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steadiness of our better purposes, and suffer ourselves to be led astray by show and emptiness.

O Christians, be it our care to avoid this folly! Even if there were no future life, it would not often repay us. But if, as you and I believe, and as the death and resurrection of our Master have made us believe with the assurance of faith, we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, to receive the reward of our integrity, or to suffer the punishment of our iniquity—then indeed folly is too soft a name, for that preference of gain to godliness; of time to eternity; of short-lived glory to everlasting honours, which yet is so common among men. It is a folly heightened by impiety to God; by rebellion against those laws, which he has established for the improvement and exaltation of rational natures; by ingratitude to him, who was commissioned to make these laws plain, and to encourage and facilitate their observance; and by the destruction of our own souls, which he died to save, but which we expose to shame and everlasting contempt. It is a folly, compared with which all other follies are comparative wisdom;

wisdom; at which angels themselves might weep; at which heaven and earth ought to be astonished. And shall And shall we, for any temporary advantage, be guilty of a madness, which involves in ruin all the great interests of an immortal nature? Shall we, to become a little richer, forfeit that integrity, the loss of which will make us poor for ever? Or Father, ought we not to make friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, and to sanctify our daily labours, by rendering some portion of their produce subservient to purposes of piety and benevolence? Yes, Christians. The wis dom of man consists essentially in providing not merely for the life of the body, which perisheth; but for that spiritual life, which endureth for ever. As he can never be accounted happy, who is happy only for a day, and miserable for many days and years thereafter, much less should he be deemed wise, whose calculations are made for momentary gains, and debasing pleasures, to the neglect of that inheritance, which is incorruptible and undefiled, and fadeth not away. If therefore ye would be wise, get that wisdom which is from above. Found your views of peace,

peace, of enjoyment, of honour, upon the integrity of your hearts and the rectitude of your lives. Found these again upon the fear of God, and endeavour to render them steadfast and immoveable, by reflecting often, in your serious moments, upon the respective consequences of piety and irreligion; of virtue and of vice; and above all give permanence to your resolves by the frequent anticipation of that crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall confer upon you, provided you can say with the apostle, at the close of your journey, that you have fought the good fight, and finished the work which God has assigned you, as the trial of your faith and patience. Labour therefore, that ye may enter into that rest. Quit yourselves like men, and hold fast your integrity to the end. Let it be your guide through all the difficulties of this life; and you shall reap its glorious fruits in that place, where it will have no more temptations to encounter; but will rest in everlasting safety under the protection of that God," who loveth the righte ous, and hateth all the workers of iniquity."

SERMON

317

SERMON XIII.

PAUL AND PETER AT ANTIOCH.

Gal. ii. 11-15. But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision. And the other Jews dissembled likewise; insomuch that Barnabas also was led away by their dissimulation. But when I saw that they walked not uprightly, according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all; If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the gentiles to live as do the Jews?

SOME men, from a mistaken zeal for the honour of the sacred record, ascribe to the apostles an extent of infallibility, which they themselves

themselves most pointedly disclaim. In all that related to the essentials of christianity, they were indeed infallible; for the promise was, that when the spirit of truth should come upon them, he would guide them, not into all truth, as our translators have erroneously rendered it; but into all the truth, as it is in the original; that is, into all that concerned the great doctrines of the gospel, which is distinctively the truth of God. In revealing this to the world, the apostles were guarded from error, by the teachings of a divine spirit. But are we hence to infer, that in things of subordinate importance, which affected not the weightier points of christian faith, they were equally infallible? Not only is such an inference without support from their own writings; but the apostle Paul states opinions for which he expressly disavows supernatural authority, and to which he claims no other deference, than that of the respectful and candid attention of his own converts. But if the apostles did not arrogate an exemption from error in all matters of opinion, much less were they superior to frailty in matters of practice.

They

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