us.

tions to the afflicted. But it is not so. The yoke, the assumption of which is enjoined on us, cannot be taken upon us until that is put off that wearies and oppresses What chiefly renders men weary and heavy laden, is the yoke of sin. This is broken and shaken off by the very act of putting on the yoke of Christ. To obey him, is to deny ungodliness and every worldly lust. If it involve any hardship, it is light compared with the slavery of sin. It seems to have been the object of the Saviour, to intimate our natural aversion to his service and to remove that aversion. He assures us that he enjoins nothing to which he did not himself submit. For he learned obedience by the things which he suffered. He reminds us, that although he submitted to reproach, and suffering, and death for our sake-that although he invites us, not because he has need of us, but because we have need of him; yet that we deem his service rigorous and severe, think of him as needlessly cruel and suppose the requisite engagement to him, must bring us under continual restraint, and operate to banish all real pleasure from our path. So attached are we to our own self-imposed burdens, and so fond are we of the chains which we forge and rivet for ourselves, that we strangely deem his rules too strict and his laws too severe, and fancy it more conducive to our happiness to go on in our own ways than to accede to his. What but the blindest prejudice could thus pervert our judgment, and misguide our choice? Surely thoughts of him so unjust and dishonorable, are affecting proofs of our blindness, baseness and depravity. And yet his language to us seems intended to banish our guilty distrust, and to constrain us to satisfy ourselves by an experiment, that what our foolish hearts have regarded his YOKE, is true liberty, and that in his service there is nothing burdensome. No one ever did make the experiment, without gaining the most heartfelt satisfaction in his service. They have loved him as soon as they have known him ; and as soon as they have truly loved him, they have

sought to please him, not by a course of service of their own devising; but by accepting his revealed will as their unerring standard, and by endeavoring to conform to it in their heart and life, in their temper and conduct.

II. The Saviour in the text enjoins on us the duty of readily submitting to his instruction. LEARN OF ME—or, Be insructed by me. He cannot be truly obeyed as our Master without being received as our Teacher. We cannot render him an acceptable service, unless we are taught by him. Nor can we ever be truly wise, until we apply to him for instruction. When he bids us learn of him, he designs to caution us against depending on any other for saving knowledge -against calling any one master upon earth. Although he is pleased to instruct men by his ministers as instruments, yet unless his special teaching is superadded, all that is learned will be unavailing to the lasting benefit of the soul. But when he condescends to teach men, they learn what no human instruction can teach. Let us notice several things, which serve to show the preeminent advantages of being instructed by him.

1. He can give the capacity requisite to the reception of the lessons of heavenly wisdom. The want of this power in the case of those who undertake to instruct pupils in human sciences, often defeats their endeavors. Unless there is a capacity or native taste for a particular science or art, no skill in the teacher can render the scholar eminent in that branch of learning. He who has no original taste for music, will make little or no progress in the acquisition of that science under the most accomplished instructer. A teacher may improve and instruct, where there are capacities and dispositions to learn, but he can communicate neither, where they are wanting. It is not so with him of whom we are required to learn. He can enlighten the darkest, and quicken the dullest mind. He can give eyes to the blind and ears to the deaf. No man has, naturally, any taste for his lessons or any disposition to learn

of him. Truths of everlasting importance, when presented by their fellow men, meet with no ready reception, and are disregarded as an idle tale. There is a dulness, an obtuseness, a blindness, a listlessness, which renders the most stirring appeal to the reason, the conscience, and the heart, utterly powerless and in vain. But our divine teacher can remove at once every such impediment, and open to the heart an avenue to the truth. He can give a relish for the most interesting truths, and inspire the sluggish soul with the liveliest sensibility to the lessons of his word. He can make the foolish learn so much, as to confound the worldly wise; and the weakest mind so strongly grounded in the spiritual knowledge of his word, as to confound those who glory in their own unaided powers. He can

give the new heart, the enlightened understanding, the submissive and obedient will. There is no mind sunk too low to be raised by him to the dignity of a believing and purified mind. Well then may it be asked, who teacheth like him?

