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ment, some important truth meets us at eve-tures of general parallel, a few leading points ry turn, is held out in some brief sentence; of obvious coincidence, without attending to some hint is dropped that may awaken, re- petty exactnesses or stooping to trivial nice. cal, quicken, or revive perpetual attention. ties of correspondence. We are not, thereThe same spirit pervades every part; we fore, to hunt after minute resemblances, nor are reminded without being fatigued; and, to cavil at slight discrepancies. We should whatever is the point to be pressed, some in- rather imitate his example, by confining our forming, alarming, or consoling doctrine is illustration to the more important circumextracted from it, or grows out of it. stances of likeness instead of raising such as are insignificant into undue distinction.This critical elaboration, this amplifying mode, which ramifies a general idea into all the minutiae of parallel, would only serve to divert the attention, and split it into so many divisions, that the main object would be lost sight of.

The Scriptures, however, are so far from setting aside the use of reason, that all their precepts are addressed to it. If they are delivered in a popular manner, and often in independent maxims, or reason, by combining them, methodizes the detached passages into a perfect system; so that by a combination, which it is in the power of every intel- The author once heard a sermon which ligent reader to make, a complete rule of had for its text⚫ Ye are the salt of the earth.' practice is collected. The scattered pre- The preacher, a really good man, but wantcepts are embodied in examples illustrated ing this discretion, not contented with a simby figures, and exemplified by parables-ple application of the figure, instead of a These always suppose the mind of the hearer general allusion to the powerfully penetrato be possessed of a certain degree of com- ting and correcting nature of this mineral, mon knowledge, without which the proposed instead of observing that salt was used in all instruction would be unintelligible. For, if the ancient sacrifices, indulged himself in a the Gospel does not address its disciples as if wide range, chemical and culinary, of all they were philosophers or mathematicians, it the properties of salt, devoting a separate always supposes them to possess plain sense head to each quality. A long discussion on and ordinary information; to have acquaint- its antiseptic properties, its solution and neuance with human, if not with elevated life. tralization, led to rather a luxurious exhibiThe allusions and imagery with which it tion of the relishes it communicates to variabounds would have been superfluous. if the ous viands. On the whole, the discourse hearers had not been previously acquainted seemed better adapted for an audience comwith the objects and circumstances to which posed of the authors of the Pharmacopoeia, the image is referred, from which the parallel or a society of cooks, than for a plain unis drawn, to which the allusion is made. technical congregation.

Our heavenly Father, in his offers of illumination, does not expect we should open our mental eyes to this superinduced light, without opening our understandings to natural and rational information, but expects that we should apply the faculties bestowed, to the objects proposed to them. We put ourselves, therefore, in the fairest way of obtaining his assistance, when we most diligently use all the means and materials he has given us; comparing together his works and his word; not setting up our understanding against his revelation, but, with deep humility, applying the one to enable us to comprehend the other; not extinguishing our faculties, but our pride; not laying our understanding asleep, but casting it at the foot of the cross. We have dwelt on this point the more, from having observed, that some religious persons are apt to speak with contempt of great natural endowments as if they were not the gift of God, but of some inferior power: the prudently pious, on the other hand, while they use them to the end for which they were conferred, keep them in due subordination, and restrict them to their proper office Abilities are the gift of God, and next to his grace, though with an immense interval, his best gift; but are never so truly estimable as when they are dedicated to promote his glory.

Our heavenly Instructor, still more to accommodate his parables to the capacities of his audience, adopted the broad line of instruction conveyed under a few strong fea

But to return. Who can reflect without admiration on the engaging variety with which the great Teacher labours to impress every important truth? Whenever different aspects of the same doctrine were likely still more forcibly to seize the attention, still more deeply to touch the heart, still more powerfully to awaken the conscience, he does not content himself with a single allegory. In his awful exhibition of the inestimable value of an immortal soul, he does not coolly describe the repentance of a single sinner as viewed with complacency by the highest order of created intelligences, but as adding joy' to bliss already perfected in immortality. He does not limit his instruction to one metaphorical illustration of the delight of the heavenly hosts, but extends it to three, finishing the climax by that most endearing and touching of all moral and allegorical pictures, the restoration of the prodigal to his father's love.

But this triple use of the same species of allegory-each instance rising above the other, in beauty and in force, each adding fresh weight to one momentous point-he most emphatically employs in the last discourse previous to his final suffering; we mean in his sublime illustration of the solemnities of the last day, in three successive parables all tending to impress the same awful truth.

