drown his reason in wine, and to plunge himself into all excesses. By violating, then, laws commanding generosity, he violates, if not actually, yet virtually, laws prohibiting debauchery. What keeps him from violating the laws that forbid clamour and dissipation, is not respect for that God who commands recollection, retreat, and silence: but he affects these, because he has less aversion to retirement and silence, than he has to noise, clamour and dissipation. Had he as much dislike of the first as he has of the last, then the same principle that now induces him to be always alone, always either inaccessible or morose, would induce him to be always abroad, always avoiding a sight of himself, by fleeing from company to company, from one dissipation to another. As, therefore, he does not obey the law that enjoins silence by his perpetual solitude, so he virtually annihilates the law that forbids dissipation; and here again to offend "in one point" is to be "guilty of all."

tions, a principle of obedience to the laws of God! then what keeps you from haughtiness, will preserve you from meanness; what saves you from the seduction of pleasure, will preserve you from sinking under pain; what keeps you from inordinate love to an only son, while it pleased God to spare him, will keep you from immoderate disquietude, when God thinks proper to take him away. But a man, who deliberately "offends in one point," not only offends intentionally against all the articles of the law: but, it is highly probable, he will actually violate all articles one after another; because, when universal esteem for all the laws of God is not laid down as the grand principle of religious action, the passions are not corrected, they are only deranged, one put in the place of another; and nothing more is necessary to complete actual, universal wickedness, than a change of vices with a change of cir

cumstances.

All this is yet too vague. We have, indeed, endeavoured to explain, and to prove the proposition of our apostle; but unless we enter into a more minute detail, we shall derive very little advantage from this discourse.Those of our auditors who have most reason to number themselves with such as sin deliberately, will put themselves in the opposite class. The most abandoned sinners will call their own crimes either daily frailties, or transient faults, or involuntary passions. We must, if it be possible, take away this pretext of depravity, and characterize those sins which we have named sins of reflection, deliberation, and approbation; sins which place him who commits them precisely in the state intended by our apostle; "he offends in one point," and his disposition to do so renders him guilty of total and universal disobedience. This is our third part, and the conclusion of this discourse.

III. St. James pronounces in our text a sentence of condemnation against three sorts of sinners. 1. Against such as are engaged in a way of life sinful of itself. 2. Against such as cherish a favourite passion. 3. Against persons of unteachable dispositions.

In fine, he who offends in the manner that we have explained, he whose mind determines to sin, and who endeavours to force his conscience to approve his practice, sins against all the precepts of the law, while he seems to offend only in one point, because there is sufficient reason to believe he will some time or other actually break those laws, which now he breaks only intentionally. Here, my brethren, I wish each of you would recollect the mortifying history of his own life, and reflect seriously on those passions which successively took place in you, and which by turns exercise their terrible dominion over all them who are not entirely devoted to universal obedience. What proceeds only from a change of circumstances, we readily take for a reformation of manners; and we often fancy we have made a great progress in holiness, when we have renounced one vice, although we have only laid aside this one to make room for another that seemed opposite to it, but which was a natural consequence of the first. What elevates you to-day into excesses of ungoverned joy, is your excessive love of pleasure. Now, it is natural to suppose this excessive love of pleasure which elevates you into immoderate joy, now that the objects of your pleasure are within your reach, will plunge you into depths of melancholy and despair, when you are deprived of We every day hear merchants and traders those objects. That which induces you to-day ingenuously confess, that their business cannot to slumber in carnal security, is your inability succeed unless they defraud the government. to resist the first impressions of certain objects; We will not examine whether their assertion but, if you know not how to resist to-day the be true; we will suppose it to be as they say; impressions of such objects as lull you into se- and we affirm, that a trade which necessarily curity, you will not know how to resist to- obliges a man to violate a law so express as morrow the impressions of other objects which that of paying tribute to government, is bad will drive you to despair; and so this very prin- of itself. That disposition of mind which inciple of non-resistance, if I may so call it, duces a man to follow it, ought not to be which makes you quiet to-day, will make you ranked either with those human frailties, trandesperate to-morrow. There is no greater se- sient faults, or involuntary passions, which we curity for our not falling into one vice, than have enumerated, and for which evangelical our actual abstinence from another vice.- abatements are reserved. This is a blow struck There is no better evidence that we shall not at legislative authority. What, then, ought practice the sins of old men, than our not a merchant to do, who is engaged in a comcommitting the sins of youth. Prodigality is merce which necessarily obliges him to violate the vice of youth, and not to be profuse in a law of the state concerning impost? He youth is the best security that we shall not in ought to give up this commerce, and to quit a declining life fall into avarice, the vice of old way of living which he knows is iniquitous age. May one principle animate all your ac-in itself. If he cannot prevail with himself

