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streets, yea, whole districts, unvisited by the ministers of religion, who have the charge over them; the dying uncomforted, the wicked unreproved with the Gospel of peace! I feel, as a minister of religion in this great city, that we are exceedingly guilty; and that we ought, instead of being at our ease in our homes, to be visiting the poor in mercy, and making known unto them the Gospel of the kingdom of Christ. Oh, hard-hearted Christendom! Doth a brother, especially doth a sister, go astray? she is put away from all fellowship of her kindred, of her companions, of her fellow-Christians. Hard-hearted and scornful, we pass her by on the other side, saying, I am holier than thou. What injustice! what injustice! not to say, what unmercifulness! Oh, canst thou not look into thine own heart, and see worse there than that which thou so cruelly and at once excommunicatest? Well, thou standest; take heed lest thou fall. There we sit, side by side, pew by pew, in a church, feigning to worship God in unity, when, alas! how often is it-nay, how common, how constant is it-that we know not and care not for one another; and, on the contrary, often are filled with envy, jealousy, and dislike! We sit and hear the preacher, and do neither believe nor care for the matter he declareth ; but sit upon it in cold criticism, as if it were the word of man, and not the message of God which he was appointed to declare unto us. And many other things of the like kind I could shew, indicating the self-same spirit of discordancy between those two parts of character which concern the outward observance of the positive commandment, and the inward observance of the spiritual thing necessary to fulfil it. It is generally thought that this character of the Pharisee applieth chiefly, or exclusively, to the formalists of the church; and not to the Evangelical, as they are called, to whom I maintain that it specially referreth. In this respect, indeed, it doth not, that the Evangelicals require not so much as the others the tithe of mint and anise and rue: they have undone the ordinances in a great degree. Wherein they have added another offence unto themselves, and established a tithe of another kind, of their own invention, which is, the acknowledgment of man's authority, not the church's: the acknowledgment of a few men's customs, not the church's: in one word, the obedience of the religious world, and not of the church. They have found out strange inventions in religion; but, so far from yielding faith, mercy, and judgment, they have risen up and taken arms directly against them. For they chiefly oppose the two great objects of faith; which are, first, that Christ hath delivered me from my sins, and that I should be at peace with God and rejoice in him; and, secondly, that he is to come again, to put me in possession of the kingdom of this world, from which Adam was cast out. Again: they have

taken up the very opposite position to mercy; which is, rejecting all that are not of their sect as heathen: whereas, granting that they are unconverted, they are but prodigals, and they do them injustice by saying or assuming that they are not of the covenant. So that, to me, this character of the Pharisee is much more revealed amongst them than amongst others.

VI. We now proceed to the sixth accusation of our Lord, which is in these words, "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.' Take this as it is explained in Luke xi. 39. The Pharisee "marvelled that Jesus had not first washed before dinner. And the Lord said unto him, Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter, but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness. Ye fools, did not he that made that which is without make that which is within also? But rather give alms of such things as ye have [or as ye are able], and, behold, all things are clean unto you."-The meaning of this denunciation, as seemeth to me, is this: That the great sect whom he denounceth were as corrupt and erroneous in their notions concerning eating and drinking, as in all other things; or, even in a wider sense, the cup and the platter standing for their outward substance: as when it is said, "Thou hast made my cup to run over," it is spoken of our abundant provision from the hand of God. And to adopt this larger sense I am led by the Lord's instructions to give alms to the poor according to the calls which the providence of God make upon us, and then to enjoy the rest without any scruple whatever. In like manner, upon a similar occasion, the Lord said, "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man, but that which cometh out of a man, that defileth a man." Now this is another form of the pharisaical spirit, to be very scrupulous and very fearful about trifles connected with the use of our outward estate: how much should be set aside to religious uses; what proportion of a man's income? what style he should keep in his house; whether he should dissent from the customs of his rank in this particular? and so forth. This our Lord calls making clean the outside of the cup and platter; and he denounceth it as a pharisaical thing; and a pharisaical thing I do verily believe it to be. And he lays down the rule with great simplicity: Give alms of what you have; and then use the rest, and without a scruple:' that is to say, Answer the calls that God sendeth, and take and enjoy the rest, without making any work about it. For, saith he, this carefulness about external order and purity in your affairs will lead you to neglect the inward contents of the cup, the means by which it is filled, and kept full. You will cease to give heed to your extortions and rapines, through your much heedfulness to these

your systematic charities and appointments. You will think little of the covetousness, the excessive and extortionate premiums and interests, the great gains, which you are daily, hourly practising, by calming your conscience with the decent and decorous domestic economy which you observe, and the regular fixed proportion of your income which you bestow upon charitable and religious uses. Our Lord, as it seems to me, by the figure of the cup and platter signifies that which containeth the substance of a man's support; the whole of his estate, the reward of his labour and industry, the gain of his traffic. By making the outside of it clean, he signifies the outward decency and seemliness of our living; the sacrifices which we make to appearances, the accommodations to public opinion, the offerings to charity. By the inside of the cup and platter full of extortion and excess, we take him to signify the unhallowed sources, the hard and severe measures, the dishonest and dishonourable practices, the unfeeling exactions, by which the cup of a man's substance is filled, and kept full. And his instruction is, that God, who made that which is without, made that which is within also: or, in other words, that God looks: with as observant an eye upon the secret machinations by which wealth is made, as he doth upon the outward and observable methods by which it is expended; and that it is the part of a Christian, and of a good man, to be as nice and scru pulous in the management of those things which are inward in his traffic, and known only to himself, as of those things which are outward, and known to the world. Now, I will put it to any man's conscience, if ever there was a time in the history of the Christian church-and I may say, in the history of the unbaptized world-wherein by such nefarious practices the coffers of men were filled; wherein so many false pretences were had recourse to in order to increase our gains : such severe measures dealt out by him that hath the money, to him that hath the goods to sell; which, again, is retaliated by the insufficiency or adulteration of the thing that is sold. There is a grinding down of the poor, also; so that he cannot live by his industry, and is brought into the condition of a pauper. There is a want of tenderness and principle, often, on the part of the master, towards the poor labourer at whose expense of skill and industry his huge fortune is amassed there is a carelessness of his moral condition, an indifference to the state of his wife and children and poor habitation, a readiness to let him beg for that which he hath earned as a servant and labourer of ours, which doth indeed demonstrate that this denunciation is due also unto us. Lift up your minds, I pray you, from your own little sphere, and contemplate Protestant Britain, Christian Britain, as it is now exhibited. Almost the half of its labouring

