interested in another, than themselves. They will look for a disinterested spirit of benevolence, and a superiority which everywhere discovers that you are influenced by principles of more than earthly origin and energy.

Lastly, be not satisfied with having been once convinced of the truth of Christianity, but keep up your interest in it by constant and devout reading of the scriptures, and of such books as tend to interest you in their important truths. Let nothing divert you from the duty of prayer, for the sense of God's providence can in no other way be preserved in all its strength. Consider everything in life as subordinate to your religion. Surely if there is another life, everything must be subordinate, in the view of every sound mind. Let the children of this world give their whole attention to its perishing pleasures; for so they ought, according to their principles. But you, Christians, children of light! heirs of immortality! look beyond this transitory scene of things, to that inheritance which is incorruptible, undefiled, and which fadeth not away, the object not of sense, but of faith, reserved for you in heaven.

SERMON XI.

CONSISTENCY IN RELIGION.

MATTHEW, VI. 24.

NO MAN CAN SERVE TWO MASTERS.

THIS is one of those aphorisms full of meaning, in which the discourses of our Saviour abound, and with which he introduces his caution to his disciples against anxiety about their present accommodation. He represents the service of the world and the service of God, as two opposite states, incompatible with each other, and as no man can at the same time obey the commands of two masters, each of whom has a claim on his time and labor, so neither can we serve God and the world, for it is impossible to maintain such a divided state of our affections. The claims of the two masters will be perpetually interfering and we must prefer the interests of one to those of the other.

The disciples must have felt the force of this illustration. The service of the gospel to which

they were, called was absolutely incompatible, not merely with that excessive solicitude about the conveniences of life, which is always a sin, but even with the common care of their families and estates. It was in fact saying to them, If you enlist yourselves in the service of the Messiah, you must give up all ideas of accumulating wealth, and, forsaking all care and anxiety, devote yourselves to this new employment. But this is not merely a lesson to the apostles. The word Mammon is the name of a Syrian idol, supposed to preside over riches, and to this specific meaning of the word our Saviour undoubtedly refers in our text, where the false deity Mammon, is opposed to the true God.

What then is the force of the aphorism in modern language? Is it not this, that no man must hope to divide his services between God and any other object of affection? that the service of the Supreme Being demands supreme affection, or in other words, religion, if it exists at all, must exist as a prevalent governing principle? The effect of this will be a consistent and uniform character, in which we may plainly perceive the influence of religious motives, and a principle of obedience to God.

The subject of our discourse from these words, no man can serve two masters,' is, the consistency of the religious character.

This subject, which is very plain in itself, is rendered difficult only by the perverse disposition of men to make this consistency of character sig

nify the same thing with perfection. Hence they attempt to elude the reproach of inconsistency, by saying, 'We know that we are not perfect; perfection is not the lot of humanity.' This is very true, but it is nothing to the charge. We complain of an habitual inconsistency of character in men who profess to be men of religion; that they allow themselves in certain courses of life, and in uniform omissions of duty, which we maintain to be utterly incompatible with a prevailing sentiment of religious obedience. We perceive, in fact, that so far are they from earnestly striving after christian perfection, their hearts are yet divided, and they spend their lives in poor attempts at reconciling their convictions with their practice, their real pursuits with their acknowledged obligations, their sins with their better resolutions.

In other affairs we find no difficulty in understanding the difference between consistency and perfection of character. When a man, slavishly devoted to the acquisition of riches, is guilty of an action of gross imprudence or extravagance, we are astonished at his inconsistency, because he acts against his governing principles; but we consider it as no mitigation of the selfishness of his character. The very notion of christian perfection, as a point to which we must be continually tending, but which we are not to expect to reach, completely excludes us from offering it as an excuse for any of our miscarriages, because, if an excuse for any, it must be, from the very nature of

the thing, an excuse for all. The subject, then, which we have in view at present, is not the involuntary, or occasional defects of men who would be called religious, but their deliberate and habitual inconsistencies of conduct, which prove the absolute want of the religious principle, according to the maxim of our Saviour, that no man can serve two masters.'

We suppose ourselves to be now addressing those who retain in their hours of reflection, a belief more or less powerful, of the obligations of virtue and the truths of Christianity. They have not cast off all fear of God, and gone over deliberately to the party of unbelievers, but they are not decided whom they will serve. They would be shocked at the imputation of irreligion; yet they do not believe, or do not feel the inconsistency between their principles and their practice, and they have very inadequate conceptions, I do not say of the perfection, but of the uniformity and congruity of the christian character.

I. In the first place, it may be thought superfluous that we should rank in this class those inconsistent men, who would substitute a sound faith for a holy and virtuous life; for this is not the prevalent mistake of the age. It is supposed that the days have gone by, in which everything was thought lawful for the orthodox believer, and that God would see no sin in the faithful. It is true, that this is not the place, nor is it perhaps the period, in which this error prevails. Christians have