duct, we require them to remember that the God, whom they profess to serve, is a God by whom actions are weighed, whose balances are so nice that they will detect fraud in what is mean, and expose as iniquitous all that is disreputable.

And if the swerving from what is upright in trade promise a man advantages which he is loath to forego, let him dwell on the word "hundredfold" in our text, and strengthen himself in rectitude by thoughts of the divine fulness and power. Thy God is the God who hath said by his Prophet to those who made their religion secondary to their money, "Ye looked for much, and lo, it came to little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it." He is the God of whom Solomon declares, "By the fear of the Lord are riches, honour, and life." Therefore, why speak complainingly of the boat and the net which have to be left, when every one who leaves any thing for Christ shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life? Whenever, then, you are tempted to do wrong, for the sake of a present advantage, bring to mind what we have insisted on throughout our discourse, the remunerating power of God. If we would resist evil, our thoughts should be much upon Heaven. If we lived in the expectation of glory and immortality, at what a great disadvantage would the objects of sense, and the things of the world, make their attack. We should not waver for present gain, if we were counting up the "treasure in the heavens which faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth." And therefore would we have you animate yourselves for the moral warfare, by considering what great wealth is promised to the faithful. Is the

gold seducing you? are the precious stones dazzling you? Then think of that city, whose street is pure gold, and whose every gate is one pearl. Is earthly fame alluring you? Then think of that throne which the righteous are to ascend, of the crown they are to wear, of the sceptre they are to wield. Are worldly pleasures tempting you? Then think of pleasures so deep and ever flowing, that they are spoken of as a river, of joys so unmeasured, that he who partakes of them will be abundantly satisfied. Oh, thus-whenever inclined to ask, as if in doubt and hesitation, "What shall we have therefore?"-take our text as an answer with which to repel the tempter, "Every man that hath forsaken houses or lands for my sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and inherit eternal life!"

LECTURE VIII.

The Life more than Meat.

MATT. vi. 25.

"Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment ?"

THERE is a simple but a very strong argument contained in this question; and it can hardly fail, we think, to be for your advantage that we should examine and explain it. Our blessed Lord and Saviour is reproving the faithlessness of his disciples, who were anxious in regard of the supply of the daily necessaries of life. "Take no thought," He saith, "for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on." And why were they not to take thought? was there not some measure of uncertainty as to their obtaining sufficiency of what they needed? and if so, on what principle were they to dismiss all anxiety? Our text gives the answer to these questions. From whom had life proceeded? by whose hands had the body been wrought? Surely God, and God alone, was to be regarded as the Author of their being: He had called them into existence: from Him had come that structure which was so "fearfully and wonderfully made." Well, then, if God had given life, was He

likely to withhold the means by which life might be sustained? if his hands had made and fashioned the body, would He be neglectful of his curious work, and leave it without raiment? He had already given the greater good, would He then refuse the less? "Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment ?"

You see now the drift of the question. The argument is, that, having given the costlier thing, God must be ready to bestow the less precious; meat was inferior to life, raiment to the body; surely then, by giving the life and the body, God had pledged Himself to the giving also the food and the raiment; and why then should there be mistrust, why anxiety as to the supply of daily wants? Ah, my brethren, there is indeed fine practical logic in this: if God's love towards us have prompted Him to the bestowing on us a great good, ought we not to infer from that bestowment his readiness to bestow on us every lesser good? St. Paul throws the same argument into its highest form, when he says, "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" You will readily perceive that this is precisely the same argument. God, in giving us his Son, has bestowed the highest possible gift; we may be sure then that the love, which would not withhold this greatest of all boons, will prompt to the conferring whatsoever of lesser good would be really for our advantage. Indeed, we might throw our text into the closest resemblance to this saying of St. Paul: Christ Himself is our life; He gave his own body, his flesh, for the life of the world-who then can doubt that God will bestow on us such good things as we need? they cannot be beyond his

love, inasmuch as they must be inferior to what his love has already conferred, "Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?"

But we cannot bring out the argument in all its force and extent, unless we first enlarge on the fact, that, in giving us life, that life which is in his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, God hath displayed the greatest possible love, inasmuch as the gift involved the greatest possible sacrifice. If this shall once be established, if it shall be evident that the love, which could consent to the giving up of Christ, can have nothing more costly to surrender, nothing more tremendous to encounter, then, indeed, we are on a vantageground from which to resist every form of unbelief; we shall have right to stand beneath the cross, and say to all doubts, anxieties, and fears, "Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment ?"

Now there is perhaps no history in the Bible, with which we are all more familiar than with that of Abraham offering up Isaac. We become acquainted with it whilst children; and the facts cling tenaciously to us when we have grown into men. And not only are we acquainted with the narrative; we are all more or less aware of the typical character of the transaction: we have no difficulty in recognising in Isaac a figure of our blessed Redeemer, but suppose that, as the lad bears the wood, and submits unresistingly to the being laid on the altar, he represents the Lord Jesus Christ, carrying his own cross, and meekly giving Himself as a sacrifice for the sins of the world.

But if the son of Abraham thus serves as a type of the Son of God, is there any thing typical about Abraham himself? may we presume to think, may we think without