regard to his parents: "He went down to Nazareth, and was subject unto them.” The other thing recorded of him, is, that it was his pleasure to gain such knowledge as would fit him for the discharge of his duty in active life hereafter. He was found by his parents in the temple," sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions." It is strangely mistaking the meaning of this account, and utterly destroying its usefulness, to call this, as some have done, "Christ's preaching in the temple;" as if, at twelve years old, and long before he had begun his ministry, he would have attempted to teach the authorized teachers of his country. The drift of the story is wholly different: it does not represent him as doing what no one could imitate without presumption and folly, but as doing and feeling what all those of his age ought to do, and feel also. He was anxious to gain improvement, and took pains of his own accord to gain it. How often do you neglect it when it is brought before you, and wish of your friends urges you to acquire it! He was interested in what he heard, and tried to get a thorough understanding of it; he did not only sit and hear what was said, as if that were in itself of any use, but he wished to heed and to profit by it. He was found hearing the doctors in the temple, and ask every ing them questions: if any thing in what they said was too hard for him, if he could not fully comprehend it, he asked for more explanation ;-he asked questions about it, because he wished to know it. You will say perhaps that this was about religious subjects, and that these are very different from common lessons. It is true it was about religious subjects, but it seems that it was with a view to his future calling in life: it was to gain that knowledge, which afterwards shone forth so admirably in his own discourses, when, like the wise householder of his own parable, he brought forth out of his treasure things new and old, and made every object in nature, and every truth relating to human society and human character, serve the purposes of the kingdom of God. The point in the example is, that you should in youth gain the knowledge which may make you better and wiser men hereafter; which may enable you to glorify God in your generation by a wise and understanding heart, and an able and eloquent tongue; which, amidst the infinitely varied relations of society in our days, where there is scarcely a subject on which ignorance does not make us less useful, and knowledge more so, may enable you to ornament the common intercourse of life, and to direct with judgment its practical concerns, filling you with a lively perception and an ardent love of what is beautiful, of what is true, of what is good. After all, this must, in some degree, be a matter which you must at present be content to believe on the testimony of others. The object of education is to benefit your manhood; and you must, therefore, arrive at manhood before this benefit can be fully tasted or comprehended. Meantime, it is most certain, that your business here is in truth the business of your heavenly Father; that it is a duty, which he who wishes to do his Father's will must be anxious to perform zealously. "Both hearing them and asking them questions :"-not only sitting to listen to, or rising up to repeat, words which are forgotten as soon as heard or said; but anxious to remember and to understand what you say and what you hear, that the fruit of it may remain, and that you may be doing God's pleasure now, and may understand in this, as well as in other matters, when the time for knowledge is come, that no one ever tried to do his pleasure without feeling that he had chosen the better part, and that to do the will of God was the best wisdom, both for earth and heaven. SERMON X. JOHN, xvi. 12, 13. I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth. IN these words our Lord describes two sorts of persons, those who cannot yet bear the truth, and those who, through the guiding of the Spirit, are led into all truth. They who could not yet bear it were, we see, our Lord's own disciples;they who had followed him from the beginning of his ministry; they, of whom he had just before said, that they were all clean, except Judas who betrayed him. Still, he had much to say which they could not yet bear, but which they should be able to bear and to understand when the Spirit of truth should come, and lead them into all truth. These words were applicable to our Lord's twelve first disciples, and they are much more applicable to many of us. There are many in every age,― many I had almost said in every congregation, who cannot bear all that Christ has to say unto them, because they are not yet led by the Spirit, and neither their hearts nor their understandings can receive the perfect truth. one. If we want a more ancient example of this, the whole history of the Old Testament will furnish There, although in the successive revelations of successive ages much was told, still much also was forborne: the hardness of the hearts of the Israelites was the reason why they were allowed some things, which in a riper state of knowledge men would shrink from; why there was a veil over their faces, which hid from them the end of their own dispensation. But there are many who are in this respect Israelites among us; there are many who are still living under the law, and who cannot yet understand or feel the voice of the Spirit. Christ has many things to say unto them, but they cannot bear them now. For this reason, and because I know that, from your age and many other circumstances, many of you are of this class, I have not spoken to you, in the sermons I have lately preached from this place, in the way that some perhaps might have expected: I have not dwelt so much upon your redemption by Jesus Christ, as upon your own particular faults and temptations; I have used the language of the law more than that of the Gospel. I have done this, because I thought it not in itself |