As he well knew every accessible point of the human heart, so there was none which he did not touch. But the grand circumstance which carried his instruction so directly

his possessions conscience ought to have turned over from vanity to charity, from sensuality to piety, he may find too late, was not his own, but his who gave it him for other purposes.

home to the hearts and consciences of men, was, that he not only taught, but did all things well.' His doctrines were so digested into his life, his instructions so melted into his practice, that it rendered goodness visible as well as perfect; and these analogies and God proportions his requisitions to his resemblances were not only admirably, but gifts. The one is regulated by the measure uniformly correspondent. He did not con- of the other. As duties and obligations are tent himself like those heathen philosophers, peculiar and personal we are not to trench to whose affable conduct in society that of on the sphere of others. It is of our own the blessed Redeemer has lately been so im- talent, we must render our own account. A piously compared, (though their motives dif- capacity, however, to know our duty, and to fered, as much as the desire of converting love and serve God, as they are indiscrimatesinners differs from delighting in them,) with ly bestowed, so the inquiry into the use exhibiting systems without morals, and a rule made of them will be universal, while the without a pattern, but the purity and perfec- reward or punishment will be individually tion of his divine character gave light to assigned. knowledge, and life to document.

tion.

CHAP. VI.

Deficiency and excess are the Scylla and Charybdis between which we seldom steer safely. If our talents are splendid, we are subject to err on the side of display; if mean, totally to suppress their exercise, apologizing for our indolence by our insignisufficient an excuse for sloth, as superior ficance; but mediocrity of talents is as inbe, to exercise the brightest faculties with genius is for vanity. The true way would humility, and the most inconsiderable with ants in the parable, it is apparent, were so fidelity. The faithful and highly gifted servfar from being lifted into pride, or seduced into negligence, by the greater importance of the trust committed to them, that they considered the largeness of their agency as an augmentation of their responsibility.-They did the will of their lord without conciate, instead of doing it, contented himself ditioning or debating. Their slothful assowith arguing about it. He who disputed much, had done nothing: he should have known that Christianity is not a matter of debate, but of obedience.

On the parable of the Talents. OUR Lord's parables had been sometimes indicative of existing circumstances; sometimes predictive of events which related to futurity. After having, in his preceding allegories, by practical lessons, encouraged the prepared and exhorted the unprepared, to look for the kingdom of God, he closed his parabolical instructions by an awful exhibition of their fitness or unfitness for that everlasting kingdom; in which he unfolds what their condition, will be, when all mystery, all instruction, all preparation, shall be at an end; when every act of every being shall be laid as bare before the eyes of the whole assembled world, as it was seen in its commission by HIS, from whom nothing is hid. The last of these three prophetic scenes is indeed not so much a parable as a picture; not so mach an allegory as a literal representation : the solemn reality rises above all figure, and either insignificant or merely theoretical. There is no one doctrine of Holy Scripture could never have been so forcibly conveyed That which the parable teaches, is highly as by this plain, yet most sublime, delinea- and specially practical. The instruction to The conclusion immediately to be drawn be deduced from it, is as extensive as the from the second of these parables, the para- tions of man to his benefactor. It is most gifts of God to his creatures, as the obligable of the Talents, is, that we have nothing especially practical, as it designates this that is properly our own, nothing that is un-world to be a scene of business, action, exderived from God. Every talent is a de-ertion, diligence It inculcates the high posit placed in our hands, not for our exclu- and complicated duty, of laying out ourselves sive benefit, but for the good of others. for the glory of our Maker, and the exercise Whatever we possess which may either be of an implicit obedience to his will. God improved to God's glory or perverted to his has not given us the command to work, withdishonour, comes within the description of a out furnishing us with instruments with talent. To use any of our possessions, which to labour, and suitable materials to therefore, as if we had an independent right work upon. Our talents, such as riches, to the disposal of them, is to usurp the pre-power, influence, wisdom, learning, time, are rogative of the Giver. Many, it is to be feared, will wait till that great disclosing day which will throw a blaze of light on all motives, as well as all actions, before they will be convinced of the fallacy of that popular maxim, that a man may do what he will with his own. He has indeed a full right to his proprietorship with respect to other men, but, with respect to God, he will find he had no exclusive property. Whatever portion of *See Matthew xxv.

VOL. II.

