But this makes us look up from these wicked men to God, and recalls to us, that in these very instances, we have proofs of the divine forbearance, and longsuffering, which should never pass out of our minds. We see that God is not like man, limited to a day, or a few days, or years, and therefore man meets not his reward, or his punishment during his lifetime. God may allow the wicked to rise to the height of prosperity, and he does so sometimes, allowing a throne even to be occupied by the very individual who is a disgrace to it. And, if this person die unconverted, he is in the hands of Him who made him, and continued to support him; but he will now languish and be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and the glory of his power. I have no doubt that to make this important proverb plain, would detain you long; but if I have, in the first place, riveted on your minds this truth, that you owe your existence and all you have to God, that his divine providence has been your provider and protector, and continues so still, and must continue so, not only down to the grave, but through all eternity; and if, in the second place, I have impressed upon you that you should employ every thing you have to the glory of God; and if, in the third place, you are satisfied, that the wicked are as much in the hands of God to be punished by him, as the good are in his hands to receive undeserved kindness, then important truths have been laid before you, and I have not laboured in vain. The next proverb will not need much exposition, because we have met with similar sentiments already. "Every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord; though hand join in hand, he shall not be unpunished." The term translated "unpunished," if you look at the marginal readings of some of your Bibles, or consult the original Hebrew, might be translated, "may not be held innocent," and that is equivalent in the sight of God with actual punishment. Though hand join in hand," every concerted scheme God will inquire into, every concert to keep the man 66 66 proud in heart, will be found utterly unavailing, for that person, though held innocent by man, yet shall not be by God, nor allowed to pass unpunished. Proud in heart" is to be understood as expressive of pride as much concealed as possible, just hid as much as we possibly can under a humble garb. The very existence of this pride it is impossible to conceal from God; he is perfectly acquainted with every thing. And, therefore, the society of Friends, although they have a uniform dress of male and female, may yet be liable to all the guilt and punishment which this proverb holds out; for, if they conceal their pride, they only conceal it from their brethren, but it is pride in heart which will not be concealed from God, and therefore is said to be an abomination to him. It is one of those things he most dislikes; it is one of those things which may be unknown to man, and which, therefore, goes unpunished by him. Although every precaution be taken to prevent its ever being suspected that a man is a proud man, yet this quality is perfectly seen and known by God, and will bring the individual to punishment. The Lord our God will not suffer that man who is proud in heart, and who, of consequence, is an abomination in his sight Now this speaks to all; it calls upon every man, even upon him who has gained the highest praise for humility and christian selfdenial, to consider what is deficient in himself and how far he is yet behind in christian attainment. It more loudly addresses the christian individual, who, while he knows he is proud in heart, and thinks that that pride is an abomination to the Lord, yet forgets that, while he may conceal it from his fellow-men, it is impossible to conceal it from the eyes of an all-seeing God. Therefore, the bounden duty here held forth to us is this, the lowest humility, the utmost selfdenial as to the state of mind which becomes the disciple of Jesus; and while we adhere to every path of christian duty, remember that we cannot be low in our own estimation, without rising high in the estimation of the Lord; for the True and Faithful Witness has said, " God giveth grace unto the humble." 66 GLASGOW:-W. R. M'PHUN, PUBLISHER, 86, TRONGATE, To whom all Communications should be addressed. EDWARD KHULL, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY. A SERMON PREACHED IN BEHALF OF THE EDINBURGH AND LEITH HUMANE SOCIETY, * IN ST. ANDREW'S CHURCH, EDINBURGH, ON THE EVENING OF SUNDAY, 3D MARCH, 1833. By the Rev. WILLIAM MUIR, D.D., Minister of St. Stephen's Church, Edinburgh. "Let brotherly love continue. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body."