2. The lessons which he teaches, are of all others the most important. There are many subjects to which a high importance is attached among men, but which are comparatively trifling and insignificant. A man may live and die comfortably and safely in ignorance of them all. And a man may make himself familiar with every branch of human knowledge, and yet live in misery and die without hope. The truth of this remark is abundantly confirmed by experience and observation. He that increaseth knowledge of this kind, increaseth sorrow. The farther unsanctified men extend their inquiries in any of the departments of human science, the farther they wander from the centre of true happiness. Vanity and vexation of spirit constitute the sum of their acquisitions. The reason is obvious to any one who will carefully look at the subject. The mind of man is created for something higher, purer, and more sublime, than such pursuits and attainments. It is gifted with

capacities, which can never be blessed or satisfied with any thing less than God and the great things of his word. What has human learning done, or what can it do, towards bearing up the soul in trouble, controlling its wayward passions, weakening its worldly attachments, or banishing its dread of death? Nothing at all. Men may give all their powers to such pursuits, and leave a splendid name to future generations; and yet feel at the last solemn review of their course, that they have lived in vain to themselves and to the world. There was one who felt thus, and who towards the close of a life spent in literary pursuits, uttered this admonitory exclamation" Alas! I have wasted my whole life in painful labors to no valuable purpose." In the school of Christ it is not so. His lessons have a present and everlasting value to the soul. He makes those who learn of him wise to some valuable purpose for time and eternity. He teaches the way of God in truth. He distinctly marks out the way to heaven. He reveals to his weakest disciples that knowledge, which the wisest men after the flesh cannot comprehend. He enables those who have learned scarcely nothing except his own lessons, to feel calmly assured at the close of life, that they have fought a good fight, finished their course, kept the faith, and secured the inheritance of unfading crowns of righteousness, at the right hand of their Lord and Master.

3. Another preeminent advantage which they enjoy who are instructed by Christ, is that their hearts are influenced by what they learn. Human teachers, if they enlighten and convince the understanding, cannot sway and rectify the heart. The great masters of this world's philosophy abound in high wrought encomiums on the beauty of virtue, on the fitness of things, and on the desirableness of benevolence, temperance, equity, and truth. And they who learn of them, learn to use the same splendid declamation on like themes. But all their magnificent schemes and delightful theories,

are powerless in their practical bearing. Their lessons are found to leave themselves and their pupils as much the slaves of pride, passion, sensuality, envy, malice and other vile affections, as any of the untaught vulgar whom they despise. It is a mortifying consideration, that some of the most admired teachers of this world's morality, require to be classed with the most abandoned and despicable of mankind. They have, with disgusting impudence, contradicted in their tenor of life, all their beautiful theories of right and fitness. But the teaching of Christ extends to the heart. His lessons are no less beautiful in practice than in theory. He teaches not only what is absolutely and immutably right, but to abhor and forsake whatever things are not honest, true, just, pure, lovely, and of good report. He does not teach his disciples to speak great swelling words of vanity, but humbly and silently to achieve enterprises of everduring benefit to man. He teaches them to be holy and useful, and happy in life, peaceful and joyful in death, and to enter upon a retribution full of glory and blessedness.

4. It is the peculiar advantage of the disciples of Christ, that their lessons are always before them, their teacher always with them, and they may be always learning. The disciples of no other teacher enjoy such facilities. He spreads out before them the instructive page of his visible works, thickly written with important truths that at once illustrate, and are illustrated by the volume of his grace. His providence disposes of things and events subsidiary to the purposes of his grace. The world is their school; and the daily events of their life are lessons of rich instruction. Wherever they turn their eyes, they meet with objects which are adapted either directly to lead their thoughts to the Saviour, or to explain and confirm some parts of his word. The incidents of human life, the characters with which they meet, the conversations they hear, the vicissitudes which are taking place in families, in towns, in nations, these