SERMON XIV. ON THE IMPERFECT FOLLOWING OF OUR SAVIOUR. MATTHEW VIII. 19, 20. And a certain Scribe came and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head. THERE is not in the annals of mankind a more touching picture of patient suffering and unmerited destitution than these verses convey in describing the earthly situation of the Saviour of the world; and it is difficult to conceive a greater contrast than that which was exhibited between the power with which he controled the ordinary laws of nature, and the ignominious treatment to which he was himself subjected. To add to the effect of this portrait, we may also call to mind the very different expectations which had been long and generally entertained of his advent. In the imaginations of the Jews, their Messiah was not "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," but a prince of temporal magnificence, and a conqueror who should reinstate them in their earthly rank of a royal and a chosen people. Blind to the purport of those prophecies which described his humiliation and sufferings, they attended only to those which spake of his latter and infinite exaltation. They could not conceive how majesty, and glory, and power, could be conjoined with meekness and lowliness of heart; and the humility which his doctrines prescribed was as ill relished by the high-minded Pharisees, as the abjectness of his condition. Nevertheless we see that some were staggered at the manifestation of a power which so ill accorded with his humble origin, and the scribe in the text, probably with some hope of sharing the honors and benefits to which our Saviour's miraculous faculty might be made conducive, professes himself ready to forego his own occupation, and to follow him; but our Lord, who well knew the real sentiments of his selfish and worldly heart, at once repulses him by his answer, "The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head." In the prosecution of this discourse, My Brethren, I shall first offer a few remarks on the character of the Scribe, and his resemblance to many of the modern professors of Christianity, and I shall then endeavour to set before you the true SERMON XIV. ON THE IMPERFECT FOLLOWING OF OUR SAVIOUR. MATTHEW VIII. 19, 20. And a certain Scribe came and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head. THERE is not in the annals of mankind a more touching picture of patient suffering and unmerited destitution than these verses convey in describing the earthly situation of the Saviour of the world; and it is difficult to conceive a greater contrast than that which was exhibited between the power with which he controled the ordinary laws of nature, and the ignominious treatment to which he was himself sub add to the effect of this portra call to mind the very diffe which had been long and of his advent. In the i their Messiah was n |