20

and ignorance of mankind, are the objects those instruments. The wants, helplessness, to which these instruments are to be applied. These talents are bestowed in various proportions, as to their value, as well as in different degrees, as to the quantity and num

ber. He who is favoured with more abun

dant endowments, should mix with his gratitude for the gift, an abiding sense of his own greater accountableness. He who is slenderly furnished, should never plead that

the inferiority of his trust is an excuse for they might have rendered the world about his negligence. The conviction that the them better and happier? To reflect by Great Master will not exact beyond the pro- whom they were bestowed, to what end deportion of his gift, though an encourage-signed, how they have been used, and what inent to those whom his providence has pla- a reckoning awaits them, forms a combinaced in a narrow sphere of usefulness, is no tion of reflections too awful to be dwelt upon. discharge from their diligence. Is it reason- From the anticipation of such complicated able, that he who has less to do, should there-wo we turn with terror. The bare idea of fore do nothing? When little is expected a punishment which shall always torment from us, not to do that little enhances the and never destroy, is insupportable. Yet crime; and it aggravates the ingratitude, how many believe this without being influwhen we convert our master's more mode-enced by the belief! How many, by an unrate demands into a pretence for absolute accountable delusion, refuse to conform their supineness. lives to the injunctions of the gospel, while they put their vices under the protection of its promises.

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He who is not called upon to relieve the necessities, or to enlighten the ignorance of others, has still a weighty work upon his The parable informs us, that it was after hands he has the care of his own soul. If a long time,' that the Lord required the ache is deficient in learning, and natural abili- count; so long, that the wicked think it ties--if he has little credit, and less fortune, will never come, and even the good are apt he probably has time; he certainly has the to persuade themselves that it will not come means of religious improvement; so that, soon. Let not those however who are sitin this land of light and knowledge, especial- ting at ease in their possessions, whether of ly now that universal instruction is happily nature or of fortune, to speak after the manbecome a national care, there is hardly such ner of men, fancy that the reckoning which a thing as innocent ignorance. Even of is delayed is forgotten. The more protractthe lowest, of the least, a strict account will ed the account, the larger will be the sum be required. To plead ignorance where total, and, of course, the more severe the they might have been taught, indolence be- requisition. All delay, indeed, is an act of cause they had little to do, and negligence, mercy; but mercy neglected, or abused, because not much was expected, is only will enhance punishment in proportion as it treasuring up innumerable reasons for ag- aggravates guilt. gravating their condemnation.

It is obvious that the servants in the paraIt is remarkable that of the several charac- ble had been in the habit of attending to ters exhibited in the parable, the least en- their mercies. They seem never to have dowed was the only one punished, his neg- been unmindful of the exact value of what lect being every way inexcusable. A last- had been committed to them, Lord, thou ing and awful lesson, that no inferiority can deliveredst unto me five talents.' If we do claim exemption from the general law of du- not frequently enumerate the mercies of ty. If the right employment of the gift is God to us, we shall be in danger of losing an encouragement to the poorly endowed, sight of the Giver, while we are revelling in as being easily exercised and amply reward- the gift; of neglecting the application, and ed; its abuse is an awakening call to every forgetting the responsibility. We should reone. For, is it not fairly deducible from collect that his very employment of us is a this instance, that if of those whose scale in high mark of favour; the use he condesociety is low, whose intellectual powers are scends to make of us augments our debt, mean, or whose fortunes are narrow; if even and whenever he puts it in our way to serve of such, a strict account will be required, him, he lays on us a fresh obligation, and if even in these, mere deficiency was so confers on us an honourable distinction. harshly reprobated, mere nullity was SO Though he that has most, and does most, severely punished-a sentence of most tre- has but a few things,' yet his remuneration mendous import must await those who em- shall be immense. It is his fidelity, and not ploy rank and opulence to selfish and cor his success; his zeal in improving occasions, rupt ends, or genius to pernicious purposes; and not the number or greatness of the octhe one debasing their own minds by sensu-casions, that will be rewarded. There will ality, or corrupting others by examples of be an always infinite disproportion between vice and prodigality; the other devoting the work he has done, and the blessing atabilities so great, with profligacy so notori-tending it.

ous, as to appear little less than archangel The expostulation of the unprofitable serruined,' and drawing inferior spirits into the vant presents an awful lessson against disdestruction in which they have plunged trust in God, and fallacious views of his infithemselves. nitely perfect character. The very motive

But again :-If these several talents, in- this false reasoner produces in his own vindividually conferred, when employed to dication, is the strongest argument against wrong purposes, or not employed at all, will him. If he knew that his lord was such a be rigorously punished: what sentence have rigorous exacter, that was the very reason, they to expect, in whom is centered the why he should not have given in such a negsplendid confluence of God's gifts? What ative account. 'I knew thou wast a hard will be the eternal anathema pronounced on master.' Could a weightier argument have those who possessed aggregately talents, been advanced for a directly different conwith every one of which, singly enjoyed, duet? Common prudence might have taught

him that, with such a master, his only security was assiduous industry. The want of love of God was at the root of this, as it is of all sin.

