vain glory of being elevated above your neighbour; or of suffering your mind to sink under the puerile mortification of being inferior to him; incessantly inquire what is the virtue of your station, the duty of your rank, and use your utmost industry to fill it worthily. You are a magistrate, the virtue of your station, the duty of your rank, is to employ yourself wholly to serve your fellow subjects in inferior stations, to prefer the public good before your own private interest, to sacrifice yourself for the advantage of that state, the reins of which you hold. Practise this virtue, fulfil these engagements, put off self-interest, and devote yourself wholly to a people, who intrust you with their properties, their liberties, and their lives. You are a subject, the duty of your rank, the virtue of your station, is submission, and you should obey not only through fear of punishment; but through a wise regard for order. Practise this virtue, fulfil this engagement, make it your glory to submit, and in the authority of princes respect the power of God, whose ministers and representatives they are. You are a rich man, the virtue of your station, the duty of your condition, is beneficence, generosity, magnanimity. Practise these virtues, discharge these duties. Let your heart be always moved with the necessities of the wretched, and your ears open to their complaints. Never omit an opportunity of doing good, and be in society a general resource, an universal refuge.

From the truths, which you have heard, derive motives of zeal and fervour. It is inortifying, I own, in some respects, when one feels certain emotions of dignity and elevation, to sink in society. It is mortifying to beg bread of one, who is a man like ourselves. It is mortifying to be trodden under foot by our equals, and, to say all in a word, to be in stations very unequal among our equals. But this ceconomy will quickly vanish. The fashion of this world will presently pass away, and we shall soon enter that blessed state, in which all distinctions will be abolished, and in which all, that is noble in immortal souls, will shine in all its splendor. Let us, my brethren, sigh after this period, let us make it the object of our most constant and ardent prayers. God grant, we may all have a right to pray for it! God grant, our text may be one day verified in a new sense. May all, who compose this assembly, masters and servants, rich and poor, may we all, my dear hearers, having acknowledged ourselves equal in essence, in privileges, in destination, in last end, may we all alike participate the same glory. God God grant it for his mercy-sake. Amen. SERMON

I 2

SERMON III.

THE WORTH OF THE SOUL.

MATTHEW xvi. 26.

What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

M

Y brethren, before we enforce the truths, which Jesus Christ included in the words of the text, we will endeavour to fix the meaning of it. This depends on the term soul, which is used in this passage, and which is one of the most equivocal words in scripture; for it is taken in different, and even in contrary senses, so that sometimes it signifies a dead body, Lev. xxi. 1. We will not divert your attention now by reciting the long list of explications, that may be given to the term: but we will content ourselves with remarking, that it can be taken only in two senses in the text.

Soul may be taken for life; and in this sense the term is used by St. Matthew, who says, They are dead, who sought the young child's soul, chap. ii. 20. Soul may be taken for that spiritual part of us, which we call the soul by excellence; and in this sense it is used by our Lord, who `says, fear not them, which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him, which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell, chap. x. 28.

If we take the words in the first sense, for life, we put into the mouth of Jesus Christ a proposition verified by experience; that is, that men consider life as the greatest of all temporal blessings, and that they part with every thing to preserve it. This rule hath its exceptions: but the exceptions confirm the rule. Sometimes, indeed, a disgust with the world, a principle of religion, a point of honour, will incline men to sacrifice their lives: but these particular cases cannot prevent our saying in the general, What shall a man give in exchange for his life?

If

If we take the word for that part of man, which we call the soul by excellence, Jesus Christ intended to point out to us, not what men usually do; (for alas! it happens too of ten, that men sacrifice their souls to the meanest and most sordid interest,) but what they always ought to do. He meant to teach us, that the soul is the noblest part of us, and that nothing is too great to be given for its ransom.

Both these interpretations are probable, and each hath its partisans, and its proofs. But, although we would not condemn the first, we prefer the last, not only because it is the most noble meaning, and opens the most extensive field of meditation: but because it seems to us the most conformable to our Saviour's design in speaking the words.

Judge by what precedes our text. What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Jesus Christ spoke thus to fortify his disciples against the temptations, to which their profession of the gospel was about to expose them. If by the word soul we understand the life, we shall be obliged to go a great way about to give any reasonable sense to the words. On the contrary, if we take the word for the spirit, the meaning of the whole is clear and easy. Now it seems to me beyond a doubt, that Jesus Christ, by the manner in which he hath connected the text with the preceding verse, used the term soul in the latter

sense.

Judge of our comment also by what follows.

What shall

a man give in exchange for his soul? For, adds our Lord immediately after, the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father, with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. What connection have these words with our text, if we take the word soul for life? What connection is there between this proposition, Man hath nothing more valuable than life, and this, For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father, with his angels? Whereas if we adopt our sense of the term, the connection instantly appears.

We will, then, retain this explication. By the soul we understand here the spirit of man; and, this word being thus explained, the meaning of Jesus Christ in the whole passage is understood in part, and one remark will be sufficient to explain it wholly. We must attend to the true meaning of the phrase, lose his soul, which immediately precedes the text, and which we shall often use to explain the text itself. To lose the soul does not signify to be deprived of this part

of

of one's self; for, however great this punishment might be, it is the chief object of a wicked man's wishes: but to lose the soul is to lose those real blessings, and to sustain those real evils, which a soul is capable of enjoying and of suffering. When, therefore, Jesus Christ says in the words, that precede the text, What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? and in the text, What shall a man give in exchange for his soul? he exhibits one truth under different faces, so that our reflections will naturally be turned sometimes to the one, and sometimes to the other of these propositions. He points out, I say, two truths, which being united signify, that as the conquest of the universe would not be an object of value sufficient to engage us to sacrifice our souls, so if we had lost them, no price could be too great to be paid for the recovery of them. Let us here fix our attention; and let us examine what constitutes the dignity of the soul. Let us inquire

I. The excellence of its nature;

II. The infinity of its duration;

III. The price of its redemption: Three articles which will divide this discourse.

I. Nothing can be given in exchange for our souls. We prove this proposition by the excellence of its nature. What is the soul? There have been great absurdities, in the answers given to this question. In former ages of darkness, when most of the studies, that were pursued for the cultivation of the mind, served to render it unfruitful; when, people thought, they had arrived at the highest degree of knowledge, if they had filled their memories with pompous terms and superb nonsense; in those times, I say, it was thought, the question might be fully and satisfactorily answered, and clear and complete ideas given of the nature of the soul. But in later times, when philosophy being cleansed from the impurities that infected the schools, equivocal terms were rejected, and only clear and distinct ideas admitted, and thus literary investigations reduced to real and solid use; in these days, I say, philosophers, and philosophers of great name, have been afraid to answer this question, and have affirmed that the narrow limits, which confine our researches, disable us from acquiring any other than obscure notions of the human soul, and that all, which we can propose to elucidate the nature of it, serve rather to discover what it is not, than what