-HEB. xiii. 1, 2, 3. You are quite aware that Christian teaching includes both the statement of doctrines and the prescribing of duties, and St. Paul lets us see clearly, that no carefulness in declaring the doctrines is ever to prevent the minutest enforcement of the duties. The doctrines of the gospel imply the duties, and are the grand principles on which the duties are enjoined. To teach what is practical, therefore, without constant reference to what is doctrinal, is as unreasonable an attempt, as to render effects independent of their causes; while on the other hand, to teach the principles of the gospel, so as to exclude their application to the heart and life is just as unreasonable. Occasionally there has been an upholding of the one kind of teaching, to the disparagement and rejection of the other. It has been said by the advocates of the one kind of teaching, that we cannot be wrong, if our endeavours be always to establish right and fixed principles; and it has been said by the advocates of the other, that we cannot be wrong, if our efforts be directed exclusively to the describing and enforcing moral actions. But our inquiry as to the mode of instruction which is best fitted for the great design of religious teaching, must turn on what the Scriptures have actually prescribed, and not on what we may think the best; and if so, we shall clearly see the necessity of our never separating for an instant the two branches of Christian address. Both are to be found in the very same Apostle's discourse; and to separate for an instant what the divine wisdom has thus united, is most criminal. Neither the doctrinal train of discoursing is to be followed to the rejection of the practical, nor is the preceptive address to be without an unceasing address to the principles of faith. In short, the style of gospel teaching must contain the well proportioned mixture of the two. The portion of St. Paul's writings now before us is a proof of this. There is more of a theoretic character in this Epistle than in almost any other; but there is a peculiar inference passing richly and most impressively through all the windings and perplexities of the Apostle's argument-some duty is enforced, or some holy resolution is excited, or some urgent motive to godliness is deduced. More especially here, however, at the close of his argument, are we called to see how practical those designs are, in which the views of the sacred writer all terminate. He presents us in the verses I have read, in the two which precede them, and in the verses which follow, with a digest of all the • This Society was instituted in 1784, and has been instrumental, under divine Providence, in preserving hundreds of individuals from premature death. God and Saviour is fixed as the root. True charity and personal purity rise up in most blessed union along with piety. "The fearo the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," and let that fear be once planted in the soul, and most assuredly there will be a loving of mercy, and a keeping ourselves unspotted from the world, as inseparable companions from walking humbly with God. Christian precepts, so brief, that it is easy to be committed to memory, and so comprehensive, that we cannot mention a single obligation of righteousness which is not expressed or implied in it. It has been suggested that the verses preceding and following the text ought to be taken together; that the solemn exhortation given in the two concluding verses of the 12th chapter, ought to be received in strict union with the Be then exhorted, in the first place, to serve precepts of the first six verses of the 13th. God, to celebrate his praise, to offer him All duties, as you are aware, are either re- thanksgiving, to confess your sins in his prelative or personal, and their objects therefore sence, to render glory to his name by the soare God, your brethren, and yourselves. In lemnities of the Sabbath, by religious meditathis very order and dependence it is necessary tion and prayer in your families and in your that you regard them, and you must beware closets. Serve God; maintain the thoughts of invading in the least upon this systemati- of his superintendence and government over cal arrangement. He who is Supreme has you, and cherish an ardent love and regard the first claim upon your heart, and your to his authority, by feeling that you live and duty to your neighbour is truly defective breathe in God, by resignation in all your whenever it is not accompanied with a calamities to the sovereign will of God, by sacred regard to the authority of God. In the committal of your way unto him who the first, second, and third verses, you are can order your way aright, by an accumuadmonished on the subject of your relative lation of prayer for his mercy and protection, obligations; the virtue of charity is enjoin- by seizing every occasion of speaking well ed, and the threefold union of obligation is of his blessed name, and increasing among not to be mutilated by you. You are to those around you reverence for his characserve God with reverence and godly fear, ter. Thus the very business of the world because God is a consuming fire, nor can will come to be associated with the religious you be serving God acceptably if brotherly exercises of the sanctuary, the communion love be not cherished; you cannot say that of your souls with the Father of spirits will benevolent intercourse among your bre- be maintained, and, feeling yourselves ever thren is guided by right principles, if all the in his presence, you will be happily led, while serving God acceptably through grace whether you eat or drink, or whatsoever you form no part of your character; nor must do, to do all to the glory of God. Then it it be said for a single moment, that a regard is said in the passage we have read, serve to the human weal can make up for want of him acceptably. Consider how it is that personal purity. Is it not true that men you are rendered acceptable in the sight of have often conducted themselves, as if they God-not through any merit of your own. had said, Though we may never have