How many listen to the sentence of this unworthy servant! How many allow the equity of this exclusion, and yet how few, comparatively, ask, with the agitated Apostles: Lord, is it I? This simple question, honestly put, and practically followed up, would render all comment vain, all exhortation superfluous. This self-application is the great end of the parable, the great end of Scripture, the great end of preaching, and the only end of hearing.

make us suitable subjects of God's moral government. His wisdom, power, omniscience, rectitude and justice, render him supremely fit to be our final judge, and the dispenser of our eternal awards. But God, in his infinite goodness, has not, in this most important point, left us to the bare light of unassisted nature; he has not left us to be tossed about without rudder, or compass, on the boundless ocean of barrassing conjecture. He has not abandoned us to the alternation of vain fears and unfounded hopes; to the sickly suggestions of a troubled fancy, the cruel uncertainties of doubt, and the cheerless darkness of ignorance. The exBut do not too many of us, like him we pectation of a day of retribution is not the are so ready to condemn, conceal our self-gloomy reverie of the supertitious, nor the love under the assumption of modesty, and wild vision of the enthusiastic. He who canindulge our sloth under the humble pretence not lie has solemnly assured us, that he has that we have no talent to exercise? But let appointed a day in which he will judge the us be assured it is the deadness of our spir- world by that Man whom he has sent, Christ itual affections, and not our mean opinion of Jesus. ourselves, that is the real cause. The serThe coming of this great day, which navice of God is irksome, because his com- ture suspected, and reason allowed, Scripmands interfere with our self-indulgence. ture confirms It will at length arrive. The Let the lowly Christian possessed of but his scrutiny so graphically exhibited by our single talent, cheer his fainting heart by Lord, will be realized in all its pomp of terthat beautifully condescending plea, with rors. The sea shall give up its dead, and which the compassionate Saviour vindicated death and hell shall deliver up the dead which the modest penitent, who had no other way are in them, and every man shall be judged of demonstrating her affection, but by pouring according to his works. And the dead, small perfumes on his feet-SHE HATH DONE WHAT and great shall stand before God, the judgSHE COULD. A tenderness of encouragement shall be set, and the books opened, and ment, which, if we consider by whom it was the dead shall be judged out of those things uttered, and to whom addressed, must con- which are written in the books, according vey consolation to the heart of the most to their works. poorly endowed and self-abasing Christian. la giving in the final account of the use we have made of our talents, we shall not only have to reckon, for the Christian koowledge we really acquired, for the progress we actually made in piety, for the good im pressions we received or communicated, but Blessed be Almighty forbearance, it is still for the higher degrees of all which we might in the power of every existing child of Adhave received or imparted, had we, instead am to lighten to himself his apprehensions of of squandering our talents or inferior ob- that day. He may do more; he may conjects, carried them to the height of which vert terror into transport, by acting now as they were susceptible. Had we acted up to if he really believed it would one day come; our convictions, had we pushed our advan- by acting as he shall then wish he had acted. tages to their possibilities, had we regularly If the terrors of the Lord persuade men,' pursued what we eagerly engaged in, had what effect should his mercy produce; that our progress kept pace with our resolution, mercy which has given the universal warnour attainments with our opportunities, ing to the whole human race in three consenhow much more profitable servants we might taneous parables, exhibited with a spirit of have been! But satisfied to stop short of truth more resembling historic narrative, great offences, we neglect to impress upon than prophetic anticipation! There is not our consciences how large a portion of our one living being who now reads this page reckoning will be of a negative character. from whom that day is distant; to some it From natural feeling, from inward con- must be very near; to none perhaps nearer, sciousness, from the notices of reason, the than to her who now tremblingly presumes traces of hereditary opinion, and the analo- to raise the warning voice;-to her, to all, gy of things, independently of Revelation, it is tremendously awful. Let none of us, we cannot avoid the belief that we are ac countable beings. Our notions of right and wrong, of equity and judgment, our insuppressible forebodings, our fearful anticipations, the suggestions of natural conscience, all unite their several forces to fasten on the mind the belief that we shall be called to a definite account. Our intelligent nature, our rational powers, our voluntary agency,

This universal examination into the human character, this critical dissection of the heart of man, from the first created being to him who shall be caught up alive in the air at Christ's second coming, shall infallibly take place.