1. They who are engaged in a way of life sinful of itself, are guilty of a violation of the whole law, while they seem to offend only ir. one point.

to make this sacrifice, all his hopes of being saved are fallacious.

what relation is so near as to preoccupy our minds to such a degree as to prevent our conWe every day hear military men affirm, sidering the life of such a person, as it really that it is impossible to wear a sword with ho- is, bad in itself; or what pretext can be nour, without professing to be always disposed plausible enough to authorize it? We have to revenge, and to violate all laws human and sounded in their ears a thousand times these divine, which forbid duelling. We do not thundering words of the Son of God, "Whoinquire the truth of the assertion, we suppose ever shall be ashamed of me and of my it true. We do not examine, whether pru- words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamdence could not in all cases suggest proper ed, when he shall come in his own glory, means to free men from a tyrannical point of and in his Father's, and of the holy angels," honour; or whether there really be any cases, Luke ix. 26. "He that loveth father or moin which gentlemen are indispensably obliged, ther, son or daughter," and, we may add, he either to quit the army, or to violate the pre- that loves houses or lands, ease, riches, or hocepts that command us to give up a spirit of nours, "more than me, is not worthy of me," resentment. We only affirm, that a military Matt. x. 37. We have summoned them by man, who constantly and deliberately har- the sacred promises and solemn engagements, bours a design of always avenging himself which some of them have entered into at the in certain cases is in this miserable list of sin- table of the Lord, while they partook of the ners, who, by offending in "one point," are significant symbols of the body and blood of "guilty of all." We do not affirm, that he the Saviour, to devote themselves to the glory would be in this guilty condition, if he could of God, and the edification of his church. not promise to resist a disposition to revenge We have unveiled their hearts, and shown in every future moment of his life; we only them how the artfulness of their ingenious affirm that he is guilty of a violation of the passions exculpated their conduct, by putting whole law, if he do not sincerely and up- specious pretexts in the place of solid reasons. rightly resolve to resist this inclination. You We have reproved them for pretending, that cannot be a Christian without having a fixed they dare not face the danger of attempting to resolution to seal the truths of the gospel with flee, when the government forbade their quityour blood, if it please Providence to call you ting the kingdom; and now liberty is granted, to martyrdom. You cannot, however, promise, for making that a reason for staying. We that the sight of racks and stakes shall never have described the numerous advantages of shake your resolution, nor ever induce you to public worship; we have proved, that the violate your sincere determination to die for preaching of the gospel is, if I may speak so, religion if it should please Providence to ex- the food of Christian virtues; and that, when pose you to death on account of it. It is suf- people have accustomed themselves to live ficient for the tranquillity of your conscience, without the public exercises of religion, they that you have formed a resolution to suffer insensibly lose that delicacy of conscience, rather than deny the faith. In like manner, without which they cannot either be good we do not affirm, that a military man guilty Christians, or, what are called in the world, of the offence with which we have charged men of honour and probity; we have demonhim, if he cannot engage never to be carried strated this assertion by an unexceptionable away with an excess of passion inclining him argument taken from experience; we have to revenge; we only say, if he coolly deter- said, Observe that man, who was formerly so mine always to revenge himself in certain very scrupulous of retaining the property of cases, he directly attacks the authority of the his neighbour; see, he retains it now without lawgiver. "He offendeth in one point, and any scruple: observe those parents, who were he is guilty of all." If a man cannot profess formerly so tender of their children; see now to bear arms without harbouring a fixed m- with what inhumanity they leave them to tention of violating all laws human and di- struggle with want. We have represented to vine, that prohibit duelling, even to those who them, that to reside where the spirit of persereceive the most cruel affronts, either the pro-cution is only smothered, not extinguished, is fession of arms or the hope of salvation must be given up. No man in the army can assure himself that he is in a state of grace, unless his conscience attests, that he will avoid, with all possible circumspection, every case in which a tyrannical point of honour renders revenge necessary; and that, if ever he be, in spite of all his precautions, in such a case, when he must either resign his military employments, or violate the laws that forbid revenge, he will obey the law, and resign his military honours.

