to godly edifying; so that ye be fully prepared to "receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls!" a

Let us now turn our thoughts more closely to the words of our text. "If any man have ears to hear, let him hear. And he said unto them, Take heed what ye hear. With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you."

b

In the former part of these words is a proverbial expression frequently employed by our Saviour at the end of a discourse, in order that he might lead His hearers deeply to meditate upon the awful truths He was delivering. "If any man have ears to hear, let him hear!" Then follows a direct injunction to ponder duly "the things that belong unto their peace.” Βλέπετε τί ἀκούετε are the words of the original, forming no doubt a singular as well as emphatic combination; since the figurative employment of one organ of sense is made subservient to the literal use of another. The text concludes by laying down the rule and the reward of attention;-for it is here plainly a rule of attention, though elsewhere in the New Testament, it is a law of justice;—and the import plainly is that, according to the degree of thought bestowed upon the sublime doctrines and practical lessons of religion, in the very same proportion will be the improvement of our minds and the amendment of our hearts. "With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you!

Such an exhortation and such an assurance from our divine Master are at all times worthy the atten

a James i. 21. b Literally; See how, or what ye hear.

tion of those, who call themselves by His holy name; and they will very properly introduce those observations, which I proposed to lay before you, upon the present occasion, concerning the relation which subsists between the preacher and his audience; between him who expounds the sincere word of God, and those who are to receive what he delivers as instrumental to their own salvation.

Upon the more usual occasions of addressing a Christian congregation, the Pastor finds it his duty to set forth the plain unadorned truths of the Gospel in plain unadorned language,—to enforce the most obvious maxims of morality, and to illustrate the clearest principles of religion. He has to awaken the attention of those, whose minds are unprepared even for obvious maxims and for indisputable principles. He has to warn them against petty vices and degrading propensities-he has to alarm their fears more frequently than to appeal to their judgment—to feed the "babes" in Christ with "the sincere milk of the word "a, rather than administer that "strong meat", which the Apostle judged fit for "them that are of full age, even those who, by reason of use, have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.”b Such are the ordinary duties of a pastor in teaching a country congregation. But in addressing such an audience as I see before me, his duties take a wider range, and assume a more elevated, though not a more serious, tone. The truths inculcated are indeed the same: the fears, to which he appeals, must be founded upon the same awful declarations of scripture: Heb. v. 14.

a 1 Pet. ii. 2.

and the hopes, which he labours to infuse, must be drawn from the same pure and perennial fountainfrom the inexhaustible source of Divine knowledge and truth-of knowledge, purifying practice; and truth, opening the boundless view of God's mercy through Christ, encircling the whole compass of His rational and moral creation.

Nevertheless, although the same principles are to be maintained and the same truths enforced, they are to be maintained and enforced in a different manner -the difference being obviously founded upon the different state of mind, to which they are respectively presented; and upon the difference of conduct too, as it is affected by the greater or less knowledge of right and wrong. Thus the enlightened audience whom I am called upon to address, will not require to be told the meaning of many terms, nor the history of many events, which occur in the sacred books, but which must be explained with minuteness and care to those, whose minds have received but little culture, and whose hours of unremitted toil, with a succession of worldly cares, afford but slender opportunities of improving that little at home. The result however of professional labour upon sacred subjects may be applied with good fruit to the improvement of those, who are themselves well educated and enlightenedin various sources of knowledge as well trained, and with minds more vigorous and acute than the Preacher, who has assiduously employed himself in his own peculiar province. Topics both of morals and of faith may be illustrated, in contrast as well as coincidence, from the ample stores of heathen and of Christian

sages difficulties in the sacred text may be cleared up by the aid of candid, but sometimes elaborate, criticism the objections of infidels or of heretics may be overcome by a reference to original documents, or by a chain of argumentation, not accessible or intelligible to ruder minds. Light may even be thrown upon those parts of Scripture in which, from their familiarity with the sacred volume at a very tender age, the wise themselves may have failed to catch the real meaning, and which the serious may have passed

over without due observation.

In points of conduct too, where, when our faith shall have been once fixed, the great business of us all lies, inasmuch as we shall all be judged hereafter according to that we have done, whether it be good, or whether it be bad-in these points, there will be frequent room for the admonition of him who teaches, and for attention in him, "who hath ears to hear ".Inheriting, as we all do, the frailty of our common forefather, the higher classes of society are not, by nature, more exempt from transgression than the lower; the wealthy no more than the indigent, the learned than the unlearned. Education indeed will have given the one a more accurate understanding of his duty; his situation exempts him from the guilt, to which poverty proves a temptation; and a just sense of the responsibility, which he incurs to society, may preserve from meaner habits and from grosser vices. Nevertheless, every one of us may, nay, must occasionally, stumble; every one of us needs a warning against that "sin, which does too easily beset him". Can it be necessary for me to remind you that the

pride of intellect, the love of power, a thirst after worldly honours and worldly enjoyments, an undue anxiety for heaped-up treasures, prove snares to the wise of this generation; to these, who possess knowledge and talent, and who occupy, or desire to occupy, high stations? They are snares, into which the mighty and the wealthy fall as easily, as the midnight plunderer will violate the prohibitions contained in the Decalogue against the pursuit of such objects, as pamper his appetite, gratify his lust, or satiate his

vengeance.

Here then, in this holy sanctuary, on the day set apart for the glory of God and the benefit of man's immortal soul, the wise may listen with advantage to the voice even "of babes and sucklings "2; they may learn, with delight and profit too, to chaunt Hosannas unto Him, who came in the name of the Lord. At the recollection of His sublime virtues, His disinterested uprightness, His profound humility, His matchless purity, His ardent piety, His all-comprehensive charity, the selfish may pause amidst their worldly schemes, the proud unlearn their conceit, the audacious assailant of female innocence forego his iniquitous purpose, the scoffer for once awake from his delirium of irreligion, and the cold-hearted and insensible feel some emotion of that warmth, which at once taught and practised the "new law" of universal love.

Such, in this imperfect world, and in this mixture of human character, may occasionally be the use of a

* Matt. xxi. 16.