talkers, but little doers; their idea of peace was like that of too many, the having everything their own way. Arbitrary people, when all others are trampled down, denounce any one as a peacebreaker who resists; they gag their opponents, and then consider that all is quiet.

Some men, like these Pharisees, preach so well when in the pulpit, that it seems a pity they should ever come out, but when out of the pulpit live so ill, that it seems a pity they should ever go in. Those also who court the eye of their fellowcreatures rather than of their Creator, must lose all the labour they give to so paltry an object; and though they were to stretch and strain the very sinews of their souls to the highest point of austerity and alms, yet they exhibit but an empty and most melancholy imitation of religion. Men cannot now stand praying like the Pharisees in the corners of the streets; but those who keep diaries of their private meditations and prayers, to be printed, published, and advertised after their death, even though that be done by surviving widows, or inconsolable husbands, have nevertheless not been sufficiently careful to "shut the door" when alone in secret communion with their Creator. They might certainly commit, before they die, to the flames those memorials which should belong only to themselves and their God, rather than hazard being in a suppositious retirement,

attended by a train of many hundreds, who are in fact to become subsequent witnesses. A Christian can scarcely deceive himself or others, when he writes down, "I am alone," and has nevertheless a shrewd guess that hereafter thousands shall know how long he meditated and prayed, and exactly what he said or thought; while, in fact, he first makes the feelings, and then describes them. Sincerity is the vital spark visible only to God, being lighted by his Holy Spirit, and there may be the image of all that is needful in the eye of fallible man, without that essence of life which is to be immortal. The clipped guinea passes current among mankind, until it be accurately weighed with those that it is intended to resemble. The best of heathens never attained to the high standard of Christian virtue, though they reached to the highest pinnacle in human estimation. When Cato was publicly seen drunk, one of his friends declared it would be easier to prove that drunkenness was no vice, than that Cato could be vicious.

แ "Why hast thou given us certain proof

To know adulterate gold, but stamp'd no mark
Where it is needed most-

on man's base metal ?"

The Pharisees appear to have obeyed no God but public opinion, and no conscience but their own convenience, giving laws to others, but con

sulting chiefly their own ease in observing them; and thus it has been alleged of the Popish priests, who, in many ways, so much resemble them, that they often fast with wine and sweetmeats, while they enjoin others to fast with bread and water; for, in the Roman Church, gluttony may be shrouded in a fast, and, on the contrary, at a feast, men, conscientiously temperate, may be hermits. All superstitious errors are an imitation of what is right; and it certainly is well for Christians to make their lives, in so far, a continual fast, that they never shall eat more than tends to the wholesome nourishment of the body. But, as all things in this world have a tendency to excess, whether in feasting or in fasting, the well-intentioned must distinguish judiciously between murder and mortification. He who cultivates a favourite plant, and waters it every day with just enough to make it vigorous, would unnecessarily impair its health by withholding the needful refreshment for any length of time, and the nourishment we require for the body should occupy as little of our thoughts as possible.

He who lives the life of an epicure, sits down to his table like Esau, with all that he shall have for his birthright served up to him; and surely his enjoyment of the greatest feast must be checked by recollecting the solemn reckoning that

is to follow on gluttony; but he who fasts merely to gain the approbation of others, shall not only die the victim of Satan, but shall be fed, moreover, on bread and water till his execution. Yet we need not be so morbidly anxious as St. Boniface, who sent for advices from Rome to Germany as to what were the days on which he could be allowed to eat bacon.

Luther said respecting himself, "If ever monk could obtain heaven by his monkish works, I should certainly have been entitled to it. Of this all the friars who have known me can testify. If it had continued much longer, I should have carried my mortification even to death, by means of my watchings, prayers, reading, and other labours."

When the eloquent Narni preached at Rome, such was the effect of his oratory that, during the first Passion week afterwards, two thousand crowns' worth of ropes were sold to make scourges with! But, as Dr. South, in his own very peculiar style, remarks, "Our Lord commands no man to be a skeleton or a walking ghost, or to throw away his health in order to his salvation, and thus to make his table-cloth his winding sheet. A catarrh, or a consumption, is no man's duty, and God did not give us eyes merely that we may pluck them out." Self-denial is right, but selfmurder is a sin, and those who think that "keep

ing under the body" means extreme fasting, must suppose that the body cannot be kept under by virtuous principle. "Is not this the fast that I have chosen? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him?"

Paul was scourged and beaten by the Jews, but we never read that he scourged or beat himself; therefore we should listen to the voice of nature and reason, because the Holy Scriptures enjoin no duties contrary to them, though the Papists would have men blind their own eyes, that they may be guided, in the plainest injunctions of Scripture, by the eyes of other men, as fallible as themselves; and put out their own lamp in the dark, in order to stumble on in pursuit of the light carried by another.

Men are apt to fancy, that if they make a sacrifice, it must be right, whatever the sacrifice may be, and that the greater the sacrifice, the greater is the duty done; but, even in such voluntary self-denial, we are sure, unless we act in conformity to the Scriptural model, to go wrong. A man may resolve to make his religion consist in cutting the nose off his face, or in sitting all his life in the dark; but if there be no injunction to that effect in Scripture, where is his warrant for so useless though difficult a sacrifice?