cul- Bear in mind that you are fallen beings, and tivated brotherly love, we still attempt to live in an apostate world. Let your deserve God in stated worship, and to preserve pendence in every thing be settled on the ourselves from dishonesty; or, We have, cross of Christ: to this be ye counselled indeed, long ceased to observe religious or- to look steadfastly for the power to serve dinances, we seldom go to church, and we God. Most attractive, indeed, are all the cannot say that our lives are unsullied, displays of your Saviour's cross; and all its but who can say that we are not strict in benefits are given without money and withthe discharge of every thing that is neigh- out price. How strongly encouraged, then, bourly, kind, and friendly? Here a selec- ought you to feel in all your endeavours to tion of the claims of duty is made, but all serve God! Away from you all the depressthis betrays a total misapprehension, or ing weight of those suspicions and fears rather a wilful rejection, of the Christian which would change the service of the Lord scheme. The duties we owe to God, to into the yoke and burden of a tyrannical our brethren, and ourselves, form a system, transaction. But to serve God acceptably, and an attempt to cherish one branch of you must entertain right views of his chaobligation at the expense of another, is cut-racter, and of your relation to him in that ting at the root of all. Wherever the graces character, as given in the Scriptures of truth. of moral obedience grow, their love to your You behold his power that is to be dreaded, his authority that is to be sanctified in your regard, his holiness that is to be glorified by you, and his free mercy which is held out at once to attract and solemnize your minds. Most amiable, indeed, and engaging is the view of his character that is given; but still the grandeur of his justice, and the purity of his holiness, and the unchanging purposes of his rectitude, and the severity of his judgments-all convince you, that "God is a consuming fire" to the impenitent and unbelieving. You are to serve him with joy in him, as your Saviour, and yet with the subdued and humble sentiment which realizes him as your Judge. His ineffable goodness is never to turn you away from his ineffable greatness. No.-Unite the two objects of religious contemplation. While you serve God acceptably, through the pardoning and sanctifying grace of the Saviour, you are to serve God still with reverence and godly fear; "for our God is a consuming fire." the next circle. Your family, your friends, the society of your neighbourhood, your native land, exert claims upon you, each of them in their order. Let the whole human race have your affectionate desires and prayers, and, as far as you can, your labours of charity, but waste not in idle sensibility that time and those talents which ought to be devoted to the interests of your brethren. Be careful that this divine affection of brotherly love be not interrupted, nor allowed to decay. But that this limits not the exercise of charity to your brethren alone, is well proved by the command to the hospitable treatment of strangers, enjoined by the Apostle in the second verse. First, love and charity to the brethren is prescribed, and then the shelter of the roof even to strangers. You follow the spirit of this precept, when you studiously avoid all those illiberal considerations which insinuate themselves under the name of economy, and make you give grudgingly and sparingly to the needy; and when, on the contrary, you studiously cultivate these generous sentiments which prepare you for assisting the destitute, for yielding to what friendship prompts you for the good of all, and especially for the household of faith; thus cultivate the spirit of mind by which you are ready, whenever you have the opportunity, to do good, and you may become instrumental in assisting those whom God has called his especial servants; for did the Patriarch Abraham, when he hastened from his tent to welcome the wayfaring men, discover, under their disguise, the heavenly character of the strangers? At first he was prompted by generous feelings to give them hospitable shelter under his roof; and, oh! how welcome to his heart, when he found that, unawares, he had entertained angels. And let me remind you, that it is always the most powerful of excitements to every good word and work, that even the humblest service done to any one in the name and for the sake of Christ, is acknowledged to be done to the Lord of angels. Now, the first great commandment is the necessary introduction to the second, "Let brotherly love continue." Strictly, they who are the objects of brotherly love, are those who live with you in the same society, and particularly in the same religious society. By the Hebrew converts the sentiment of brotherly love had been already exercised. It was not the beginning of the divine affection, but the continuing of it, to which they were exhorted. The brotherly love described in the Apostle's writings, had reference to all who had received like precious faith with themselves. And though, as you well know, there are precepts which direct believers to cultivate philanthropy on the largest scale, yet here, and elsewhere, the exercise of the benevolent affections is pointedly directed towards those with whom you are intimately connected, and especially the household of faith. To counsel