virtue, than that Cato was to be blamed." 4

So

easily are we beguiled by their example whom we hold in reverent esteem. "Will you," asks Cicero, "commemorate to me Scipios, and Catos,5 and Læliuses, and say they did the same? though the thing displeases me, yet I cannot withstand the authority of such men; their authority is so great, that it can cover even the suspicion of a fault." When St. Peter halted between the Gentiles and those of the circumcision, St. Paul observes, that many of the Jews, and even Barnabas himself, were carried away with his dissimulation. powerful an influence had the authority and credit of St. Peter to draw others into error. And it has been well observed by a writer of our own day,"

Horace, Ode III. xxi. 11.

Narratur et prisci Catonis

Sæpe mero caluisse virtus.

6

So

Yet Tertullian brings the following charge against Socrates and Cato, which is also corroborated by many other testimonies; Apolog. xxxix. :— "Uxores suas O sapientiæ Atticæ, O Romanæ gravitatis exemplum! Leno est philosophus et censor."

amicis communicaverunt.

I may here observe that the name of Seneca and the quotation from Cicero, although inserted in the text, were omitted in the delivery of the discourse.

6 Gal. ii. 13.

7 Dr. Chalmers, vol. viii. p. 141, &c.

that there is not a more insidious security than that which steals over the mind of him, who, when he looks to another of eminent name for godliness or orthodoxy, and perceives in him a certain degree of conformity to the world, or a certain measure of infirmity of temper, or a certain abandonment of himself to the natural enjoyments of luxury, or of idle gossiping, or of commenting with malignant pleasure on the faults. and failings of the absent, thinks that, upon such an example, it is safe for him to allow in himself an equal extent of indulgence; and to go to the same lengths of laxity or transgression; and thus, instead of measuring himself by the perfect law of God, and making conformity thereto the object of his strenuous aspirations, does he measure himself and compare himself with his fellow-mortals. A little reflection will convince you how general is this delusion. Instead of bringing yourself to the prescribed standard of the revealed will of God, you pitch your ambition to no greater height than that which obtains among your own religious brotherhood, and find, as the same writer has observed, a quiet repose in the mediocrity of their actual attainments, and of their current and conventional observations.

Amidst the degeneracy of the dark ages, the word of God was, in many instances, unknown

even to the clergy, except as derived to them through the channel of other writings. Of one of their number history9 relates, that though elevated to a lofty pre-eminence by the superiority of his religious attainments, he had as yet never once perused the New Testament. When his earthly existence was now drawing to its close, he called for the sacred book; but, at the discovery of its precepts, hastily cast it from him, and exclaimed, "Either this is not the Gospel, or we are not Christians." In the present day, indeed, the word of God is not left unperused; but it is read with prejudice; with the mind prepared to reduce what it there reads into harmony with its own preconceptions, and not to derive its notions from the revelation there given of the mind and will of God. We have formed a standard of Christianity by the present condition of christian society; and so accustomed are we to square the revealed will of God with our own maxims, so familiarized with the habit of regarding its precepts in the taperlight of a dim and flickering faith, that, it is to be feared, there are many among us, high in repute for their spiritual attainments, who, if they were now, for the first time, to open the word of life,

8 Thomas Linacer.

9 D'Aubigne's Reformation, vol. i. p. 52. Compare 2 Kings xxii. 11, &c.

would exclaim, with him of whom you have just heard, “ Either this is not the Gospel, or we are not Christians."

The observation which was made with reference to the commencement of your spiritual life, is true also as regards your future growth in grace. This is not to be measured by another's progress. Christ, with all that he is and has, is given you to be the strength of your life and the portion of your soul. From the very outset of your new career, your privilege it is to be strong in him and in the power of his might, and not to limit your own advance in the divine life by the admeasurement of any fellow-mortal. Accordingly, after the enumeration of a cloud of saints in the eleventh chapter of his epistle to the Hebrews, the apostle, at the commencement of the twelfth chapter, exhorts us to look off even from them to Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith. He is, and he alone is, a perfect model for our imitation.

But it is not only by a limitation of your efforts that this habit of unscriptural comparison reduces among us the tone of practical Christianity; how often does it foster a spirit of self-complacency even upon the commission of a sin! When overtaken by a fault, instead of humbling yourself before an offended God, and confessing to him

1 ἀφορῶντες. Heb. xii. 2.

that, in yielding to temptation, you have been forsaking your own mercies and neglecting the full provision of spiritual strength which he had given to you in Christ, you perhaps betake yourself to some fellow-sinner, himself compassed with a like infirmity; and then, upon finding him disposed to excuse you, or hearing him confess of himself the sin which you were confessing, you derive relief to your wounded spirit; you feel that there was some apology for you in sowing to the flesh.

But, in such an hour, it becomes you, first and especially, to have recourse to Christ. Offer not to excuse your conduct, or to palliate the heinousness of your sin; but, in a spirit of deep contrition and self-abasement, come to the throne of grace, that you may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in the hour of your need. And let it be in the bitterness of true repentance that you confess your fall was owing to your own neglect; you were not straitened in Christ; his grace was sufficient for you in the most vehement temptation.

But there is another respect in which you may be comparing yourself with others, and thus evince a want of wisdom. It is a very common error to set up as a model for your imitation some favourite character, either now living, or