the soul in darkness, they come and sow there their unsightly tares-the garden's shame, its sorrow and reproach-but still no wonder. Why He whose ground it is, permits these blemishes to stay, his wisdom only knows. Perhaps because the regenerated heart has need to see the blossoms of celestial grace side by side with its own base productions, that it be kept humble, and that it be kept grateful. Perhaps to show forth more brilliantly his own eternal power, that can rear his seed in such unseemly gardens. Perhaps to convict the world of its wilfully perverted judgment, determined to attribute to religion the faults of its professors, and charge God himself with the work of his enemies.

Je viendrai contre toi comme le larron dans la nuit. QUE ces paroles sont terribles. Je viendrai contre toi, moi qui ai abîmé le premier monde dans un deluge universel; moi qui ai consumé Sodome et Gomorrhe par feu; moi qui ai détruit Jerusalem, où mon nom était invoqué, où j'avais établi mon sanctuaire; moi qui ai ôté mon chandelier aux Eglises que mes Apôtres avaient fondées; moi qui ai reduit en poudre tant de temples, dispersé tant de troupeaux. Et que ferions nous, Seigneur, si tu viens contre nous, si tu ôtes la lumière qui nous éclaire, le pain celeste qui nous nourrit ? Prevenons cette venue par notre conversion. Jésus viendra dans un tems qu'on ne l'attendra pas. Prepare nous, Seigneur, toi-même, à te recevoir. Viens dans nos coeurs. Viens-y établir ton empire; viens nous remplir de ton Esprit, et viens nous donner les premices de ta gloire. PICTET.

16

LECTURES

ON OUR

SAVIOUR'S SERMON ON THE MOUNT.

LECTURE THE TWENTY-FOURTH.

Therefore all things, whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do you also unto them.MATT. vii. 12.

A BEAUTIFUL summary of all that had preceded it. In indulgent adaptation to our perverse and querulous spirits, to a darkness that will not see, a stupidity that will not understand, while the shadow of a pretext can be found for misapprehension, the divine expositor of his Father's law had gone on explaining, line by line, and precept by precept, every minute particular of Christian duty-when, as if his comprehensive mind had seen at once that all this was needless, that words were multiplied in vain, to explain what a single sentence would express, he concentrates the whole of human duty in this one small point-the all of celestial or of human law the all of duty, and the all of right "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them."

To a candid and an honest mind, there is nothing more striking than the contrast between the simplicity of the Gospel truth, as God has left it, and the diffi culties, controversies, and equivocations, with which man has encompassed it. It is one of the objections of infidelity against revelation, that if God had revealed his will at all, he would have done it plainly: he would not have given a dark and uncertain guide for men to dispute about, and ultimately lose their way for want of understanding it. To all whom he meant should understand it, I believe that he has done so-to all the honest and the simple-minded, who have no other purpose

but to understand, obey it, and be saved. With respect even to the doctrines of the Gospel, there is a great deal of dishonesty in our hearts-there are some things we do not like to believe; and some we think it dangerous to believe; and some we determine beforehand cannot be true; and some, I fear too often, that we determine not to receive if they are true. And thence we go to disputing and cavilling, darkening counsel by words without knowledge; till amid the heat of controversy, and the excitement of party, and the ferment of imagination, the simple truths of revealed religion are indeed clouded and veiled with countless difficulties. And not more true is this of points of faith, than of points of obedience. Questions as to what we must do, what we may do, and what we may not do, fill volumes of writings, and disturb the peace of the tender-hearted, as if God had really bidden us to lead a godly and religious life, without informing us what he meant by it. And yet, when we turn from the cavillings of unbelievers who love the ways of sin, and of believers too unwilling to relinquish them, to the pure droppings of eternal truth, as they fell first from the lips of divinity, how simple are the precepts, and how few the words-how easy to understand, how impossible to be mistaken. Two small chapters, at the longest, is all the code of Christian morality: but that is more than was necessary for all is included in this single verse"Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, ye also unto them.

do

Men, even in the darkness of their unregenerate nature, are adequate judges of their own claims, as to what they would wish to demand, if not as to what is due to them. If in the latter they may err, it will be in expecting too much, never too little of their fellow-creatures. And in this respect, an honest abiding by this precept of our Lord would correct another great source of misery and wrong in human life-our inordinate and unreasonable expectations. For certainly, if we are to

render to others whatever in treatment we desire to receive from them, we are not to expect or to desire any thing we should not, in the like case, conscientiously feel obliged to render. There are splendid acts of generous self-sacrifice, which must not be calculated on and cannot be imitated, that seem to go beyond this precept, Doubtless they are beautiful in the sight of heaven as they are before men. But as there is no law that requires them at our hands, so is there no reasonable ground on which we should expect them.

Nature, as we have observed, would be sufficient to the full understanding of this precept, and by it of the duty that we owe to every one, in every possible relationship and circumstance of life, did we by the light of nature know ourselves, what we would have, and what we must have. But that is not so. Justice and our right is all the cry: we say we want nothing more, and this we are willing to render to every one: and dealing out this rigid, miserable dole, according to our poor judg ment of right towards others, rather than our actual feeling of what is desirable to ourselves, we persuade ourselves we are fulfilling this magnificent precept, while we are living in exact opposition to its meaning.

The Christian cannot make any such mistake. He knows that he must have at others' hands, not justice and his right, but mercy, pity, forbearance, long-suffering, gentleness, condescension, forgiveness, indulgence, love -or that, being what he is, he shall be miserable. Here then is a precept wide enough to measure every questionable duty, full enough to contain every individual circumstance of every individual christian, in his passage through time into eternity. Would that it were written in letters of gold, and hung about our necks, so near that the eye could not forget to see it, nor the heart to feel it, in every hour, in every moment of our lives. But I fear it comes very seldom to mind at the right moment. It should arm, as it were, our selfishness against itself, and make it commit suicide. The cre

ditor must pay the debtor's bill, and the more exorbitant he has made it the more he will have to pay. Nothing but the love of God will make this rule acceptable, and nothing but divine grace will enable us to fulfil it.

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But supposing that, by God's grace and for his love, we do honestly desire to fulfil this epitome of the law and the prophets, is it not above all things necessary we should remember it? And do we not habitually forget it? We remember it when we make reference to the pages of Scripture-we remember it doubtless in our prayers for heavenly aid-and I trust we remember it in our hours of penitential sorrow. But do we think of it at the only moments in which it can be influential on our conduct the moment we are going to do something, say something, determine something, that may affect the interests or the feelings of others? And this would be always-for there is no part of our conduct, scarcely a word we speak, the communion between ourselves and our Maker excepted, that does not nearly or remotely affect somebody. To be useful, then, this precept must be ever near, and if we would abide by its decisions, no other law would be necessary-we could not err. Is it near? Let us examine. Have we thought of it to-day? Did we think of it yesterday? Perhaps our mind is burthened with something we have said to others, for which we now reproach ourselves-Would not that thought, had it occurred, have prevented those words? Perhaps we have brought trouble on ourselves by some offence, given undesignedly. Would not the recollection of that precept have made us aware of doing wrong? Thus let us trace back the circumstances of a day, a week, and try if this rule of conduct, timely applied, would not have spared us all the mistakes, the mischiefs, and the too late regrets that we have caused ourselves. Wider than at Whom could

first appears, is the extent it embraces. we have served, and have not served? To whom could we have spoken comfort, and have kept silence? Whom have we misled by folly, when an example of wisdom