good which exists out of their own circle or sect, they begin to think that goodness and their own opinions go together, and consider as a peculiar blessing upon themselves what arises merely from their own wilful narrowness of views and living to themselves only. But, God be thanked, He who provides far better for all our wants, temporal and spiritual, than we can provide for ourselves, He has given us opportunities of living to far better purpose than this. Nature and neighbourhood have determined with whom we shall live most, and towards whom we are called upon to perform Christ's lessons ;but, now that society is Christian, to the ties of nature and of neighbourhood are added those of Christianity. My relation is not less my relation than he was, nor my neighbour less my neighbour; it was amongst the heavy trials of the early church that Christ's call did interfere with these natural bonds: but now he mercifully sanctifies them, and gives us the bond of Christianity only to bind them closer. And shall I undo his merciful work? and call those as belonging to the world whom he calls belonging to the church? What, though at the end of the world, He to whom all hearts

are open, will say, that many of them were

not truly his; yet, who am I that I should judge before the time, or judge without his authority? What, if they live not as he lived in this world; what, if the earnest of his Spirit be not visible in them!-then may not the labour be doubly blest which strives to prepare the way for it? Would to God that all the Lord's people were his in heart and in truth!—and he has given me the best encouragement to try to make them so, when he tells me that he rejoices more over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance.

Yet one word more: whilst speaking against a sectarian spirit, while earnestly enforcing that we do not separate again in our views that kingdom of the world and kingdom of Christ which God has made one,-that we mix with our relations and neighbours, in public life and in private, as with those whom Christ no less than nature has bound to us,yet, God forbid that I should seem to recommend doing this in a careless or worldly spirit, that I should wish to compromise the purity of Christ's Gospel. No, not a hair's breadth; - we need not, nay, we dare not; not so much as one hair's breadth may we deny our Master, or encourage evil. But,

take we good heed that we do not give our Master's name to what is merely our own folly; that we do not call evil, what Christ condemns not. War unto the end with evil;but let us be sure that we rightly know what evil is, and that we recollect also with how much of good it is mingled often in the same person, and that the good must not be rudely quenched whilst we are striving to put out the evil. Remember we finally, that it is not Christ the Judge whom we can or ought to imitate, but Christ the Saviour, struggling indeed continually against evil, but long-suffering to the utmost, and casting out none till the day of grace was past for ever.

SERMON XXXIII.

LUKE XI. 52.

Woe unto you, Lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye enter not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.

THESE two offences here mentioned, are generally found to go together. On the one hand, he who makes no use of the key of knowledge himself, who remains in ignorance of all the treasures to which it would open the door, naturally will take very little trouble to give his neighbour the power of using it; and, on the other hand, he who not only does not give it to his neighbour, but actually tries to hinder him from getting it, is commonly one whose guilt is happily lessened by his not knowing himself the value of the blessing from which he is excluding others. It were

* Preached as a Charity Sermon, for the benefit of a school.

a wickedness almost monstrous, for a man to have fully tasted of the sweets of knowledge himself, and yet to endeavour to deprive others of the same enjoyment. And, indeed, in that higher sense of the word knowledge in which Christ uses it, such conduct is absolutely impossible. He who knows God himself, cannot but be anxious that his brethren should know him also it were a pain and grief not to be borne, to keep silence from the good words of everlasting life, when we have once heard and understood them ourselves.

To support institutions, then, such as that which I am this day to recommend to your notice, seems to me to be one of the first and plainest duties of a Christian. It is hard, indeed, to conceive how any Christian man can rest contented with doing nothing to lessen the fearful amount of ignorance which exists in the world. As he cannot do all, indeed, he may and must choose some one or more particular subject for the exercise of this duty; but he cannot, and must not, leave it altogether undone. And, in making his choice, I know not that any man is entitled to dictate to him; for as our bodily tastes are different, so, also, are the tastes and habits of our minds; and as it were a foolish