purchase in the stocks; or how they may turn to their benefit a speculation in trade. These are the points on which men discourse with the most anxiety; and on which they most of all set their hearts. For the love of wealth they are willing to toil and labour; "to rise early, and late take rest, and to eat the bread of carefulness."* They are worn with anxiety respecting these their worldly affairs. They seem to long but for one thing in life; and that is, to get a good fortune for themselves; and, then, they hope to leave a good sum to each of their children, when they die. But "lay not up for yourselves," says CHRIST, "treasures upon earth where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven." Oh, if men were but as eager with respect to the next world, as they are in respect to this, what a rich inheritance might they obtain! But they labour merely for the perishing riches:-they lay up that "wealth which moth and rust can corrupt, and which thieves can break through and steal." They please themselves, indeed, with the good security for their money, which they obtain; they embark their property, as they think, in none but safe and prudent speculations; they invest it in solid land, or in the safest sort of stocks; and little reflect, to how many accidents all earthly possessions are exposed. These are the times which have remarkably shown to us the great uncertainty of riches: for how many have been lately wandering over the earth, every where begging their bread, or earning it by the hardest labour, who once lived in affluence in their own land, and thought that they had safe, as well as large, possessions; but their riches have made to themselves wings and flown away; the moth and rust have corrupted them, and the thieves have broken through, and stolen them. *Ps. cxxvii. 2. St. Matt. vi. 19, 20. Written during the French Revolution; after the emigration of thousands, nobles and priests, from their own country to England. H* How many, indeed, of every country fall into sudden and unexpected poverty :--some one breaks, who was in their debt; some article, in which their chief property had consisted, sinks remarkably in value; some trading speculation proves unfortunate; some crop from their land fails, through the badness of the season; or some one either robs, or cheats them; and, thus, their hoard is taken from them. If the heart be fixed on money, how is a man pained and grieved in all cases of this sort. But if, on the contrary, we have only laboured to get a competency for ourselves, and our families, according to the will of God; not so much caring about the wealth itself, as about the fulfilment of our own duty by the performance of what belongs to our stations; and if, in the midst of our labour we have calmly left it to Providence to send poverty, or riches, as He pleases ;-if, amidst all our worldly business, our hearts have habitually been in Heaven; if we have often thought of Heaven, talked of Heaven, and prayed to have our chief inheritance in Heaven; if it have been the end of all our actions in this life to provide ourselves "bags which wax not old, a treasure in the Heavens that faileth not ;"* if to grow in grace, to be rich in faith, and to abound in every good work, have been accounted by us the great ends of living; and if we have thus learnt to feel a holy disdain of all merely temporal riches; then, and then only, may we consider ourselves as having fulfilled the precept given us in this passage :-then may we be said to have laid up our happiness in a place where it shall not be liable to earthly accidents; "where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal :" and where our treasure is, there will our heart be also. The heart of every man accompanies his treasure; for that is a man's treasure which his heart runs after the most. Would we therefore know where our chief treasure lies?we have only to inquire where our chief affections are *St. Luke xii. 33. St. Mark vi. 20. placed. Are they set on Heaven, or on earth ?-on things above, or on something here below? This consideration is indeed a very awful one: for it implies, that they, whose affections and desires do not point towards Heaven, have certainly no treasure there. They, who take no thought about Heaven, have no inheritance in that better world. Their whole treasure is on earth, where their heart so plainly is. May we try ourselves continually by this test: for CHRIST hath given it to us for this purpose. May we consider seriously how much this saying of CHRIST imports: it is, as if we had heard Him saying,-Tell me where your heart is, and there you shall find your treasure-tell me where your treasure is, and there assuredly will be your heart. XXXIII. ST. MATTHEW, V. 22, 23. The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light: But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness; if therefore the light, that is in thee, be darkness, how great is that darkness! OUR SAVIOUR here instructs us, by means of one of our bodily senses, in a very great and fundamental religious truth. He says-"The light of the body is the eye; and, if thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light" that is, the body is directed by the light which is in the eye and, if the eye be perfectly sound, and see right, then the whole body will have the benefit of its light. But "if the eye be evil," if the member which directs the body be disordered; then, "the whole body shall be full of darkness; and if the light, that is in thee, be darkness, how great is that darkness." Let us now apply this, as our SAVIOUR undoubtedly meant it should be applied, to the case of man in respect to his spiritual condition. There is a certain spiritual faculty, which is, to the whole moral man, much what the faculty of the eye is to the whole body. We mean, that there is a certain power of perceiving and distinguishing what is morally right and morally wrong, and what is morally true and morally false, without which our moral conduct cannot be made right. If a man be used to "call evil, good; and good, evil;" " to put darkness for light, and light for darkness ;"* if he be blind to all moral excellency; if he have no taste for spiritual things; if truth and uprightness, if purity and holiness, if religion and godliness have no beauty in his eyes, it is in vain to talk of his moral conduct being made right. It is true, there may be an external morality; there may be certain acts done, which, in themselves, are moral and right; and which may pass for virtues, in the eyes of men: but they are no virtues in the sight of GOD, who considers the moral quality of the act, as determined by the moral state of the mind and heart. In order, therefore, to do any one action aright, the heart, in the first place, must be turned to the love of true holiness. The eyes of the understanding must be enlightened; the reason, which is in man, must be sanctified; the natural blindness, and prejudice against religious truth must be removed; the faculty of discerning spiritual things must be acquired; otherwise, the man, in spite of all his boasted reason, will only grope in darkness in respect to spiritual things. He may do by chance, it is true, some things which in themselves are right; since even a blind man may chance to walk for a while in the right path: but, in general, he will take the wrong course; though ignorant that he does so; and it is not his own eyesight, which will lead him in any one instance aright: his whole body is full of darkness. * Isaiah, v. 20. A few remarks shall now be made on the subject, which will serve further to illustrate it. And, first, we may learn from hence the reason why so many neglect or reject the Gospel of CHRIST; and among them not a few who possess much human wisdom and learning. They want that spiritual light in the mind, of which our SAVIOUR here speaks. They choose to themselves some principle of morals, or some system of what they may call religion, less holy than the principle and system of the Gospel, and which better suits the unholiness of their hearts. 66 'Light is come into the world," said our SAVIOUR," and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil."* All indisposition to receive either the Gospel in general, or its peculiar doctrines, is resolved in Scripture into blindness, and hardness of heart, and want of spiritual discernment. For, "the natural man," says St. Paul, "receiveth not the things of the SPIRIT of GOD for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." And, again, "But if our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of CHRIST, who is the image of GOD, should shine unto them." So, also, it is said by St. John, of him who wants the particular grace of charity, or love, that "he walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth." Again, secondly, let us cease to wonder that there is so much self-confidence, self-righteousness, and self-complacency, as there is in men; and as there is in those men in particular, who are more than commonly depraved. The light that is in them is darkness:—the faculty of discerning spiritual and moral truth is corrupted and diseased. Hence multitudes are continually doing evil, who think that they are * St. John, iii. 19. † 1 Cor. ii. 14. 2 Cor. iv. 4. |