then, content ourselves with a barren adiniration of its solemnities, as if it were an affecting scene of a tragedy, invented to move the passions without rectifying them; to inspire terror, without quickening repentance. Let us not be struck by it as with a wonderful fact in history, which involves the interest of some one country with which we have no particular concern; or of some remote

century disconnected with that in which our calculated to excite compunction. These lot is cast. It is the personal, the individual, instances may help men to a pretty just critethe everlasting concern of every rational rion by which to judge of their own characbeing through all the rolls of time, till time ter, since it is certain they never felt any shall be no more. It is the final, unalterable true gratitude for their own mercies, who decision on the fate of every intelligent, and, can look with indifference on either the temtherefore, every accountable creature, to poral or spiritual distresses of others. And whom God has revealed his will; to whom if no one ever truly mourned for his own sins he has sent his Son, to whom he has offered who can be insensible to the sins of those the aid of his Spirit. around him, so no one can be earnest to promote his own salvation, who neglects any fair opening of contributing to the salvation of others.

No wonder that the universal administration of final justice shall be manifested in the most awful pomp and splendor-no wonder that it will be equally a scene of anguish and of transport; when it will, on the one hand, as much exceed the terrors of guilt, as it will, on the other, transcend the hopes of faith-when the eternal Son of the Eternal Father, in the full brightness of his glory, shall be the judge; when the whole assembled universe shall be the subjects of judgment-when not only the deeds of every life, but the thoughts of every heart, shall be brought to light, when, if we produce our works, the recording book will produce our motives-when every saint who acted as seeing Him who is invisible, shall not only see but share the glory in which he trusted; when the hypocrite shall behold him whom he believed without trusting, and mocked without deceiving; when the profligate shall witness the reality of what he feared, and the infidel shall feel the certainty of what he denied.

CHAP. VII.

What an appalling reflection it is, that at the tremendous bar, a being already overwhelmed with the weight of his own offences, may have to sustain the addition of the amazing and unexpected load of all those, of which he has been the cause in others! What an awful contrast will be presented to the assembled universe, when certain commanding characters shall stand forth, burdened not only with their personal guilt, nor even with the sins of their immediate connexions, but in a certain measure with the sins of their age and country; while others, who devoted similar talents and influence to opposite purposes, shall appear gloriously surrounded with happy spirits, of whose felicity they have been the instruments; their shining crowns made brighter by imparted brightness, by goodness which flourished under their auspices, by virtues which were the effect of their patronage, by piety which was the fruit of their example,

Influence is a talent not only of undefinable but of universal extent Who is there so insignificant as not to have his own circle, greater or smaller, made better or worse. by his society, his conduct, his counsels? That presumptuous but common consolation of a dying bed, I have done no harm to any one, is always the fallacious refuge of such as have done little or no good. Man is no such neutral being

On Influence, considered as a Talent. It is at best a selfish sort of satisfaction, though the poet calls it a delightful one, to see others tossed about in a storm, while we are siting in security, rejoicing, not because they are in danger but because we are safe. Christianity instructs us to improve on the It is not the design of the present considsentiment. It teaches us to extract not only erations to insist so much on the more strikcomfort and gratification from the compari-ing and conspicuous instances of misemployson of our happier lot with that of the less favoured; but in making the comparison, it reminds us to make it with reference to God, by emphatically asking, Who is it that maketh us to differ?'

ed influence, (for the ordinary state of life does not incessantly call them into action,) as on those overlooked, though not unimportant demands for its exertion, which occur in the every-day transactions of mankind, more especially among the opulent and the power

But if we look around, not only on the external but on the moral and mental distinc-ful. tions among mankind, and consider the ignoranee, the miseries, and the vices of others as a ground for our more abundant gratitude; what sort of feeling will be xcited in certain persons by a sight and sense of those miseries, those vices, and that ignorance, of which their own influence, or example, or neglect has been the cause? If we see any unhappy whom we might have relieved, any ignorant whom we ought to have instructed, any corrupt whose corruptions we never endeavoured to reform, but whom, perhaps, we have contributed to make what they are; in either of these cases, it is difficult to conceive any state of mind less susceptible of comfort, any circumstance more

Rank and fortune confer an influence the most commanding. All objects attract the more notice from being placed on an eminence, and do not excite the less attention, because they may deserve less admiration. In anticipating the scrutiny that will bereafter be made into the manner in which the rich and great have employed their influence, that powerful engine put into their hands for the noblest purposes, may we not venture to wish they had some disinterested friend, less anxious to please than to serve them, who would honestly, as occasion might offer, interrogate them in a manner something like the following

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Allow me, as a friend to your immortal

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