tern of Jesus Christ? who has in every instance attained to the spotless purity of his character? Rather who does not shrink from the investigation and tremble to submit any one action of his life, in its motives and conduct, to the scrutiny of unerring wisdom and infinite knowledge, so as to stand or fall by the perfection of his obedience? The law of God makes no allowances for the weakness and corruption of man; it is to the Gospel that the sinner must appeal the pure and holy law of God condemns him; it is to God's mercy in Jesus Christ that he looks with the hope of acquittal.

But further, he who wishes to excel in any worldly accomplishment proposes for his imitation the most perfect model. He insensibly imbibes a portion of those excellences which constantly engage his attention. It is thus in spiritual things. We are commanded to be perfect, as our Father which is in heaven is perfect. And while we view his glorious moral attributes, his goodness, his truth, his justice, his mercy, we are gradually changed into the same image, and attain much higher degrees of holiness, than if we had copied after a weak, imperfect mortal like ourselves. His arrow flies highest, whose aim is most aspiring. Had we been simply told that we are bound to compassionate and relieve a fellowcreature in distress, we should have concluded that in fulfilling that command, we had done all that was required of us; and yet we should only have done, what no one with the common feelings of

humanity can avoid doing, and not being required to look carefully into our motives, might still have permitted selfishness to reign paramount in our hearts. None of those noble acts of self-denial and suffering for the benefit of others, which the energy of Christian love seated in the heart can accomplish, would have been achieved. St. Paul would never have endured those perpetual toils and persecutions for the conversion of the Gentiles, so eloquently described in his second Epistle to the Corinthians, nor would St. John have been ready to lay down his life for the brethren. But now that the standard is raised so high, the Christian is not merely incited to occasional acts of charity, but acquires permanent habits of self-command, of denying his sensual appetites and his love of ease; while he is conscious that he has never done all that is required of him, that he is still far removed from that perfection of brotherly love, which the example and the precept of his Saviour demand from him.

It need not be feared that this virtue will be carried to excess. The bias of our nature is to selfishness, not to a disregard of self. Great crimes have indeed been perpetrated, and infinite miseries have sprung from inordinate attachment to a beloved object. But it will always on a close examination be found, either that this love of a fellow-creature is selfish, that is, that its object is the gratification of appetite, not the happiness of the person beloved; or that where the desire of promoting happiness is

sincere, an unfortunate ignorance exists both of the nature of true happiness, and of the means of acquiring it. Indeed it naturally follows from mistaken notions as to what will make ourselves happy, that we should equally mistake as to the means of increasing the happiness of others. Thus the parent who is himself buried in sensuality, and who neither knows nor wishes for a higher felicity than the indulgence of his fleshly appetites affords, will train up his child to look for happiness from the same low sources of delight. While he himself grovels on earth, how can he teach his offspring to erect his head and the aspirations of his heart towards heaven? As for that infamous abuse of the name of Love, which, while it pretends attachment to a silly, credulous female, seeks for selfish gratification at the certain expense of her earthly respectability and comfort, and at the imminent hazard of her eternal salvation, it is to be lamented that this Christian grace, which is to endure in heaven when faith is lost in vision and hope in certainty, should be contaminated by bearing the same name; and that Love, the highest, the purest, the most lasting, and the most disinterested of all the virtues, should be assumed as a title by the most grovelling, the foulest, and the most selfish of the vices, and the most fugitive in its pleasures. But surely this abuse of names cannot be urged in proof of the possibility of excess in our love of our fellow-creatures. We cannot desire their happiness too fervently; we can

not too zealously labour to promote it. Only let us be careful to ascertain in what true happiness consists; and let us use all the aids which our own reason, the experience of others, and the wisdom of holy Scripture propose to us for discovering the best method of promoting the happiness of all who are included under the comprehensive title of our neighbour. We shall not indeed, after every effort, attain to the perfection which the law demands, and therefore must lay aside every claim of merit, and as unprofitable servants ground all our hopes of acceptance on God's mercy through Jesus Christ; but still we shall assuredly find, in and through the Lord, that our labour has not been in vain. A cup of cold water shall not be given in the genuine spirit of Christian love, which shall fail of its reward. Every act of self-denial, every mortification of selfish appetites with a view to the better performance of the duties of piety and charity, shall be blessed even here with purer pleasures than those which we thus voluntarily resign, and shall advance us one step nearer to the attainment of that unfading crown of glory, which alone can satisfy the desires of happiness in an immortal soul.

SERMON XII.

THE LOVE OF OUR NEIGHBOUR.

SECOND.

THIRTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

MATT. xxii. 39.

"Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."

IN a former discourse on these important words it was my chief object to give a just view of the nature of self-love, here proposed as a standard, to which we are bound to exalt our love of our neighbour. I defined it to be the desire of our own happiness; and I showed that as our real happiness is most promoted by the cultivation of the pious and social affections, there exists a perfect harmony between the love of God and of our neighbour, and the love of ourselves. I endeavoured carefully to distinguish between selflove and selfishness. Selfishness is really opposed to the love of our neighbour; for it strives to persuade us that no gratifications will promote our happiness, so much as those which terminate in the satisfaction