cincts of Jerusalem; and even that arose from the peculiar situation of Christians at that period, which was a most disturbed and agitated one. In fact, a desire to be possessed of wealth with a view to provide for our wants, and those of our families who are dependant upon us for support, is not only not covetousness, but is perfectly natural and right. Indeed, the desire for riches can never be wrong, when kept within the limits of benevolence and justice.

If there were no desire for wealth, there would be no need of it. It would soon cease to exist at all; and society would go back into a state of actual barbarism.

Covetousness is, then, the love of money, or of any wealth which is considered the standard of property. It is, therefore, properly speaking, the love of money for its own sake, in distinction from the love of money on account of those things which it may procure, which is not covetousness.

For instance, if a man be engaged in war, he may desire to have wealth for the purpose of maintaining himself in arms. Cæsar was such a person. But no one would say that his character was degraded by the love of money. The desire for it, in his case, was entirely a subordinate emotion.

There is another class of persons who may be properly described as "lovers of pleasure." They are constantly occupied in its pursuit. They will endeavour to accumulate wealth, and may appear to have set their hearts upon it. But pleasure is the ultimate object they have in view. They seek to acquire riches, not for their own sake, but as a means of procuring enjoyment.

When, however, men go farther than this, and settle down in the love of money for its own sake, without any regard for what it may procure for them, then they indulge the vice of which our blessed Lord, in the language before us, warns his disciples to beware. There is, perhaps, no such distinction as that we have specified found in the Scriptures; but, in order to distinguish it from other vices, it must be confined within such limits, since, as we have before remarked, the desire of wealth is not criminal, when kept within the bounds of benevolence and justice.

It may, indeed, appear a strange thing that a rational being should love money for its own sake. But it is an extraordinary instance of the infatuation of sin. If the power of gratification could keep pace with the accumulation of wealth, there would be some plea for its indulgence; the endeavour to gratify the desire might not, in such a case, be deemed unreasonable. But, as the power of gratification can only go to a certain extent, no such plea can be urged. It is, therefore, a criminal and degrading propensity; and one which we cannot indulge without contracting great guilt. Our blessed Lord had good reason to warn his disciples of it, and to forbid its indulgence; and that the exhortation to beware of covetuousness is equally deserving our serious attention, will appear from a variety of considerations, which, SECONDLY, We proceed to adduce.

1. Consider its influence on the character. It has a tendency to

harden the heart. The claims of benevolence will be perpetually coming in contact with this vice. It will, consequently, shut up the heart against all the addresses of pity, and continually incrust it with the frosts of selfishness. The love of money can never exist alone, He who desires wealth for its own sake will be strongly disposed to injustice. His integrity will be liable to perpetual concussions; it will be assailed by constant temptation, and always exposed to injury. The unjust balance, and the short weight, will be found in the possession of a covetous man. He will be ready to take advantage of the weakness or generosity of those who surround him. These hab. its of trifling with integrity will invariably harden the heart. If he be possessed of power, that power will be employed for bad purposes, If he occupy a station of trust, that trust will be abused.

It also tends to contract the understanding. How can the love of truth have place in the mind of any man who regards money as the greatest good? He has no time to devote to the pursuit of knowledge. Without cultivation, his mind will soon run to waste. He is chained down to one idea, and that the most barren of all. His understanding will soon become so rusted and contracted, that there will be none of those exercises of it on which all just views of difficult subjects depend.

The covetous man is also the object of contempt; such a man has no refuge from universal unpopularity but in looking on his wealth. When a person obtains money for purposes of honour or power, the desire of it will soon subside, or, at least, as soon as the object is obtained. But when he loves money for its own sake, the passion will grow; it will have no limits, and can never be entirely satisfied.

2. Consider its effect on our happiness. The epithet "miser" is applied to one who loves money. Its original signification is miserable. This will be found, in a greater or less degree, to be a correct description of the state of every covetous man.