It is too often seen, that our relation to some offenders inspires us with indulgence for their offences. This kind of temptation is never more difficult to surmount than when we are called to bear a faithful testimony concerning the state of our brethren, who refuse to sacrifice their fortune and their country to religion and a good conscience. But

to betray religion, by exposing the friends of it to the hazard of being martyred, without having any assurance of being possessed with a spirit of martyrdom; and we have endeavoured to convince them, that he who flatters himself he shall be able to undergo martyrdom, and lives where he is liable to it, while Providence opens a way of escape, is presumptuous in the highest degree, and exposes himself to such misery as the son of Sirach denounces, when he says, "He that loveth danger, shall perish therein," Eccles. iii. 26. Not having been able to move them by motives taken from their own interest, we have tried to affect them with the interest of their children. We have told them, that their posterity will live without any religion, that they will have too much knowledge to adhere to superstition, and too little to profess the true religion; and this sad prophecy has been al

ready verified in their families. To all these disposition; but the other cherishes his. One demonstrations they are insensible; they wil- makes many an arduous attempt to correct his fully shut their eyes against the light; they error: the other engages to do so; but he makes guard themselves against the force of these promises pass for performances, and means to exhortations; they are forging new fetters for get rid of the last by professing the first. One themselves, which will confine them to a considers the grace that tears the deplorable place, of which God has said, "Come out of passion from his heart as a most desirable beher, my people! that ye be not partakers of nefit; and, even while he falls into his sin, he her sins, and that ye receive not of her considers it as the greatest misfortune of his plagues," Rev. xviii. 4. They build, they life: the other regards him as a mortal enemy plant, they marry, they give in marriage, and who endeavours to prevail with him to rethus they have abused the patience of thirty-nounce a passion, in the gratification of which five years, in which they have been invited to all his happiness depends. repent. I ask again, what relation can be so near as to prevail with us to put this kind of life among the frailties, for which evangelical abatements are reserved.

14.

who have the courage to control the passions. you should diligently discharge the less con "He that turneth away his ear from hearing siderable duty of tithing, and other such oblithe law, even his prayers shall be abomina- gations. These are two propositions which tion," Piov. xxviii. 9. "Whoso loveth in- I will endeavour to explain and establish. struction loveth knowledge," chap. xii. 1.- They will afford matter for two discourses; "The law of the wise is a fountain of life, to the first on the chief virtues, and the last on depart from the snares of death," chap. xiii. the least, or, more strictly speaking, the less "Let the righteous smite me, it shall be considerable. Some preliminary remarks, a kindness; and let him reprove me, it shall be however, are absolutely necessary for our unan excellent oil, which shall not break my derstanding the text. head," Ps. cxli. 5. May God always continue 1. The word that should determine the a succession of such righteous men, and may sense, is equivocal in the original, and signihe incline our hearts to profit by their instruc-fies sometimes to exact tithes, and at other tions! To him be honour and glory for ever. Amen.

SERMON XLIII.

times to pay them. It is used in the first sense in Hebrews, "the sons of Levi have a commandment to take tithes of the people;" and a little after, "he whose descent is not counted from them, received tithes of Abraham," chap. vii. 5, 6. But, in the gospel of St. Luke,

THE GREAT DUTIES OF RELIGION. the word which we have elsewhere rendered

MATTHEW xxiii. 23.

Wo unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint, and anise, and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.

