hastily conclude, that every affliction which befalls us is an indisputable evidence of our interest in Christ. Be not deceived. You may bear a burden, and may call it the burden of Christ; while in fact it has no pretensions to that name. Not every conflict with sin, not every act of opposition from the world, not every chastening from the Lord, will evince you to be the true servants of Christ. There may be much struggling about sin in the mind, where there is no real principle of holiness in the heart. Few persons are so hardened in wickedness, as not occasionally to be troubled with convictions of guilt. The voice of reason will be heard, and though it be ultimately silenced, will for a time create disturbance in the soul. And this struggle between corrupt inclinations on the one side, and the dictates of natural conscience on the other, is frequently mistaken for the conflict between the flesh and the spirit. But the hypocrisy of such characters may be easily detected. Their resistance against sin is at the best only partial and temporary. At the bottom they favour the iniquity which they profess to oppose. While they contend against one sin, they are allowedly practising another. While they strive to suppress sin in their outward conduct, they secretly indulge it in the heart. Does such a conflict form any part of the burden of Christ? My brethren, is your conflict with sin of a different nature? Is it universal? Is it unremitted? Do you strive against all sin? Do you seek to subdue sin in your thoughts as well as in your lives? Do you pray against it? Do you watch against it? Do you avoid every temptation to it? These are the marks by which you must determine your state.

Exa

Do you encounter opposition from the world? mine the grounds from which this opposition arises. Is it not provoked by your own indiscretion or obstinacy, by your ungovernable passions, by your unchristian tempers? Call it not then the burden of Christ. 66 Blessed, (says our Lord,) Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake." But before you assume this blessedness as your own, consider whether you are justly entitled to it. Men may speak evil against you. But is it falsely! Have you not merited the censures which they cast on

66 as a

you? You may be reviled and persecuted. But is it for Christ's sake? The apostle reminds us, that to suffer as a Christian is a far different thing from suffering murderer, or as a thief, or as an evil doer, or as a busy body in other men's matters."*

Are you chastened of the Lord? Presume not on this single evidence. Numbers are chastened of the Lord whom he owns not for his children. It is not merely receiving correction, that will prove your adoption into the family of God. With what dispositions do you receive it? Do you submit to it with patience? Do you endure it with resignation to the will of your Heavenly Father? Do you with gratitude and thankfulness kiss the rod as a mark of his paternal mercy? Can you say from the heart with pious Eli, It is the Lord; let him do what seemeth him good: or with a greater than Eli, O my Father, if this cup may not pass from me, except I drink it, thy will be done? Are you more desirous to have your afflictions sanctified, than to have them removed? Is it the language of your soul, "Lord, chasten me for my profit, that I may be partaker of thy holiness." Let these inquiries be seriously applied to the heart; and may the Lord give you grace to discover whether the burden which you bear be his burden or not.

Lastly, the subject under contemplation very forcibly inculcates the exercise of mutual tenderness, forbearance and support. My christian brethren, are you all constrained to bear part of the same burden? Let fellowship in sufferings excite in you sympathy of affection. Partakers of the same afflictions, "be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another." Taught by experience to lament the deceitfulness and desperate wickedness of the human heart, be not severe in judging and condemning others. Magnify not every inadvertence of which they may be guilty, into a wilful transgression. Brand not every false step which they may happen to take, as a mark of hypocrisy. Extend to them that charitable indulgence, which you claim for yourselves. "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." Encountering yourselves oppo

1 Peter iv. 15.

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Let

sition from the world, and knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren," add not to the weight which they endure, by unfriendly behaviour or intemperate language. Imitate not the conduct, which you affect to deplore. Chastened yourselves of the Lord, learn to pity them that are chastened. Pray for them. Strengthen them. Comfort them. Break not the bruised reed. Quench not the smoking flax. identity of interests, of trials, of feelings, swallow up all trifling differences. Travelling the same road, exposed to the same difficulties, see that ye fall not out by the way. By jealousies, by animosities, by divisions, increase not your own load, aggravate not each other's burden. "Love as brethren; be pitiful, be courteous, endeavouring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. And may the Lord of peace himself give you peace always by all means!”