Those who know any thing of happiness, know full well that it arises chiefly from the social state; from reciprocity of feeling, mutual dependance, and sympathy.

The avaricious is, however, an entire stranger to the happiness defived from these sources. He knows nothing of them. He is almost ignorant of their existence. He is a solitary being. He stands alone. What a miserable state of mind must that be which makes a man a stranger to all the charities of life! He desires to acquire, not to enjoy. He can never say that he has attained his end. This is the extremity of wretchedness and misery.

In any country where Christianity has been made known, every man who possesses wealth must feel that he is responsible for its use. Not only is an avaricious man cut off from all the best gratifications of our nature, but when the light of religion dawns on his spirit for a moment, the presence of God, the judge of all, calling him to an account for not using his talents, must be unspeakably awful and terrific!

Man was born for society. He was never intended to exist alone. He is attracted to his fellow-man by common principles of sympathy

and regard. It is manifest, therefore, that he cannot discharge the duties of the social condition when he has no love for his fellow-creatures. But the love of money extinguishes this emotion; for how can it exist where that is the predominant principle? Covetousness is a vice that not only hardens the heart and contracts the understanding, but it dries up the streams of benevolence and charity, and totally unfits a man for the social state.

3. Consider it in connexion with death and eternity. No individual of the human family is exempt from death. It is a debt which all must pay. Death is a most formidable foe. His power is irresistible -his attack cannot be repelled, nor can we elude his pursuit. Money can procure you no shelter from this terrible adversary. You cannot bribe the king of terrors; you cannot purchase a covenant with the grave. If the bribe were offered, it would be spurned; if the covenant could be made, it would be broken. Death will strip you of all your possessions. He will be alike regardless of their glory and their extent.

But how awful is the condition of a covetous man in relation to futurity! God is the supreme good; and his favour and service should be esteemed the highest good and end. But the covetous man makes money his supreme good, and its acquisition the chief end of his being, He puts it, therefore, in the place of God. He becomes an idolater, and in a future world will have his portion with murderers and liars, "in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone !"

If there be a word of truth in the New Testament, some preparation is necessary for a future state. But what leisure has an avaricious man to prepare for eternity, when every moment of his time that can be spared from the seasons allotted to refreshment and repose is occupied in the pursuit of wealth, and the energies of his mind entirely bent on its acquisition?

Can the love of an infinite Being have any place in his bosom? Can there be any delight in God, when all his moral perfections are in direct opposition to this degrading and criminal passion? Can there be any aspirations after heaven, any desire or relish for its pleasures and pursuits, or any efforts made to lay up treasure there, when the whole soul is fixed on the accumulation of riches in the present state? Can a man love God or worship his Maker, when be adores an earthen idol, and bows down at its feet? Nothing can be more opposite than these courses of action; and nothing more contrary to another than the happiness of heaven and the love of money. In short, to use the emphatic and impressive language of Scripture," the love of money is the root of all evil.”

The indulgence of this sinful propensity deprives a man not only of present happiness, but of future felicity. Are there any covetous persons in the present assembly? Are there any such here? Then remember that the very earth disowns you, society expels you from its bosom; enshrouded as you are in the darkness of your selfishness, rays of humanity do not light upon you; much less can the beams of that glory in which the Deity resides ever illumine or cheer your solitary and desolate spirits!

the

Remember that you must shortly appear before the tribunal of God' There you will have to render your final account.' A God of justice and truth, a being of mercy and goodness, will try your actions. When you stand in his presence you will be divested of all the circumstances which wealth commands, and appear before Him in the naked simplicity of your moral character. How unprepared, then, will you be to sustain that investigation, or the scrutiny of his eye, who have made money your God, and lived and died in the neglect of the authority of "the blessed and only Potentate!"

