of eternal communion with him, who spared not himself, but offered himself a sacrifice for thy sins, to be thrown away for the sake of the short-lived pleasures of time and sense? How wilt thou endure everlasting burnings? Now thou refreshest thyself with sordid indulgences; but if thou trifle a little longer, thou must for ever be deprived of them, and have to reflect, that for them thou hast gained the worm that dieth not, and the fire that never shall be quenched. Awake! awake to consideration! and repent, and believe the Gospel, that thou mayest be preserved by the salt of grace in everlasting health and security. And bear, and believe and love, and wrestle against sin a little longer, believers: incorruptible joy and bliss await you.

47

SERMON IV.

THE UNSAVOURY CHRISTIAN ADMONISHED.

MARK ix. 50.

Salt is good; but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another.

OUR Lord, as we have seen in the discourse on the words preceding the text, has been shewing the absolute impossibility of entering into the kingdom of heaven without mortifying the most darling sins and vices, though they be like an eye, a hand, or a foot. And it should be repeated in this age, for the conviction of presumptuous sinners, as Christ repeats it, the loss is not temporal, but eternal; the worm shall not die, nor the fire be quenched. Whoever will not be salted with grace, to make him well-pleasing and agreeable to God in his dispositions and tempers, must be salted with hell-fire,-preserved in his being for punishment without end. We have seen these awful things; and I have pressed them on the conscience of careless and wicked men as I could. I pray God that they may be awakened to repentance, and to flee in good earnest from

the wrath to come. and a farther allusion is made to the properties of salt, which will give me occasion to address the consciences of persons of another class; of those who do profess to love Divine things, and to regard the doctrines of Christ.

One verse more is added,

you

Salt is good."-It is an excellent thing indeed, if have the salt of Divine grace in your souls, diffused through all your temper, spirit, walk, and conversation. It will put life into all you do, and render even the most common and trifling actions well-pleasing, acceptable sacrifices to God. But if the salt have lost its saltness-if the savour of grace be gone, and nothing appear to remain but the form of religion-you are most unprofitable persons: your savour seems impossible to be recovered: nothing you do can make up the want of inward life Divine in your souls. Therefore “have salt"—that is, keep salt-in your souls; cherish and hold fast Divine grace in your hearts; and keep up peace and love one with another, in which the exercise of Divine grace very essentially consists.

This is the meaning of the text. There are two properties of salt here considered, which throw light on the subject.

The first is, the insipid and worthless condition of salt which has lost its savour. Our Lord's ideas were fetched from common life; and spiritual things were taught under the allusions to things well known by the men of

his generation. I do not know that we have an opportunity of seeing this property of salt; but Mr. Maundrel the traveller informs us, that he saw a rock of salt, and tasted of it as it had been exposed to the weather and had lost its savour: he found it perfectly insipid. I suppose the savour had been lost by the washing of the rains; and yet its form, colour, and figure were not in the least altered. A striking view this gives us of an hypocrite, who looks like a Christian, and has all the form of doctrine and profession of Christ, yet has nothing at all of that savour which is peculiarly Christian. What shall I call it? It is faith, hope, love, joy in Christ, gratitude for redemption, humility and brokenness of heart, tenderness of spirit, and sympathy with the members of Christ. It is, in short, a spiritual understanding and life, with all the proper exercises of them. Good things, indeed! but what if a man parts with all these, and contents himself with making one of Christ's people by profession? What shall season this man? Look at insipid salt; it is good for nothing. The lowest use that can be made of any thing is, that it may be fit for manure; but, says our Lord, in the close of the 14th of St. Luke, where the same subject is handled, "it is neither fit for the land nor yet for the dunghill; but men cast it out." And in the 5th of St. Matthew, in the Sermon on the Mount, he says, Christians are the salt of the earth; and he repeats

the same thing of the worthlessness of salt whic had lost its savour: "it is good for nothing but to be cast out and to be trodden under foot of men." I apprehend, in Judea men by their eyes might frequently observe what Mr. Maundrel tells us he once saw. And from this image the perfectly unprofitable condition of a vain professor is strikingly evident. How much does he look like a real saint, and yet how unlike altogether!

The second property of salt alluded to in the text, is its uniting nature, the adhesion of its particles: "Have peace one with another." Where the salt of grace is in possession of its genuine savour, men cleave to one another in love and peace. The want of this drives them asunder in bitterness and variance.

But the text is sufficiently plain. It consists of four parts. I shall say something of each in order, applying, as I see reason, all the way to ourselves.-O thou Saviour, whose grace alone, living and thriving in our hearts, can make us live to God by thee, can keep us comfortable in thy religion, and cause us to relish it, and to live in holy harmony with one another; oh! amidst all our infirmities and evils, be Thou with us, and prevent us from separating both from thee and one another. May we feel the savour of grace, diffuse it among one another in love, keep it with jealous care, and live for ever!