population dependent upon charity; hardly able, at best, to obtain daily bread: her manufacturing population, again, every now and then brought into actual starvation: while the wealth of the superior order hath increased, and is increasing, and the expenditure of the nation is enormous beyond all example. Are these men guiltless because they pay a man his scanty wages? s?. Are they charitable and religious because they subscribe occasionally to the relief of the distressed times? In the eye of law they are guiltless, but not according to the morality of our Lord. Their cup is outwardly clean, no one can charge them; of an actionable offence: nevertheless, within it is full of extortion and excess.Take a view of the thing in another aspect.. Look not at the poor labourer, with his ill-conditioned family and miserable home, but look at the young men and young women of respectable and decent appearance who in this city are employed in the service of shopkeepers, dress-makers, men of business, and others by whom the retail of commodities is carried on. Is it Christian-like that these young men and women should be employed from earliest morning till latest evening, with just time enough to swallow their meals, with hardly time enough to refresh themselves with sleep? Is not this extortion of the worst kind, drawn from the life-blood of the young man's strength, and from the bloom of the young maiden's beauty? Cruel masters! can you live upon such extortion from your servants? Think not you are guiltless, because haply ye sit not down to your meals without a grace, nor open and close the day without a prayer. Look, again, at this in another aspect. Behold that class of men, wealthy and respectable, who, being possessed of money, use it to catch the necessitous occasion of the poor trader driven to his last shift, and buy up at half their value that whereon his credit and the nourishment of his family depend. This also is a new trait in Britain.Look, again, at that class multiplied an hundred fold, who lie in wait for the distressed poor, and receive in pawn the raiment from his loins and the covering of his bed, Look at the class of men familiarly known by the name of crimps, who lie in wait for our seamen, to plunge them into riot and sin, then cast them out of their infamous dens helpless and forlorn. Oh, I might go the round of all society, of respectable, reputable society-especially of all who have to do with the poor, who let them houses, who furnish them with victuals; of all those classes who adulterate our food, and mix up the means of life with profitless or deleterious ingredients-the field is too large, it is far, far too large, over which I could go, and say, Though thou art a man who drinkest out of a clean vessel, it is inwardly full of extortion and excess: I cannot call thee into the courts of the king, but I can call thee into the court of the

King of kings, and charge thee as an extortioner.' Oh, it is a cruel system, a most cruel, hateful system of pharisaical pretence, which is working over this land. We talk of our charities and alms-deeds: they are as a drop of that bucket which is filled with the sweat and tears of an over-wrought and miserable people. The thing I say is true. I speak the truth, though it is most lamentable. I dare not hide it, I dare not palliate it, else the horror with which it covereth me would make me do so. Woe unto such a system! woe unto the men of this land, who have been brought under its operation! It is not felt to be evil, it is not acknowledged to be evil, it is not preached against as evil; and therefore it is only the more inveterate and fearful an evil. It hath become constitutional. It is fed from the stream of our life, and it will grow more and more excessive, until it can no longer be endured by God nor borne with by man. I warn you, keep clear of it so far as you are able. Let wealth be held in no comparison with the avoidance of such unholy and inhuman practices. So that your business and traffic yield you daily bread, be contented; and for the rest, see, I pray you, that it be not obtained at too dear a rate.

(To be concluded in the next Number.)

ON THE SEPARATE STATE.

An Extract, translated from the Latin of 1727, concerning the · future condition of the human spirit, as to its mode and degree of happiness or misery, during the dissolution of the body: or, concerning the intermediate state of the spirit, in the interval between death and resurrection.

SINCE it hath now been demonstrated upon natural knowledge, as well as upon the most evident and express declaration of the Holy Scriptures, that human spirits do survive the dissolution of this body, and that they remain whole, notwithstanding its decomposition, we are in the next place to consider what kind of life we are authorized to expect in the separated state of our immortal being.

And the first question that presents itself, in this inquiry, is as follows; namely, Whether the spirit, or soul of man*, possess

* It will be observed throughout this paper that the Scripture term “SPIRIT” (1 Thess. v. 23; Luke viii. 55; Acts vii. 59; 1 Cor. ii. 11; 2 Cor. vii 1; 1 Cor. v. 5; Philemon 25) is employed, instead of the vulgar term "the SOUL." Surely it is of some importance to distinguish (even in nomenclature) that sensual, passionate, and brute principle which God hath given both to man and beasts, which he calls the "soul," and the ppornua capos, that is not subject

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