every one of us please his neighbour for his good to edification: for even Christ pleased not himself." And the powerful motive against selfishness, which is derived from the example of our Lord, he thus more largely presenteth to the Corinthian church: "For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that he died for all, that they which live, should not live unto themselves, but unto him that died for them and rose again." Until a believer be brought into the condition of seeing himself as only a member of the one mystical body of Christ, and feeling for the rest as he feeleth for himself, and for Christ the Head in all things, and, through him, for the glory of the invisible Father, he is not perfected in his Christian calling and, according as he can renounce all outward things, and himself also, he becometh a disciple of Christ. Not, brethren, that thereby our personality is lost and absorbed, but rather found again, and disengaged from the bondage and oppression of selfishness, which is not the first but the second, not the original unfallen but the secondary fallen state of the creature, made originally not for itself, but for the manifestation and enjoyment, the worship and the service, of God. This, our original primitive condition, it is the purpose of God to restore, with all advantages of the revealed Son, and the indwelling Spirit: and previous thereto it is necessary to divest us of that diabolical feeling

of self-sufficiency and independency upon God, and other creatures; which, as it is the greatest of falsehoods, so it is the most fruitful source of misery. How far the church hath plunged back again towards this the coast of hell, you will see more in the sequel: meanwhile I exhort you against it, and urge these grave considerations for your meditation.

Having glanced at the operation of this principle of selfishness, in what is commonly called the world, but which we consider to be a true, integrant, and responsible part of the church of Christ, we are now to shew its application to the religious world; for of its application to the commercial and political world no one entertaineth a doubt. Within the last forty or fifty years, from the time that the late revival of religion began to take effect, the personal hath become every thing, the common almost nothing. The state of our own souls, the only question; the state of the church a very secondary one, if a question at all. In respect to preaching, the consideration hath been, How did it bear upon myself? not, how did it bear upon the glory of Christ? How felt I? not, how accorded it with the truth of the orthodox faith? Hence arose that substitution of frames and feelings for the sacraments and ordinances of the church, to which our fathers were wont to look, and that preference of exciting and rousing declamations, to the opening of texts and doctrines of the Scriptures. The patient perseverance of our fathers to set forth the truth, and separate it on every side from the error,

hath given way to a certain loose indifference to the truth, and regard only to that which doth us good. Men speak of a sermon in the same language, and perhaps with the same gesture of the hand, smiting the body in the same place, with which they speak of a dinner. It did me good, sir; I felt the better for it.' Against all which, the selfish or personal form that religion hath taken within the last thirty or forty years, I object not in its place, but grieve that it should have usurped the whole, and eclipsed the person of Christ, or eclipsed it all save that fragment which every one can apply to himself; that it hath extinguished the love and admiration of the purpose of God, as a manifestation of his own being, and of his work as an accomplishment of his own glory, and turned it all into a plan or scheme for doing so much good to so many men; and, moreover, that it hath broken up the unity of the church, and destroyed the subordination of its several members, and extinguished the sacredness of the ordinances, and the communion of the body of Christ, the oneness of Baptism, the oneness of the Spirit, and rooted out that charity of every one to every other one, in our several places and offices in the body, which maketh amongst us but one body complete by our cooperation and communion; that it hath brought in the reign of judgment, every man thinking his brother should be like himself, as if we were so many coins struck with the same die, instead of being so many members belonging to the same body, yet inspired with the same

Spirit. Now, this is the work of exactly the same selfish spirit in the religious world that we all acknowledge to be in the professing world; or, to keep our own language, it is the demonstration of the universality of the spirit over the whole church; for we can make no distinction among the baptized, but consider them all as being equally privileged, and equally responsible. Against which spirit of selfishness, brethren, we would guard you, by bringing to your mind that religion is not for our own glory, but for the glory of God; that it is not for our own personal profit, but for the honour and profit of Christ; not for our own wellbeing, but for the wellbeing of the spiritual church, that we should consult in the first and principal degree. And my assurance to you is, that by looking upon yourselves in the second or the third place, your own wellbeing will prosper far more than by taking the view which is commonly taken.

Into this, however, I cannot enter further at present, and must hasten to touch the second characteristic,

COVETOUSNESS;

that is, the desire of possessing that which we have not, and attaining unto great riches and worldly possessions. And whether this be not the character of trade and merchandize, and traffic of every kind, the great source of those evils of over-trading which are every where complained of, I refer to the judgment of the men around me, who are engaged in the com

merce and business of life. Compared with the regular and quiet diligence of our fathers, and their contentment with small but sure returns, the wild and wide-spread speculation for great gains, the rash and hasty adventures which are daily made, and the desperate gamesterlike risks which are run, do reveal full surely that a spirit of covetousness hath been poured out upon men within the last thirty or forty years. And the providence of God corresponding thereto, by wonderful and unexpected revolutions, by numerous inventions for manufacturing the productions of the earth, in order to lead men into temptation, hath impressed upon the whole face of human affairs a stamp of earnest worldliness not known to our fathers: insomuch that our youth do enter life no longer with the ambition of providing things honest in the sight of men, keeping their credit, bringing up their family, and realizing a competency, if the Lord prosper them, but with the ambition of making a fortune, retiring to their ease, and enjoying the luxuries of the present life.

Against which crying sin of covetousness, dearly beloved brethren, I do most earnestly call upon you to wage a good warfare. This place is its seat, its strong hold, even this metropolitan city of Christian Britain; and ye who are called by the grace of God out of the great thoroughfare of mammon, are so elected for the express purpose of testifying against this and all other the backslidings of the church planted here; and especially against this, as being in my opi