XXXVII.
LYING.*

ROMANS, xii., 5: And every one members one of another. AMONG the bitter fruits of our common apostacy is to be enumerated the propensity to falsify the dictates of the mind, which prevails to a great extent in the social intercourse of mankind. "The wicked," saith the Psalmist, "are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they are born, telling lies." It is a principle of that corrupt nature denominated the old man, which the Christian is under the most solemn obligation to put off. It is scarcely necessary to define a lie. To lie is to utter something contrary to the inward sense of the mind. This vice prevails in very different degrees. There are some who make no scruple of violating truth on every occasion. The practice of falsehood is perfectly familiar to them; and they are prepared to utter it from the impulse of the slightest motives, sometimes without any visible motive whatever.

The most usual temptations to falsehood are vanity, interest, and malice. Multitudes are urged to propagate the most extravagant falsehoods purely from the influence of vanity, which makes them desirous of impressing an exaggerated idea of their rank and fortune, their talents and achievements. If it be allowed to assign the different degrees of guilt attached to different species of falsehood, we should say that those of vanity, though sufficiently mean and dishonourable, are the least criminal, because usually productive of consequences the least mischievous. Lies of interest hold a higher place in the scale of moral delinquency, because they usually involve a portion of injustice; being seldom uttered but with a view to some unfair advantage. The falsehoods so current in many of the lower branches of traffic are seldom uttered without a design to ensnare and entrap the ignorant and unwary, on which account they may be considered as frauds no less than falsehoods.

The most detestable species of lying is that which proceeds from

VOL. IV.-P P

From Mr. Hall's own manuscript.

hatred and malice, of which David so bitterly complains in the following words: "Deliver me, O Lord, from lying lips, and from a deceit ful tongue: what shall be given unto thee, or what shall be done unto thee, thou false tongue? sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals of juniper." But though a lie assumes different shades of turpitude from the different motives to which it is to be ascribed; or, to speak with more precision, from the intermixture of other ingredients, besides what enters into the bare contemplation of falsehood, it is never innocent: it is criminal in itself apart from the consideration of the designs to which it may be subservient, or of the passions which give it birth. To these it may owe much alleviation or aggravation of blame; but it is not necessary for a moment to take them into our consideration in order to justify the sentence which condemns it. The practice of deliberate falsehood possesses an inherent guilt, independent of the contemplation of all extraneous circumstances. To demonstrate this is the principal business of the ensuing discourse, in which your serious attention is requested to the following particulars.

1. We are members one of another. We are parts of the same body, which the practice of falsehood tends to dissolve and destroy. It is not the intention of Providence for men to subsist apart and alone; but, in aid of each other's weakness, for the relief of each other's necessities, and the improvement of their common advantages, that they should be incorporated in society. Brutes, not being formed into a society, are either altogether destitute of the means of communication, or possess them in a much lower degree. But the means of intercourse are beneficial just so far, and no farther, than the principle of confidence extends. We derive no advantage from the mere act of another's speaking, but from his speaking his mind. It is the persuasion of the agreement subsisting between the words and thoughts [that induces men to place reliance in each other; for if this were absent], there could be no reason for attaching credit to the terms of any compact. A little attention must convince us that, in this latter situation, they would be incapable of proceeding or stopping, and, consequently, that no confidence could ever take its rise among mankind, without supposing a previous sense of the obligation of speaking truth. An inward conviction of this obligation must be presumed in the formation of every compact, and the law which binds us to veracity must be conceived as anterior to the contemplation of all kinds of social intercourse: a fundamental, original law, which lays the foundation of society-the more sacred from its having never known the [period] of its promulgation. It could never be proclaimed by mortal voice, nor established by human authority: it is not the law of any one age, nation, or country; but coeval with the origin of society, and coextended with the existence of the human race. It is the law of nature and the voice of God. It is the cement of the social edifice, the principle which unites the members of that body of which mankind consists; and if charity may be compared to the blood which circulates through the system, truth must be considered as the joints and ligaments which connect the respective parts. Intentional falsehood