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suffering should our painful impressions be so deep as to prevent our maintaining a cheerful courage, with pious confidence in God, and a serene acquiescence in all his dispensations. Nor in any state of prosperity and success, ought our joy to rise so high as would be incompatible with profound humility, and with the constant remembrance that "the fashion of this world passeth away," and therefore, that " we should use it as not abusing it;" that neither riches nor poverty constitutes our life or our glory, for Christ is our life, and to belong to him is our glory. To him let us look, and to that pattern which he has set us in his life on earth, that we should tread in his steps. In his life we shall notice alternations of joy and sadness, resembling those with which the life of every individual is chequered. As under his deepest sufferings he still showed himself to be the Son of God, maintained his course with undaunted courage, and on the cross itself manifested his redeeming love and power, his example furnishes never-failing support for our piety, and a standard to which, though unattainable, our zeal should constantly aspire. But the happiest hours of his earthly sojourn, when amidst surrounding multitudes he pursued with ceaseless activity the wonderful labour of his life, or in the smaller circle of his disciples sat at table, in Cana or Bethany, rejoicing in spirit and praising his Father, were pervaded by a holy sadness, which inevitably resulted from a contemplation of the world and of earthly things; and whoever does not follow his Lord in this respect,

whoever has a joy altogether free from sadness, is ignorant of himself and the Saviour, of the world, and God. Wherefore as many of us as have believed and known that he is the Son of God, and that through him all that disturbed and injured our lives is restored to harmony and peace, let us not be ashamed of the sorrow that pervaded his joy, remembering that nature has the same signs for the bitterness of grief and for excess of joy; and amidst tears of gladness, as well as tears of sorrow, let us praise him who hath done, and who will “ do all things well." Amen.

LECTURE V.

JAMES i. 19-21.

Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the ingrafted word, which is able to save your souls.

ON comparing the three verses which we have just read with the preceding portion of the epistle, and the trains of thought suggested by it, we may at first sight suppose that the apostle suddenly changed his subject, and intended to give an insulated, unconnected exhortation. But it requires only a moderate degree of attention to perceive that our text stands in close connexion with the foregoing part of the chapter; for the twenty-first verse, in which St. James admonishes his brethren that they should receive with meekness the engrafted word of truth, leads us back to the eighteenth verse, in which mention is made of that word of truth through which we become the children of God, and this is immediately followed by the words that we are now about to consider. "Wherefore, my beloved brethren," says he, (since

the word of truth is offered to you, as the best and most perfect of all gifts, from the Father of lights, and by means of this word you are called to be the first fruits of God's creatures, to be a holy and peculiar people, for the sake of such a distinguished gift, and of your dignity and privileges as christians,) "let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath."

In the first place, "Let every man be swift to hear." How are we to understand this, my brethren? It cannot possibly mean that we should be eager to hear without discrimination, all that is spoken. There are indeed persons within the circle of every one's acquaintance, of whom, as of the Athenians, it may be said, "they spend their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing," Acts xvii. 21. But are we to consider this as a christian accomplishment? If we are under obligations, as christians, to

glorify God with our bodies and spirits, which are his," would it be a right consecration of the faculty of hearing, to lend a willing ear to all the useless words, all the corrupt conversation, the weak and insipid talk, that at all hours may be met with wherever we go ? No; that which, according to St. James, we must be swift to hear, can be nothing else than the word of truth, of which he had been speaking just before. That is the interesting intelligence which our ear was formed principally to receive; that is the ever new, glorious, and consolatory message, to which, above all things, we should be disposed to listen. Wherever

this gospel is preached, wherever its holy and weighty truths are discoursed of, whether on the Lord's day or any other day in the week, we should be eager to hear; we should thankfully take advantage of all opportunities that fall in our way, and even seek them out; in a word, according to the lesson taught us in our youth, we should "hear and learn gladly."

But in the second place, every man should be "slow to speak." We have not always an opportunity of hearing what is good and edifying; oftentimes we cannot keep ourselves from hearing evil and offensive discourse, for then we must go out of the world; and in the world it is our lot and duty to remain, in order to act our part in it and to promote its improvement. But whatever we may hear, my brethren, never let us take part in discourse of which we shall be ashamed in the presence of God and before the judgment-seat of Christ. Alas! how many sins are committed with the tongue! How frequently is the command of the Redeemer, " Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another," Mark ix. 50, violated by sins of the tongue! Either our discourse is not seasoned with salt, it is insipid, stale, unprofitable talk; words, mere words, and nothing more; and then there is great danger that the tempter will find entrance into this mental desert, and seduce us into the use of still worse language, of words inconsistent with purity of heart, and with that strict discipline under which our whole lives should be placed; there is great danger that (to use St. Paul's expression)

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