wrong conclusions both with respect to ourselves and them. How many take notice of Noah's drunkenness, and David's adultery; but neither of the one's close walking with God, nor of the other's lively and fervent devotion. They mark the saints' daily failings, their warm passions, and unguarded expressions when they are overcome by some powerful temptation, or entangled by some prevailing corruption; but they do not see their brokenness of heart on account of these things, their secret mournings before God, and renewals again to repentance. With their flesh they serve the law of sin, and herein all carnal men are like them; but with their mind, as the apostle expresses it, they serve the law of God, and herein they bear no resemblance to them. Though there may be many defects in the outward conversation, the king's daughter is all glorious within; the outward deformity they see, but they do not come near enough to see the inward excellency and beauty.

Secondly, If we cannot but discern a difference, we are apt to think that that difference is not with respect to the essence of grace and religion, but only the degree. Nothing is more common than for hypocrites and formal professors, when they see others to be more intelligent, upright, holy, and watchful, than themselves, yet to think that their hearts are as good, though their conduct be not quite so regular; and that though those excel them, yet they themselves are sound Christians, and have the root of the matter in them, and that the others are only more highly favoured of God, and have made greater advances in the divine life than they. "We are stars," say they, "though not of the first magnitude; and scholars in the school of Christ, though not in the highest class." Though what they take to be gold is but brass, yet they will have it to be gold; still differing from that of others, not essentially, but in degree. I might have added, that they compare themselves not with Christians in an healthy and vigorous state, but with those who are sickly and declining; and thus draw those inferences which may lull them into a soft and easy sleep at present, but will prove a source of inexpressible anguish another day.

(3.) With those who are in every respect like themselves. Hypocrites and formalists need not go far to find many of their own character, contented with, nay, advocates for, the form of godliness, but destitute of the power. Many such they may find in their neighbourhood, among their acquaintance and intimate friends, nay, too many in the same church, and amongst their fellow-members, who think orthodoxly, but walk loosely; who have a great deal of religion upon their tongues, but little of it in their practice; who are very devout on the Sabbath, but carnal and worldly all the week; whose outside is swept and garnished, but they have a legion of devils ruling and raging within; hence they are ready to say, if such a course of life does well for others, why not for us? if they are satisfied, why may not we? Thus it is probable the foolish virgins kept one another in countenance; one was contented without oil in the vessel because others were so; one slumbered and slept because the rest did so; and those who thus slept together in this world, now suffer together in the next: "they came too late, and the door was shut."

Let me now seriously address myself to the persons characterised in my text; and may what I say be as a goad, and as a nail fastened in a sure place by the Master of assemblies! and

1. Do any of you, my dear friends, measure yourselves by yourselves? Perhaps you will say, "Is there any harm in that?-nay, is it not an incumbent duty so to do?" Yes; but do not take the two extremes, and bring them together, when you were at the greatest distance from God, and utter enemies even to the appearance of good, and when you found some strong workings of affection towards things of a divine and spiritual nature, and presently conclude, that the difference between these two extremes is a sufficient indication of a real change of heart. In a word, measure yourselves, but let your measurement not be slight and superficial, but accurate and just. Do not go by conjecture, but make use of an approved standard, a certain rule,—even that rule by which you will be judged another

day. God gave the apostle a rod to measure the temple; and to measure yourselves he has given you his holy word. Many do not like to have their self-confidence disturbed, or to be roused out of a state of indolence, and, therefore, if they set down to the great duty of self-examination, it is not to attain a clearer knowledge, but to remain in the same ignorance of themselves; not so much to be informed as to be deceived. Some rest in their convictions, some in their prayers, some in their just and benevolent actions, and others in their self-examinations; and when they have measured themselves by themselves, whatever the issue may be, they sit down contented, check their doubts, and resolve to hope, though all rational grounds of hope are wanting. Now these are the fools spoken of in my text, who should therefore go to God, and say, "Lord, do thou measure me; thou wilt measure me hereafter, do it now; do that for me which I am so apt to neglect myself; examine me, O Lord, and prove me; try my reins and my heart."

2. Do you compare yourselves among yourselves,-that is, with our fellow-creatures, the best of whom have their faults and follies? This is like trying the evenness of things by a crooked stick, as Archbishop Leighton expresses it, and will only prove fuel for our pride, and lull us into carnal security; but let us compare ourselves with the holy and righteous law, or rather with the holy and righteous Lawgiver. This is a comparison which will always humble us in the dust. Thus it was to Job, who said, "I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes;" thus it was to Isaiah, who said, "Woe is me! for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." Whenever we are in danger of being exalted above measure, let us think of God. "Behold! even to the moon, and it shineth not; yea, the stars are not pure in his sight. How much less man, that is a worm? and the son of man, which is a worm?"

SERMON LVII.

THE DANGER AND SIN OF IDOLATRY.

JOHN V. 21.

Little children, keep yourselves from idols.

By the persons here addressed under the character of little children, the apostle may mean all true believers, especially those in whose conversion to God he had been instrumental. It implies the love that he bore to them, and the duty they owed of reverence and obedience. Or he may have a more immediate respect to young and inexperienced Christians, apt to stumble, and easily drawn aside from the path of duty, who have much of the infirmity and weakness of little children, and, therefore, need all the help and assistance that can be afforded to them. Such, therefore, he exhorts in the most pathetic manner,-" Little children, keep yourselves from idols;" let your danger excite your caution, and let the endearing relation between us enforce the advice I give you, which is always salutary, and at the present time so seasonable. Here I shall open the nature of that idolatry which is the subject of the apostle's declaration, and then, by way of improvement, propose some arguments to enforce the dehortation itself.

I. I am to open the nature of that idolatry which is the subject of this dehortation.

The grossest kind of idolatry was that of the heathen nations, some of whom worshipped the sun, moon, and

stars, either ascribing divinity to those celestial luminaries, or paying their homage to some spiritual intelligences which they supposed to reside in them. Others discovered a religious regard to departed heroes, by whom, when living, mankind had been instructed in useful arts and sciences, or protected in the enjoyment of their civil liberties. Others, again, have been so stupid as to bow down before stocks and stones, the work of their own hands, concerning whom the Psalmist justly observes, "They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not: they have ears, but they hear not: noses have they, but they smell not they have hands, but they handle not: feet have they, but they walk not; neither speak they through their throat. They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them." And, lastly, it appears that a great part of the African and American savages worship the devil.

Near akin to this is the idolatry of the Roman Catholics, not only in the invocation of saints and angels, the undue reverence they show to pictures and images, such as of Christ upon the cross, the Holy Spirit in the shape of a dove, and God the Father represented as an old man sitting in a chair of state; but especially in their adoration of a consecrated wafer, which they suppose, in spite of the testimony of their senses, and a thousand arguments urged from reason and Scripture, to be the identical body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, so that they do what none ever did before, adore their God and eat it.

But, blessed be God, we are neither papists nor heathens; we neither worship a God of bread, nor idols of gold and silver, brass, wood, or stone; we have none such in our temples, we have none such in our houses; nay, perhaps some of us are ignorant of the very names of those fabulous deities to which the Gentile nations paid their adorations. Well, be it so; but remember, there is a kind of idolatry more secret and refined. Have you, my dear friends, no stumbling-blocks