inclination, to enter upon the profession of the law :-a young man of a feeble body and a weak spirit, unapt, both in body and mind, to encounter toil and danger, will not often wish, or be wished by his friends, to go into the army or navy. But how many do we see every day, who are wished, and who consent readily, to enter into Christ's spiritual warfare, to become ministers of Christ's Gospel, while their minds are wholly disinclined to heavenly knowledge, and their hearts without any relish for heavenly love. This, assuredly, is an entering into the sheepfold by another way than by Christ, the door; it is a taking charge of the sheep, with the selfish feelings of the hireling, not with the zeal and affection of the good Shepherd.

But you are young yet, and you may hope, that before the time comes when you will actually enter on the ministry, you may have gained that desire to know and to do God's will, and to save the souls of others, which as yet you cannot pretend to feel. Then, if you have this hope, do your best to realize it; if you think that God does call you into his service, live as worthy of that call: at school and at the University, if your friends' wishes and your own prepare you to enter hereafter into the ministry, see that you regard yourselves as vessels fashioned to honour, and to be preserved especially pure and bright for our heavenly Master's use. If you do so regard yourselves, and so strive to fit yourselves for your heavenly profession, it may be, and I trust will, that in the call of outward circumstances, and the wishes of your

friends, you may hereafter recognize the true call of God.

Thus, then, God calls you, at your age especially, to improve yourselves in the studies placed before you, and to consider in yourselves how you may best serve him hereafter, and in what particular way you may fit yourselves for his call to your several professions. The answer which you give to this call of God, and the punishment to which you render yourselves liable, will be the subject of my next sermon.

SERMON XIV.

LUKE XIV. 18.

They all with one consent began to make excuse.

So perfect is the truth of those descriptions of our nature which are to be found in the Scriptures; so entirely do they seize those principal points which are applicable to all times and to all countries; that when we quote them in reference to the common circumstances of our daily life, the effect is almost startling; and it seems almost like an irreverent use of them, to bring them so closely in contact with our ordinary language and practices. But the fact is, that this wonderful capability of being brought home to common life, constitutes a great part of their perpetual value. The parable in the text was spoken immediately with reference to the various reasons which made the Jews in that day refuse God's call to enter into the kingdom of his Son. Yet so much is human nature the same from one age to another, and so exactly does the parable describe this nature, that the words of the text may just as fitly be applied to ourselves. "They all with one consent began to make

excuse." In which I shall note two things; first, the disobedience to the call of God; and then, the tendency to make excuses for that disobedience, by which, in fact, we condemn ourselves.

In my last sermon, I spoke of that particular call of God which is here addressed to you. We have, all of us here assembled, our particular call relating to the several duties which our respective situations impose upon us. Do we not all of us too often refuse to listen to this call, and then make our disobedience worse by the vain excuses which we plead for it? I proceed to explain what I mean more particularly.

That the call is disobeyed is a matter of fact, of which our consciences cannot pretend to be ignorant. You are not fitting yourselves carefully and humbly for that state to which it may please God to call you; you are too many of you not bringing up to godliness and good learning. But the nature of excuses given for not being so is well worthy of our consideration. I do not mean that these excuses are given outwardly to other persons; perhaps you would be ashamed so to state them but they are, at any rate, excuses with which you cheat yourselves, and your own consciences, and remain satisfied with not doing what God requires of you.

One of these excuses arises out of a feeling that your common work is not a matter of religion; and that, therefore, it is not sinful to neglect it. Idleness and vice are considered as two distinct things; and it is very common to say, and to hear it said, of such an one, that he is idle, but that he is perfectly free from vice. It would, indeed, be using words contrary

to their common meaning, if we did not make this distinction; and it is true also, that a vicious boy is a great deal worse than an idle one, because he sins much more directly against his own conscience, and because, after all, it is worse to do evil than to leave good undone. But what is not vicious may yet be sinful; in other words, what is not a great offence against men's common notions of right and wrong, may yet be a very great one against those purer motives which we learn from the Scripture, and in the judgment of the most pure God. Thus idleness is not vicious, perhaps, but it is certainly sinful, and to strive against it is a religious duty, because it is highly offensive to God. This is so clearly shown in the parable of the ten talents, in that of the sower and the seed, and even in the account of the day of judgment, given by our Lord in the twenty-fifth chapter of St. Matthew, that it cannot require a very long proof. In the parable of the talents, the whole offence of the servant, who is cast out into outer darkness, consists in his not having made the most of the talent intrusted to him: in the parable of the sower, those soils are alike represented as bad," which bring no fruit to perfection," whether the ground be overrun with thorns and briers, or whether it fail to produce any thing, from its mere shallowness and lightness. And in the description of the day of judgment, the sin for which the wicked are represented as turned into hell, is only that they had done no good. It is not mentioned that they were vicious in the common sense of the word; but they were sinful inasmuch as they had not done what God commanded them to do. And