is pronounced, with peculiar emphasis, in the words of the text. Let us endeavour to regulate, not only our studies, but our lives, by this divine rule remembering that it may be violated more ways than one. The theologian, who exerts himself on matters of mere curiosity, may lose his time and labour: but the Christian, who contemplates the most profitable subjects without exerting himself to profit by them, loses his chance of happiness for ever.

"Let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another. For every man shall bear his own burden."

SERMON IV.a

INIQUITY ABOUNDING.

ST. MATT. xxiv. 12.

iniquity shall abound.

THAT such mournful occasions as the present should continue to recur, year after year, in a Christian country; with symptoms apparently unmitigated by the progress which knowledge and refinement have for so long a time confessedly been making this cannot but excite very serious and awful reflections in those, who are disposed to regard life in a religious point of view, and not to let things pass unthought of, only because they are frequent and familiar.

Indeed, if men will childishly look on these solemnities only as pageants, without intending to be at all the better for them-or if they take up

a

1823.

Preached at the Lent Assize, St. Mary's, Oxford, March 6,

with the narrow and short-sighted views of the mere worldly politician respecting them-it is no wonder if they go away, as under the same disposition of mind they go away from public worship, not the better, but the worse, for their attendance on it.

For the administration of justice, of criminal justice particularly, in the graver cases, is in many respects not unlike the public worship of God. To His especial presence there is constant appeal made in the one as well as in the other. In proportion as men allow themselves to attend on either out of mere levity or curiosity, they run a risk of hardening their own consciences, and deadening their sense of right and wrong. And though public worship, of the two, be the more immediately concerned with men's eternal welfare, yet, if the administration of justice have any thing at all to do with it, however incidentally and indirectly, it is surely as real an offence against reason to leave another world out of sight on these occasions, as it would be to confine one's estimate of the purposes of social worship to bare external decency, and the peace and order of civil society.

It is an absurdity, too, particularly unworthy of refined and educated minds. For they ought ever to be distinguished by taking the largest

Cf. Butler's Analogy, p. 1. c. 5. p. 116. Oxf. Ed. 1807.

views, and selecting what is most important, in every subject, as matter of chief consideration.

Considering, then, in this enlarged way of thinking, the abundance of crimes and lawsuits, so far as it is indicative, not now of the civil and social, but of the spiritual, condition of our age; considering it as one instance of "iniquity abounding" among us; we may find ourselves engaged in a train of thought, not only melancholy, but at first sight also perplexing.

66

For "what," it may be enquired, " is, after all, the great benefit of Christianity? It came into the world, professing to bring with it a sovereign remedy for all the diseases of our moral nature. It has now been among men for eighteen hundred years, and the world seems, on a large view of it, to be much about where it was". Some degrading customs may be obsolete, some brutish vices discountenanced. But the temper of men in general seems as worldly and selfish, as far from true goodness and happiness, as ever. How," it may be asked, " are such things consistent with the claim advanced in the Gospel to superior knowledge of what was in man,' and to the praise of being exactly adapted to his nature? or with what we are told of the temper and conduct of those, who first gave in their names to the Christian institution?"

Such thoughts as these may indeed make a

с

Cf. Miller's Bampton Lectures, pp. 71-76, 129–131.

Christian sorrowful, and ought to render him very circumspect. But he need not be long perplexed by them. For it may, without much difficulty, be shewn, that the very depravity, by which the Church is overrun, and by which unbelievers would startle and confound her advocates, furnishes, in fact, an irrefragable argument for her divine authority as the representative of our Blessed Lord. It was the great subject of His own express prophecy and that prophecy so peculiar in its tone and circumstances, as to be distinguished, not only from casual coincidences, or sagacious glances at futurity, but also from all inspired predictions ever delivered by mere men.

Some perhaps may be inclined to doubt, whether it is correct to speak of the iniquity of our own times as having been within the immediate contemplation of our Saviour, when He delivered the prophecy in the text. I would just observe, therefore, that the general argument on which I am about to enter, as well as many of the practical conclusions, to which the whole enquiry may give rise, will be found to stand unaffected by such a difference of interpretation.

But, indeed, it is hardly possible to explain this chapter of St. Matthew consistently, without considering it as a general description of the latter times, or days of the Messiah: i. e. of the whole period of time from the first promulgation of