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it in our catechism. If you are not ready to give the true reasons for the hope that is in you," you stand upon an insecure foundation. The true foundation of the gospel is in its truth as an historic fact. From this view of the question unbelievers have always shrunk; and it is this which you should be best prepared to establish. If those, who were the most interested to ascertain the miraculous facts of the gospel, can be shown to have believed them, we have every reason to believe them; and, if these facts stand upon stronger grounds of probability than any other facts in history, everything else of importance in Christianity follows.

Secondly, the more frequent and open are the encroachments of infidelity, the more are you in danger of wishing to conceal a faith which your inquiries have forced upon you, but of which you cannot be ashamed without the most alarming danger. You may be excellent men and good citizens, exemplary in your manners, and irreproachable in your conversation, and thus you will, no doubt, be respected; but not, my friends, in that character which you ought most of all to value, the character of a Christian. The world, not knowing upon what principles you act, will not ascribe your superiority to its true cause; nay, they will account for it in any way rather than refer it to a principle of religious faith. Hence the propriety and duty of an open profession of your Christian faith. If If you neglect this, Christianity will gain nothing by your example, and society will hardly be made wiser or better by your means. But, where the faith of Jesus is professed, as the source of all that is good in your character, you give to the Savior that homage which his gospel deserves, and "your light will so shine before men, that they may glorify your Father who is in heaven."

Thirdly, remember that your superior knowledge and purer faith demand of you a purer practice and a loftier sense of duty. The question, "What do ye more than others? is the most unanswerable in the whole circle of unbelief. It will be to no purpose, that you can defend the gospel in your reasonings, if you betray it in your lives. Men will look to you, and with perfect justice, for a holy and a devotional temper. They will expect to see you more indifferent to this world, and more interested in another, than themselves. They will look for a disinterested spirit of benevolence, and a superiority which everywhere discovers that you are influenced by principles of more than earthly origin and energy.

Lastly, be not satisfied with having been once convinced of the truth of Christianity, but keep up your interest in it by constant and devout reading of the Scriptures, and of such books as tend to interest you in their important truths. Let nothing divert you from the duty of prayer; for the sense of God's providence can in no other way be preserved in all its strength. Consider everything in life as subordinate to religion. Surely, if there is another life, everything must be subordinate, in the view of every sound mind. Let the children of this world give their whole attention to its perishing pleasures; for so they ought, according to their principles. But you, Christians, children of light, heirs of immortality, look beyond this transitory scene of things, to that inheritance which is "incorruptible, undefiled, and which fadeth not away," the object not of sense, but of faith, "reserved for you in heaven."

SERMON XI.

MATTHEW VI. 24.

NO MAN CAN SERVE TWO MASTERS.

THIS is one of those aphorisms full of meaning, in which the discourses of our Savior abound, and with which he introduces his caution to his disciples against anxiety about their present accommodation. He represents the service of the world and the service of God as two opposite states, incompatible with each other; and, as no man can, at the same time, obey the commands of two masters, each of whom has a claim on his time and labor, so neither can we serve God and the world, for it is impossible to maintain such a divided state of our affections. The claims of the two masters will be perpetually interfering, and we must prefer the interests of one to those of the other.

The disciples must have felt the force of this illustration. The service of the gospel, to which they were called, was absolutely incompatible, not merely with that excessive solicitude about the conveniences of life, which is always a sin, but even with the common care of their families and estates. It was, in fact, saying to them, If you enlist yourselves in the service of the Messiah, you must give up all ideas of accumulating wealth, and, forsaking all care and anxiety, devote yourselves to this new employment.

But this is not merely a lesson to the apostles. The word, Mammon, is the name of a Syrian idol, supposed to preside over riches; and to this specific meaning of the word our Savior, undoubtedly, refers in our text, where the false deity, Mammon, is opposed to the true God.

What, then, is the force of the aphorism in modern language? Is it not this, that no man must hope to divide his services between God and any other object of affection; that the service of the Supreme Being demands supreme affection; or, in other words, religion, if it exists at all, must exist as a prevalent, governing principle? The effect of this will be a consistent and uniform character, in which we may plainly perceive the influence of religious motives, and a principle of obedience to God.

The subject of our discourse from these words, "No man can serve two masters," is the consistency of the religious character.

This subject, which is very plain in itself, is rendered difficult only by the perverse disposition of men to make this consistency of character signify the same thing with perfection. Hence they attempt to elude the reproach of inconsistency by saying, We know that we are not perfect; perfection is not the lot of humanity. This is very true, but it is nothing to the charge. We complain of an habitual inconsistency of character in men who profess to be men of religion; that they allow themselves in certain courses of life, and in uniform omissions of duty, which we maintain to be utterly incompatible with a prevailing sentiment of religious obedience. We perceive, in fact, that, so far are they from earnestly striving after Christian perfection, their hearts are yet divided, and they spend their lives in poor attempts at reconciling their convictions with

their practice, their real pursuits with their acknowledged obligations, their sins with their better resolutions.

In other affairs we find no difficulty in understanding the difference between consistency and perfection of character. When a man, slavishly devoted to the acquisition of riches, is guilty of an action of gross imprudence or extravagance, we are astonished at his inconsistency, because he acts against his governing principles; but we consider it as no mitigation of the selfishness of his character. The very notion of Christian perfection, as a point to which we must be continually tending, but which we are not to expect to reach, completely excludes us from offering it as an excuse for any of our miscarriages; because, if an excuse for any, it must be, from the very nature of the thing, an excuse for all. The subject, then, which we have in view at present, is not the involuntary or occasional defects of men who would be called religious, but their deliberate and habitual inconsistencies of conduct, which prove the absolute want of the religious principle, according to the maxim of our Savior, that "no man can serve two masters."

We suppose ourselves to be now addressing those who retain, in their hours of reflection, a belief, more or less powerful, of the obligations of morality, and the truths of Christianity. They have not cast off all fear of God, and gone over deliberately to the party of unbelievers, but they are not decided whom they will serve. They would be shocked at the imputation of irreligion; yet they do not believe, or do not feel, the inconsistency between their principles and their practice; and they have very inadequate conceptions, I do not say of the perfection, but of the uniformity and congruity, of the Christian char

acter.