nor to hypocrites, or to the children of falsehood. These will speak of false preachers, as their fathers did of false prophets. The world loves its own; and there is a wo to the preacher when all men speak well of him. A good name from the world is a sure sign of a false teacher: hence the wo is entailed on all preachers that obtain the world's good report. This command, to call the vile person by his proper name, is given to the princes who rule in judgment, and to the household of faith, ruled by them; who, as soon as they hear this vile person utter error against the Lord, or speak villany, are to mark him, and call him a vile person from the villany that he speaks, and detest and contemn him as such for by his words he shall be condemned. Nor can they be called true citizens of Zion, or loyal subjects and faithful rulers under Zion's King, except they do. that abides in the Lord's tabernacle, and dwells in his holy hill, is one that walks uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart. In whose eyes a vile person is contemned, but he honoureth them that fear the Lord, Psalm xv. The second branch of this first head is,

He

He is not to be called liberal. God, who has fixed his name, calls him a vile person; and we are to know him to be such an one by his doctrine, and to call him by his proper name as soon as we hear him speak, or publish his villany. Not but that a false preacher may be as profuse with his

lies as a prince is with the truth; yea, and more so; for good seedsmen sometimes sleep while the devil, by these men, is busy sowing tares; and the more they labour, the heavier their punishment.

Liberal, in my text, implies free. A liberal soul is one renewed and upheld by a free spirit; who, in my text, is a spiritual prince, the son of a king, and of a queen, by adoption and grace; a free-born son by a spiritual birth; a son of a free woman; a free citizen, made free by the truth, whose heart is enlarged by divine love. But this vile person is not renewed by the Spirit, but under the influence of Satan. He that utters error against the Lord, cannot be made free by the truth. "The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth shall be watered also himself." But a false witness is a cloud withont rain, a well without water: his end is to deceive, beguile, starve, and destroy the souls of the poor with lying words, or by speaking villany, and uttering error against the Lord; and, as he makes empty the soul of the hungry, and causes the drink of the thirsty to fail, it is perverting his name to call him liberal. Nor is the distribution of the alms of such a deceiver to be called liberality. Sinners love sinners; the deceiver loves the deceived. All he aims at, in his alms, is to gain a good name, or human applause; or as a bribe to obtain heaven; or to open a way to enthrone himself in the affections of the poor, that he may circulate his errors among them, and betray their souls into the hand of the father of lies. God

oves a cheerful giver: but this vile person is not an object of his love; nor can he be the cheerful giver that God approves, because he is an enemy to him, and utters error against him. A vile person God calls him; and says, he shall not be called liberal.

Secondly, We were to consider the churl, who is not to be dignified with the name bountiful.

I believe this account to be taken from the affair of Nabal and David. When David sent his servants to greet Nabal, in his name, at the time of sheep-shearing, when himself and his men were in great distress and want, he railed on them, asking them, "Who is David? and who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants now-a-days, who break away every man from his master. Shall I then take my bread and my water, and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto men whom I know not whence they be?" This was the return David met with for guarding his flock with his soldiers from thieves and wild beasts; and for being a wall to the shepherds, and to the sheep, by night and by day. David was to be the father of Christ, and was one of the greatest types of him in all the Bible. His followers, who joined themselves to him, consisting of such as were in distress, discontented, and in debt, were emblematical of the poor, to whom the gospel is preached; and of troubled, distressed, and discontented souls, who are deeply in arrears both to the precept and penalty of the law; who

betake themselves to the King of Zion, who becomes the Captain of salvation over them. And, just as churlish Nabal railed on David, calling him the son of Jesse, so this vile person, this churl in my text, rails at Zion's King; he speaks villany, and utters error against him. And as Nabal, by refusing sustenance to David and his troops, endeavoured to starve them all together; so these vile ones refuse to submit to, or honour, the King of Zion: they bring no presents to him; they neither feed Christ, by ascribing glory to him, nor his members themselves with the word of truth, but aim at starving them both; or, as my text says, they utter error against the Lord, to make empty the soul of the hungry, and to cause the drink of the thirsty to fail: they rob Christ of his glory, and his people of their bread. A churl, literally, is an unpolished countryman; and so the churl in my text is unpolished, unrenewed by grace, a countryman; not of the heavenly country, not a citizen of Zion. He is in the flesh, not in the Spirit. No scholar: he is not taught of God; he is destitute of divine tuition, which is true learning and polite literature in the best sense. The churl is a selfish niggard. And so is the churl in my text. He is self-willed, and a cursed child. Self is his god; self is his righteousness, his first cause, and last end. He is born of the flesh, and ends in the flesh. He loves himself above God; and seeks the honour for himself that is due to God, and to him only. He sets up his wisdom

above the word of God, by uttering error against him. He enthrones himself in the consciences of poor weak people, which is the sole prerogative of God; and speaks villany, and practises hypocrisy, to do it. And he claims the honour and praise of the people, which is due to none but the Most High; and makes use, as my text says, of evil instruments, to get it.

As Nabal was in the holy land, and among God's professing Israel, so this Nabal is in the professing world. And as Nabal is called a son of Belial, so this false teacher is called, in God's word, a child of the devil, and a minister of Satan. “Nabal is his name, and folly is with him;" and he is as drunk with the wine of spiritual fornication, as Nabal, of old, was with liquor: and such vile persons shall die as insensibly in their errors, as he died stupid in his drunkenness.

This churl shall not be palmed with the name bountiful. God has not given him a bountiful heart, nor a bountiful eye. His heart is deceitful; he practises hypocrisy. His eye is evil, it is set against the Lord, and against the poor; and though he crouches and humbles himself, it is that the poor may fall by his strong ones, by the devils that help him; for he seeks to destroy the poor with lying words, with doctrines of devils, even when the needy speaketh right. He hates the Lord, and the poor in spirit; he has nothing for these; no honour for God, nor food for his people; his bounty never reaches to the poor and needy.