same criterion. Let us beware lest, by compliance with any sinful custom, we encourage sin in others; and let us beware likewise lest we confound their conscience, and disgust their reason, by calling those customs sinful which are innocent, by condemning that which God hath not condemned. Let us see to it that our conduct towards them breathe nothing but the purest spirit of the tenderest charity. Let us tremble lest our spiritual pride should repel them from truth; lest our want of kindness should disgust them with piety; lest that by any means, through any fault of our temper, or any failure in our love, we should cause a soul to perish, which Christ our Redeemer died to save.

SERMON IV.

THE WORLD.

ROM. XII. 2.

BE NOT CONFORMED TO THIS WORLD, BUT BE YE TRANSFORMED BY THE RENEWING OF YOUR MIND.

On the last occasion of my addressing you, I endeaON voured to call your attention to the different things signified by the world in the New Testament. By an examination of the passages where it occurred, that term was shewn to be used in three senses: 1st, to denote all mankind; 2ndly, to express earth, as opposed to heaven; and 3rdly, to signify the unbelieving Heathen, as contrasted with the Christian Church. In remarking on this third sense, I strove especially to point out the error into which many good men have fallen, of applying the scriptural descriptions of the visible church to an invisible body, discerned by God alone; which led them to take an erroneous view also of those passages where the world

is spoken of as the antithesis of the church, and to consider the spiritual state and privileges of the greater part of the professedly christian world, as the same with that of the heathen world described by our Saviour and his apostles. I endeavoured to shew that the citizens of a christian commonwealth are in a condition quite different from that of those who never heard the name of Christ, and were never taught the way which He has opened of access to the Father. And that this was still true, although the greater part of the christian nation might be in heart and life utterly careless of their awful responsibility. For, just as in the earlier dispensation, every child of Abraham was, by the very necessity of his condition, one of the children of the promises, however unworthy personally of sharing in them, so every one born and brought up within the visible church is a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven, though too many of these may be members dead and useless, worthy only of being cut off from the body of their Lord, children disobedient, who are wearing out their heavenly Father's love, heirs who will forfeit their inheritance, by refusing the conditions on which they have received it. The importance of this view of the Christian Church is, that it forces on our minds the great responsibility we incur for all these privileges given ; it robs us of all excuse for our sins; it calls us to remember that if we do wrong, it is not from want of aid to do better; it warns us of the just punishment

we must look for, if we will do nothing, who can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth us.

But most fatal indeed would be our mistake, if, because we know that the kingdoms of this world have outwardly become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, therefore we were to think that the practices indulged in, or the course of life sanctioned, by the majority of those around us, were necessarily christian practices, or a christian life. True it is, that to the sincere follower of Christ now, his christian countrymen are not, and cannot be, in the same relation as their heathen fellow-citizens were to the first converts. For they were surrounded by a Heathen world, he by a Christian Church; they by those with whom, except as fellow-mortals, they had neither part nor lot in common; he by fellow-heirs of salvation, sharers with him in the means of grace now, and the hope of glory hereafter. Yet still, though our world be part of a Christian Nation, and therefore part of the Christian Church; and though, consequently, it does not correspond with the third sense of the world in the New Testament, nor can texts where that sense occurs be applied to it; yet does it not at all follow that what we in our common conversation call the world, is right in its works and ways, or is a safe guide to follow. On the contrary, but little observation is required to shew us, that when we speak of a man of the world, or of the world's opinion, we speak of a character, and a standard, very far below that of Christianity. In fact, when we talk of the

world in this way, we mean men whose hearts are set upon, and whose lives are guided by, those things which Scripture calls the world, in the second and commonest sense of that term in the New Testament; the things seen, namely, as opposed to the things not seen; the objects of sight, contrasted with the objects of faith; things temporal, as conflicting with things eternal. To prove this, let us consider for a moment what sort of person is he who is commonly called a man of the world, and that too by those who use the phrase not in censure, but rather in commendation. Do they not mean to describe one whose heart is set upon these present objects of desire, and not upon the eternal future?—one hackneyed in the ways of men, familiar with every art of self-advancement, clear in the calculation, and keen in the promotion of his own interest, dexterously wielding to his own purposes the various tempers and passions of his fellow-creatures ; versatile in the choice of his means, yet stedfastly pursuing his end; never letting any prejudice or scruple prevent his pushing forward towards his mark, except when to do so would interfere with the main object of his pursuit? Has the choice of such a man been fixed on that better part which shall not be taken from him, or is he not rather troubled about many things, forgetful that one thing is needful? Is not his great motive of action to obtain as large a portion as possible of the pleasures, riches, and honours which earth has to offer; and therefore is not his whole plan of life framed on a false view of the