us to give our first services to those who are so nearly allied to us, illustrates the wisdom of the divine teachers. Other teachers have spoken of such counsels disparagingly, and have written volumes to prove the superior claim and beauty of what they call univer- In verse third, you are told to rememsal benevolence, but these volumes of ber them that are in bonds,” to think where sentimentalism exhibit a mere parade of the burden most heavily presses upon feeling. It is quite useless to speak of them, to view them as they are racked affectionate concern for the whole, and not with pain, or mourning under spiritual for the portions that compose it. Surely darkness, or drawing near to death, or the circle that turns immediately around actually passing through its valley and hurried observance of their state; you are "to remember them." And instead of this being to you an uninteresting spectacle, let it be as if you were bound up in the same griefs with them. "Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them." You are to sympathize with them in the spirit, and to encourage them, when you cannot remove their troubles. O! surely the consideration, how affecting, that the very calamities you are called to sympathize with, are portions of the universal life! That you are liable to them every moment, may well impress this sentiment upon you. Think you always upon them who suffer any adversity, so as to show that you also conceive yourselves as suffering in the body of sin and death. Your exemption from affliction is owing to the free grace and sovereign love of God. The sympathy now asked from you may soon be needed by yourselves. What assistance you are now required to yield may soon require to be imparted to you. Now, the precept to that brotherly love which is to animate and guide you throughout every portion of your duty to men, is introduced by the precept to serve God; and let it be added, that the personal duties must ever be conjoined with the relative, and therefore the Apostle subjoins certain statements to show you the necessity of personal purity. For the want of this last, no excuse is to be drawn from prodigality and beneficence. That pretension to charity is unfounded and most deceitful, which is made in the courses of a licentious and profligate life. These, though spoken of as doing no harm but to those who follow them, produce a prolonged curse on the whole of society. The persons who walk in these courses boast of themselves as possessed of very amiable dispositions. They have parted with something for charitable purposes. It may be, they have done what has received for them the credit of kindness on the part of others. But there is no real charity in the heart of that man who is profligate. The very essence of this is selfishness, and yet the profligate man, the man who has broken all the bonds of religion, who has spurned from him the wretched, who has overwhelmed the hearts of brothers and sisters with a sense of disgrace not to be taken away from them, that profligate man will still dare to lay claim to amiable and generous dispositions; and his companions talk of this conduct by names that smooth it down; the man is still received among the first ranks of society; he would resent an imputation against his honour; if he throw his alms into some public Charity, he may come to be regarded as the benefactor who deserves gratitude, and even higher reward. But what says the Apostle in the text? "God will judge." Society may be silent, but "God will judge." His friends may receive the man back to their circle, but says the Apostle, "God will judge." The public prints, those industrious caterers for a diseased curiosity, may treat the whole as a matter of trivial gallantry, but says the Apostle, "God will judge." His own conscience may be seared, and his course of sensuality may be reviewed by him without awakening a single apprehension of what it is leading to, but says the Apostle, "God will judge." Be not deceived, God is not mocked." Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy." 66 The Apostle acquaints us also with a dissuasive against covetousness. He gives the dissuasive to every movement of the heart towards the goods of this life, which would remove us from serving God acceptably and doing good to our brethren. Cherish contentment. Envy not the situation of others. What you receive, you have from God. What things he has bestowed, are they not far better than any thing your righteousness deserved? Are they not best fitted to promote your own good, and the glory of the giver? And will you not remember, that, if you are his people, you are interested in his promises, which are exceeding great and precious? Insufficient in yourselves, he will make his grace sufficient for you. Feeble in your own resources, he will perfect his strength in your weakness. It is on the arm of God that you lean; it is under his guidance that you proceed; it is through his strength and mercy that you conquer and are crowned. Well, therefore, may you as his people triumphantly exclaim, I will not fear what men shall do unto me!" Now, this is a very hurried inspection of the particulars in the text; but can there be a more striking exemplification of the practical turn the Apostle communicates to his system of moral duties? You are first directed to the service of God, the love of whom is the source of righteousness. To |