for any one day of our lives, when we have had occasion to talk much of ourselves. How much better, generally speaking, has our talk been than our heart and conduct! Or rather, perhaps, I should say, our conversation has been such as could only be suitable to far better people than we are.

For instance, we commonly spend a great deal of time in discoursing of other men's conduct, good or bad, wise or unwise, and we pass sentence upon them very freely; thus of course setting ourselves up to be holier than they acquainted with the mind of our Judge.

are,

and more

Again, what a number of "unreal words do we speak, not so much affirming direct falsehoods, as giving our words some turn or other which we think that good people, hearing us, will be pleased with; although even, whilst we speak, it may strike us that the words are too good for such as we are; and so we are in reality contriving to be better thought of than we deserve! How do we, with a sort of crafty instinct, put forward good and creditable reasons for what we do or say, and hide the less honourable ones, like Caiaphas, when for envy he wanted to destroy our SAVIOUR! The reason he gave was, All men will believe on HIM, and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation." And the wicked Pharisees wished to have it thought that their prejudice against our LORD arose from religious care to have the Sabbath day kept holy, or from regard to the honour of the Temple, or from good faith to Cæsar, or the like. We must not at once think we have nothing at all to do with their sin, because we are not engaged, as they are, in contriving such deadly wickedness as the murder of an innocent person. We are not, it may be hoped, so bad, yet perhaps we are like them.

To put some very plain and common examples: how is it, when persons give themselves up, more than they know they ought, to this world, and would have you think it is all from tender care and love to their wives and children?

How, when they indulge dislike to any one who has done them wrong, and pretend that it is not revenge, but a holy jealousy for what is right and good, and desire to keep themselves away from corruption?

How, when they give themselves up to excess in eating,

drinking, or diversions, and say that it is all out of brotherly feeling and good neighbourhood?

But perhaps this kind of hollowness and instinctive hypocrisy is seen still more in what people do seemingly right, than in what they do openly wrong. Sad and melancholy it must be in the sight of more perfect spirits, if they are capable of melancholy and sadness, when they see how much of men's goodness is spoiled, and loses all its bloom, by being practised for some poor earthly praise or reward, while men pretend that they practise it for God's sake.

We may judge of this in a moment by thinking how it is with children. Suppose two of them equally good at first sight, equally dutiful at home, equally diligent in learning, equally quiet in church, equally good-tempered with their companions: yet how differently should we judge of them, were we to find any how, that one of the two had an eye throughout to some present praise or reward, while the other was trying purely to do his duty!

Here again comes in, as before, the case of the Pharisees. He who sees all said of them, "All their works they do for to be seen of men:" "When they do their alms, they sound a trumpet before them, that they may have glory of men :" " They pray standing in the synagogues, and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men:” “ They disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast." What a list of good works is here, all spoiled and turned into sins by this insincere way of doing them!

Again, things neither good nor bad are, by this subtle temptation, turned into snares, and make heavier the burthen on men's consciences. By looks and little circumstances, too trifling to be here mentioned, men contrive to seem as if they were better than they are. They do not at first wish the praise, but it comes as it were of itself; that temptation proves too strong for them; they do not put off the praise; soon they come to encourage it, and it corrupts their heart.

Nay, even in confessions, when men are expressly owning their sins, that they may judge themselves for them, and not be judged of the LORD; even then too commonly they leave out or add something, which makes their fault seem less than it really was.

Such was the confession of the wicked Prophet, Balaam. "I have sinned, for I knew not that thou stoodest in the way against me therefore now, if it displease thee, I will get me back again." What he really knew was, that God was against his going; but you see he speaks only of the angel.

Now in all these, and many other ways, they who permit themselves to deceive others will find in the end that they have deceived themselves; their consciences have gradually become hard, cold, and blind. If ever they set about self-examination, and telling over their faults one by one to GOD, even in that they will be artful, and partial to themselves without knowing it. We know how apt we all are to give ourselves far more credit than we deserve. If any good comes of any thing we do, though perhaps we had hardly thought of it, we begin to boast inwardly. When people praise us, we are really pleased, though we know in the bottom of our hearts how little we deserve their praise, how surely it would be turned into blame and abhorrence, could they read what is written in our consciences.

Thus it comes sometimes to pass that men go on, even to the very moment of their death, ignorantly praising themselves for what in the sight of GOD is abomination. They are as the foolish virgins in that awful parable, who fancied they might do well enough, and have the door of heaven opened to them, when they came with their lamps lighted from other persons' oil: so is it with hypocrites and dissemblers with God, such as depend upon shadows and appearances, instead of looking truth in the face, and making a good and manly confession. To such an one our LORD HIMSELF cries out, "Thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked."

I would the remedy for all this mischief were as easy to practise, and as sure to be tried by each one of us, as it is plain to be known and discovered! Falsehood is the disease: the remedy is simple Truth. To do the Truth, to walk in the Truth, to have the Truth in us, to know the Truth, to be of the Truth, to know HIм that is True, and to be in HIM that is True,―all these are so many ways, taught us by St. John, of setting forth that blessedness which CHRIST bought for us with His own

blood. What is their meaning, but just this;—that we must look away from one another and from ourselves, and must look towards GoD in judging of right and wrong: because God's judgment is true and real, but we and our brethren, apart from GOD, are but shadows, and our judgment vanity?

You are tempted, in some or other of your doings, to swerve from the dutiful course of the holy Baptist; instead of confessing you are tempted to deny CHRIST, so far as keeping back some of the glory of His gifts to your own self; and one thing which tempts you is the praise of your fellow-men, their admiring looks and voices. In such a moment think with yourself, As for these men, whose praise or blame I am inclined to think so much of; there standeth one among them, who is far mightier than any of them, yea, than all of them put together, though they were multiplied a thousand-fold: One, the latchet of whose shoe the noblest and highest of them all is quite unworthy to stoop down and unloose.

Fix your heart upon the Presence of CHRIST, and all else that seems to be present will be as nothing. You will say to yourself in good earnest, What signifies being praised by a worm, if I am blamed by HIM Who seeth in secret? And again, What harm can the tongue of man do me, if He who will come to be my Judge is preparing for me the gracious word, "Well done, good and faithful servant?"

So, too, in respect of that other shadow, which spoils so many men's confessions, the notion of the good which they have in themselves; this also vanishes when we look fairly at the Truth, at our real thoughts, words, and actions, compared with the Law of God and the lives of the Saints. Who can think himself good enough, when he reads or hears what CHRIST would have him be, out of the Sermon on the Mount ?-poor in spirit, meek, merciful, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, mourning for sins, pure in heart, patient in persecution, perfect as GOD is perfect? Who can think himself as good as he might be, when he is told of the thousand holy men and women who have pleased GOD in their several generations, the least of whose virtues he feels is far above the best that he has done? and yet he has the same Prayers and Sacraments as they, the same Bible, and the same SAVIOUR.

Think not that, in such words as these, you are called to too high, too strict a trial. How should the trial be other than high and strict, when the blessing is so great as that which we are this week to remember in our Christmas thanksgiving? God the SoN made man, that men might become Sons of GOD! Consider what those words mean, and remember withal the Apostle's warning, "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith: prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that JESUS CHRIST is in you, except ye be reprobates?"

VOL. VIII.

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