fresh fund of chearfulness in store for you, when the vivacity of youth begins to droop; and is the only thing that can fill up that void in the foul, which is left in it by every earthly enjoyment. It will not, like worldly pleafures, defert you, when you have moft need of confolation, in the hours of folitude, of fickness, of old age; but when once its holy flame is thoroughly lighted up in your breasts, instead of becoming more faint and languid as you advance in years, it will grow brighter and stronger every day; will glow with peculiar warmth and luftre, when your diffolution draws near; will disperse the gloom and horrors of a death-bed; will give you a foretafte, and render you worthy to partake, of that FULNESS OF JOY, thofe pure celeftial PLEASURES which are at "God's

right hand for evermore *.”

Pfal. xvi. 11.

SERMON

SERMON XV.

WHOSOEVER

JAMES ii. 10.

SHALL KEEP THE WHOLE

LAW, AND YET OFFEND IN ONE POINT, HE IS GUILTY OF ALL.

TH

HERE are few paffages of fcripture which have given more occafion of triumph to the enemies of Christianity, and more disquiet to some of its friends, than that now before us. The former represent it as a declaration in the highest degree tyrannical, abfurd, and unjuft: the latter read it with concern and terror, and are apt to cry out, "it is a hard saying, who can hear it * ?". And a hard faying it undoubtedly is, if it is to be understood, as fome have contended, in

* John vi. 60.

all

all its rigour. But it is not eafy to conceive why we are to be bound down to the literal meaning in this particular paffage of fcripture, when in feveral others of the fame nature, and to the full as ftrongly expreffed, we depart from it without fcruple. No man, I fuppofe, thinks himself obliged to " give (without diftinction or exception) to every "one that afks him; to pluck out his

right eye, or cut off his right arm; to offer "his coat to him that has taken away his "cloak; or, when his enemy fmites him on "the right cheek, to turn to him the other "alfo*." Yet all these things, if we regard the mere words only, are commanded in the Gospel. We all hope and believe, that it is poffible for a rich man to be faved, and for a great finner to repent and amend his life. But look into the fcriptures, and they tell "that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich "man to enter into the kingdom of God;" and that, if a leopard can change his spots, "and an Ethiopian his fkin, then may they "alfo do good that are accustomed to do Luke vi. 30. Matth. v. 29, 30, 39, 40.

you,

"evil."

"evil." Thefe expreffions, literally taken, imply an abfolute impoffibility. Yet no interpreter, I believe, ever pretended to infer from them any thing more than extreme difficulty. By what rule of criticism then are we obliged to understand the text more strictly than the paffages just mentioned? It certainly stands as much in need of a liberal interpretation, and is as justly entitled to it, as these or any other places of holy writ. Confider it only with a little attention. "Whofoever shall

66

keep the whole law, and yet offend in one

point, he is guilty of all." The meaning cannot poffibly be, that he who offends in one point only, does by that means actually offend in all points; for this is a palpable contradiction. Nor can it mean, that he who offends

in one point only, is in the eye of God equally guilty, and of course will in a future state be equally punished, with him who offends in all points for this is evidently false and unjust; contrary to every principle of reason and equity, to all our ideas of God's moral attributes, and to the whole tenour of the Gospel, which uniformly teaches a directly

• Matth. xix. 24. Jer. xiii. 23.

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