WE frequently meet with a sort of people in the world, many of whom neglect the chief virtues of religion, and supply the want of them by performing the least articles of it; and others, who perform the chief duties, and neglect the least. Observe one man, who cherishes a spirit of bitterness, and is all swelled with pride, envy, and revenge; by what art has he acquired a reputation of eminent piety? By grave looks, by an affected simplicity of dress, by an assiduity in the exercises of public worship. See another, who is all immersed in worldly affairs, whose life is all consumed in pleasure, who neglects, and who affects to neglect, both public worship and private devotion. Ask him how he expects to escape in a wellregulated society that just censure which irregular actions, and a way of living inconsistent with Christianity, deserve. He will tell you, I am a man of honour, I pay my debts, I am faithful to my engagements, I never break my word.

to receive tithes, signifies to pay them, "I give tithes," says the Pharisee, "of all that I possess," chap. xviii. 12.

The ambiguity of this term has produced various opinions concerning the meaning of our text. The most laborious and the most learned of the ancient expositors, I mean St. Jerome, is said to have taken the term in the first sense. According to this hypothesis, Jesus Christ paints the Pharisees here in colours, which have almost always too well suited the persons to whom governments have intrusted the business of tax-gathering. Inhumanity has almost always been their character. "Ye tithe mint, anise, and cummin, and ye omit judgment, mercy, and faith." As if he had said, you tithe inconsiderable herbs, and you do not reflect, that it is incompatible with principles both of equity and mercy to tithe inconsiderable articles, from which the proprietors derive little or no advantage. It is not right, that these things should be subject to such imposts as governments charge on articles of great consequence.

We embrace the sense of our translators, and take the word to signify here pay tithes. This sense best agrees with the whole text. "Ye pay tithes of mint, anise, and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of law. These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone." It agrees better We are going to-day, my brethren, to at- also with the following words, "Ye strain at tack both classes of this inconsistent sort of a gnat, and swallow a camel." This is a propeople; and to prove that the practice of small verbial way of speaking, descriptive of that virtues cannot supply the want of the chief; disposition of mind, which inclines men to and that the performance of the chief virtues perform inconsiderable duties with a most cannot make up for the omission of the least. scrupulous exactness, and to violate without These points are determined by Jesus Christ any scruple the most essential articles of reliin the text. On the one hand, he denounces a gion. The hypocrisy of the Pharisees would wo against the scribes and Pharisees, who scru- have been less remarkable in an inhuman expulously extended their obedience to the Mo-action of tithes, than in a parade of paying saical law of tithes to the utmost limits, while they violated the more indispensable precepts of morality. On the other hand, he does not intend to divert the attention of his disciples from the least duties by enforcing the greatest. "These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone." As if he had said, your principal attention, indeed, should be directed to equity of judgment, to charitable distribution of property, and to sincerity of conversation; but, besides an attention to these,

them with a rigid nicety. Accordingly, it is a Pharisee who speaks the words just now cited from St. Luke, and who reckons scrupulosity among his virtues. "God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess," that is to say, I pay tithes of those things which seem to be too inconsiderable to be tithed.

2. Our second remark regards the law of tithes. Tithes were dues payable to God, and they consisted of the tenth of the produce of

whatever was titheable. The Jews pretended, that the example of Abraham, who paid to God, in the person of Melchisedec, his minister, a tenth of the spoils which he took from the confederate kings of the plain, ought to have the force of a law with all his descendants. To this mysterious circumstance they refer the origin of tithes. Natural religion seems to have inculcated among the pagans the necessity of paying this kind of homage to God. We meet with examples among the heathens from time immemorial. With them tithes were considered as a sacred tax. Hence Pisistratus, a tyrant of Athens, said to the Athenians, in order to obtain their consent to submit to his authority, Inquire whether I appropriate tithes to myself, and do not religiously carry them to the temples of the gods. We will not multiply quotations. It shall suffice to say, God declared to the Israelites, that the land of Canaan was his, as well as the rest of the world; that they should enjoy the produce of the land, but should be as strangers and pilgrims, and have no absolute disposal of the lands themselves. In the quality of sole proprietor he obliged them to pay him homage, and this is the true origin of tithes. "All the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land, or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's," Lev. xxvii. 30; that is, tithe belongs to God of right, and cannot be withheld without sacrilege.