SERMON IX.

THE DANGER OF A WORLDLY SPIRIT, ILLUSTRATED IN THE HISTORY OF LOT.

And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot dwelt.

Genesis xix. 29.

ONE great excellence of the sacred writings is the pleasing and interesting manner in which they convey instruction. Calling to their aid not precept only, but example, they set before us living pictures of the truth; and by the events and the characters which they record illustrate and enforce the doctrines which they inculcate. Hence the historical part of the Old Testament is to be viewed not merely as a narrative of facts, which we are required to credit; but as a collection of practical information, which we are to study for our improvement. these things (says St. Paul, speaking of the judgments which befell the Israelites in the wilderness.) All these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are

All

written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come.

was sin.

*

:

The chapter, from which the text is taken, abounds with much important instruction of this kind. It sets before us one of the most awful and signal instances of the destructive vengeance of God, which occur in the history of man. The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all the neighbouring country, with their inhabitants, cattle, and various productions, were suddenly and irrecoverably destroyed. "For the Lord rained fire and brimstone upon them out of heaven, and overthrew them and the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace." Do we inquire the cause of this dreadful judgment? It "The men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly." God by his prophet Ezekiel, has given us this further account of their sin. "Behold this was the iniquity of Sodom: pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her, and in her daughters; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy; and they were haughty and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good."+ They flourished in temporal prosperity they lived in affluence and ease; their land was to a very extraordinary degree fertile, "well watered every where, even as the garden of the Lord." The consequence was, that they became proud, profane, and sensual. They were full and forgat God; abandoned themselves to fleshly lusts; and plunged without restraint into the most abominable excesses. Such is at all times the natural effect of that worldly prosperity, which we are so prone to covet. Prosperity hardens the heart, deadens

the conscience, and lulls the mind into carnal ease and indolence. And where there is abundance of idleness, there will soon be abundance of sin. How cheerfully then should we bear and even welcome adversity! How constantly should we remember that worldly disappointments may prove the greatest mercies! Even the curse of barrenness, pronounced upon the earth in consequence of Adam's fall, is in reality a blessing. Man, instead of repining at the laborious task assigned to him, has reason to be thankful for it. In the sweat of his face he eats * 1 Cor. x. 11. + Ezek. xvi. 49, 50.

bread but he is thus preserved from the commission of innumerable sins, into which plenty and idleness would not fail to hurry him.

From this signal destruction of the inhabitants of Sodom, we read of one person whose escape was no less remarkable. For God sent his angel to deliver him; to warn him to flee from the devoted city, and to bring him into a place of safety. This person was Lot, the friend and nephew of Abraham. When the Patriarch, at the command of God, left his native land, Lot had accompanied him, and afterwards sojourned with him a considerable time. He was a partaker also of Abraham's faith; as St. Peter styles him a righteous man, one who feared and worshipped God: one whom God therefore did not suffer to perish with his wicked neighbours; but shewed by his preservation, that the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation, as well as to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished.

But what had so good a man to do in so impious a city? Was filthy Sodom the place in which we should have expected to find the righteous Lot? Surely it must have been necessity, not choice, which fixed his residence there. Alas! the truth is neither to be disguised nor palliated. Neither in this nor in any other instance, do the scriptures attempt to conceal the occasional sins, and the false steps of the godly. With undeviating impartiality they recount the unbelief of Abraham, the drunkenness of Noah, the adultery of David. Nor is it without especial reason, that they are thus open and explicit. By these faithful exhibitions of human nature, when left to itself, they teach us what we are in ourselves: they shew that the most eminent saints stand not by their own strength, but solely by the gracious assistance of the Almighty they admonish us that if we hope to stand at all, it must be by the same assistance; that if we for a moment are left to our own hearts, we also shall undoubtedly fall. On the same ground they set before us the criminality of Lot, in selecting Sodom for his residence, and the worldly motives by which he was actuated in this improper choice.

The flocks and herds of Abraham and Lot were by the divine blessing so greatly multiplied, that "the land was