her, and perhaps with no other in the assembly, illustrates what has already been said of the Saviour's disinterested love. "Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing that he ever liveth to make intercession for them." As you love to have your own intimations of regard and friendship promptly met and responded to with confiding affection, so treat Christ in the offer which he now makes to you of his love. Enter into an engagement, make a covenant with him, and an event will thus take place whose blissful history no pen, no tongues of angels, can describe. His offers may soon be withdrawn; he may turn from you and go away; death will come; others will take the happiness which might have been yours.

As you read in these discourses what a Friend Christ has been to some of every class and condition, to sinners of every name and degree, may your confidence, your love, your joy, in him increase, his name be to you as ointment poured forth, and the language of the redeemed church, the Lamb's wife, be yours: THIS IS MY BELOVED, AND THIS IS MY FRIEND.

SERMON II.

THE CALL OF MATTHEW.

MATTHEW IX. 9.

AND AS JESUS PASSED FORTH FROM THENCE, HE SAW A MAN, NAMED MATTHEW, SITTING AT THE RECEIPT OF CUSTOM, AND HE SAITH UNTO HIM, "FOLLOW ME." AND HE AROSE AND FOLLOWED HIM.

WE have before us a man of business at his accustomed place, and the Saviour of the world appearing to him there. He who bought us with a price uses his right to stand before us at the busiest hour, to come between us and the dearest earthly friend; nor, in the midst of the most important and profitable transaction does he hesitate to absorb our whole attention and thoughts; so that, whether he comes to make us his friends, or to hold communion with us, or to call us away from the world, he claims and takes precedence, in his right as Redeemer and Lord. While the appearance of Christ at places of business would to many be exceedingly unwelcome and embarrassing, to some of you at such places he is no stranger. In your busiest hours, and sometimes while conversing

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with others, he is in your heart; moments of peace and joy at the thought of him, sudden impulses of gratitude and love, generous deeds done in his name to his friends, letters written breathing his spirit, doing justly and loving mercy prompted by him, are proofs that you can reciprocate his gracious words, and say, "Where I am, there may also my" Saviour "be." May he be with you always, that you be not overcharged with the cares of this life; to sustain you in trial, defend you in prosperity, keep you from the evil, make you bear his image, and amidst covetousness, injustice, and deceit make you to shine as lights in the world.

A man of business penned the words of the text. When you consider the honor bestowed on Matthew in being called by the Saviour to be his disciple, and think of the privilege given to him of writing the Saviour's life, and then read this unpretending account by himself of his call and appointment as a disciple, you may search long before you find a better instance of conciseness and simplicity. He does not say, As Jesus passed forth from thence he saw Matthew, as though every one must needs know who Matthew was, but "a man named Matthew." He tells us nothing of himself that would seem to make his call deserved, or that would take any thing from the free grace of Christ, for he tells us that he was found in his ordinary occupation as a publican. We

He says,

have no inflated description of the scene between Christ and himself, nor of his own feelings. "As Jesus passed forth from thence," as though he did not come on purpose to find him, which he surely did. This instance of modesty and simplicity is one of the incidental beauties of sacred history; a pleasant example of the true influence of religion in teaching us to be simple and unpretending in all things, and especially in speaking of ourselves; and, above all, to give God the praise of all that we have and are. One of the most interesting paintings in the Museum at Antwerp is a representation of this passage. You see a man sitting at a desk, whose small apartments are filled with files of 'Several men papers. are doing business with him, and Matthew has in his hand a file of papers, searching for one of them, when Christ suddenly stands at his side, and says to him, "Follow me." Matthew, with his papers in one hand, and the other hand on the upper end, turning down the tops, looks round with surprise at the abrupt summons. The men who are doing business with him express in their faces a mingled surprise at the call, and a feeling of interruption in their interview with Matthew, and the spectator is left to imagine the feelings awakened in Matthew's mind by the omnipotent word of Christ.

The Saviour knew that Matthew's affairs were not of such importance, or in such a state, as to injure

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himself or others should he that moment leave them, as the history informs us that he did. Luke tells us, speaking of him under the name of Levi, that "he left all, rose up, and followed him." He adds that he made for Christ "a great feast in his own house, and there was a great company of publicans and of others that sat down with them." So that his leaving all did not involve the unjust abandonment of his affairs, for it seems he returned to his house, and no doubt to his place of business, to do all that was proper; but forsaking his occupation as a publican, he left his property in other hands, or gave it away, and ever after followed Christ. We will consider,

I. The sovereignty of Christ in selecting and calling Matthew.

Though this man had done nothing to merit our Saviour's selection of him rather than another, he no doubt had traits of character which qualified him for future usefulness as a disciple, but especially as a historian of the gospel; and these, we may suppose, were considered in his call. Sovereignty is not regardless of such things. True, it was sovereignty which originally created them; for what have we which we did not receive? But it is interesting to see, that as God regards his own established laws of nature in his providence, so there is nothing arbitrary or capricious in the bestowment of spiritual favors. Were it other