There were three sorts of tithes. The first kind was appointed for the support of the Levites, and was wholly devoted to that purpose, except a fifth, which was taken out for the priests. This was called by the Jews the first tithe, the provision for God, because it was dedicated to the maintenance of the ministers of the temple. Bring ye all the tithes into the store-house, that there may be meat in mine house," Mal. iii. 10. Hence the Jews thought themselves free from this kind of tithe, when they had no temple.

of thine increase the same year, and shall lay it up within the gates. And the Levite, because he hath no part nor inheritance with thee, and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, which are within thy gates, shall come, and shall eat, and be satisfied; that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all the work of thine hand, which thou doest," Deut. xiv. 28, 29.

But what principally regards the sense of our text is, that the law had not precisely determined what things were titheable. It had only expressed the matter in general terms. This had given occasion to two opinions among the Jews, that of the scrupulous, and that of the remiss. The remiss affirmed, that only things of value were titheable. The scrupulous, among whom the Pharisees held the first place, extended the law to articles of the least importance. Their rituals ordained, that all eatables were titheable, and in this class they put the inconsiderable herbs mentioned in the text. They are all specified in the Talmud. Jesus Christ declares himself here for the opinion of the Pharisees; but what he blamed, and what he detests was, that they dispensed with the great duties of religion, under pretence of performing these, the least; and this is the subject we are going to examine.

I. We will define the great duties of religion. II. We will unmask those hypocrites, who by observing the small duties of religion, pretend to purchase a right of violating the chief articles of it. We will endeavour to develope this kind of devotion, and to show you the inutility and extravagance of it.

I. What are the chief duties of religion? or, to retain the language of my text, what are the weightier matters of the law?

In some respects all virtues are equal, because the foundation of our obedience is the same, that is, the majesty of the Supreme Legislator, who prescribed all. A man who should coolly and obstinately violate the least imporThere was a second sort of tithe. Every tant duties of religion, would be no less guilty head of a family was obliged to carry it him- than he who should violate the most essential self to the temple at Jerusalem, and to eat it articles of it. His violation of the least ought there. If he were prevented by distance of to be accounted a violation of the greatest, behabitation, he was allowed to redeem this tax, cause by sinning in the manner just now menthat is to say, he was allowed to pay an equi- tioned, he would subvert, as far as he could, valent. A law to this purpose is in Deutero- the ground of all virtues, great and small. nomy, "Thou shalt eat before the Lord thy St. James says, "whosoever shall keep the God, in the place which he shall choose to whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is place his name there, the tithe of thy corn, of guilty of all," chap. ii. 10, and the reason he thy wine, and of thine oil, and the firstlings assigns is, the same God has prescribed all, of thy herds, and of thy flocks, that thou "For he that said, Do not commit adultery, mayest learn to fear the Lord thy God always. said also, Do not kill." Now, adds the aposAnd if the way be too long for thee," that is tle, "if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou to say, if the tithe would take damage in car- kill, thou art become a transgressor of the rying, "then shalt thou turn it into money, law," ver. 11, that is to say, thou subvertest and shalt carry it into the place which the the foundation of the law, that forbids adultery Lord thy God shall choose," chap. xiv. 23. 25. which thou dost not commit, as well as that The third sort of tithes were called the which forbids murder, which thou dost commit. tithes for the poor. These, it was supposed, In this respect, then, the virtues and vices are were paid to God, because his benevolence equal. In this view, there is no room for dishad, if I may speak agreeably to an expres-tinction between the more and the less imporsion of Jesus Christ, incorporated them with himself. "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me," Matt. xxv. 40. This tithe was paid every three years. "At the end of three years thou shalt bring forth all the tithe

tant duties of religion.

But this, which is incontestable in one point of view, is not defensible in another. There are some things in the law more important than others; because, though they all proceed from the same tribunal, yet the majesty of