined with the occasional intermixture, in wonderfully elaborate terms, of features in nature and art, peculiar to the land of Egypt,-all point to Moses, while yet an exile in Midian with Jethro, as its probable compiler. Our attention need not be diverted by these thoughts, interesting as they may be, from what is of universal spiritual application in this example. Sufficient for us is the testimony of Prophets and Apostles and the whole Church, that this book, thus entirely Gentile in its complexion, has ever been preserved by the Hebrews among the sacred books of their canon: that all, inspired and uninspired, refer for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, to the book bearing his name, who says in the words just read, "I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes."

Who then is the person who addresses the Deity in this language? a language of humiliation so profound, that the whole Scripture, abundant as it is in expressions of this kind, scarcely affords a parallel? Does he come to his God, like David, under the guilt of murder and adultery, or any other deadly offence against mankind? Or has penitent remorse seized him in the midst of sen

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