SERMON XVI. God and Mammon. MATT. vi. 24. "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." THE object of our Saviour's discourse in that part of the sixth chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel which I have read, is to shew the impossibility of combining God's service with the service of the world, and to prove that we are secure of having everything that is needful for us in the present life on earth if we prefer the service of God, which, as it is our natural duty, so it is also our truest interest. The argument He uses is drawn from the manifest provision of Divine Providence in the natural world, from whence it is reasonably inferred that He who takes such care of the lower parts of His creation, will not neglect us, who are the chief of His works, but most assuredly, if we be not wanting in our duty, will give us everything that is good and necessary for our well-being. Our Saviour lays the foundation of the lesson upon this maxim, that "No one can serve two masters, for," says He, "he will either hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other." The service here spoken of is not the service of necessity, but of choice; for the object being to recommend one service above the other, manifestly implies a freedom of the will to choose. The service of which our Lord speaks, then, is the service of a free man,-free to choose the master he will serve. It is the service, I say, of one whose heart may be attached by benefits received, so as that he may be induced by love and gratitude to serve a good master willingly and with delight; and whose own interest also is so nearly affected by the nature of the service he performs, as well as by its reward, that his understanding may be engaged to serve with zeal, himself expecting an increase of happiness and wealth through the power and influence of his Lord. In this sense our Saviour asserts that "No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other." Being left at liberty to choose, he will naturally compare the masters and the wages that they offer; and as his heart and understanding lead, he will prefer one, either because he is a good master, or because he gives good wages, or both, and he will serve the one that he prefers. In application of this clear and self-evident proposition, which all can understand, and none better than they who have their bread to get by labour, our Saviour addressed His hearers, and said, "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon. Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, nor yet for the body what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment ?" Our Lord teaches that the service of God and the service of the world are a case in point: the God of heaven and the god of this world are as two masters, of whom men must choose which to serve, since it is impossible for them to serve both. This doctrine is one of those facts which the Gospel hath brought to light. The incompatibility of God's service and the world's is a truth which, had it not been thus declared, it would have been difficult for men in general to have ascertained, for they could hardly have known but by revelation, or some instruction from above, the true nature of either service. Yet the doctrine is not to be taken absolutely and without restriction, but a rule may be observed which will define its meaning. Taken absolutely, it would seem to imply, and the precepts which are drawn from it, taken absolutely, would seem to prove, that it were impossible for a man to serve God while he is actively and earnestly engaged in the business of life. But this cannot be our Saviour's meaning; since if it were, it would not be applicable to the circumstances of mankind, nor consistent with the general doctrine of the Word of God, "for then," as the Apostle said, "we must needs go out of the world," whereas God hath appointed us to live in it. But the rule by which our Lord's meaning is restricted lies in the nature of the service, which is not forced and necessary, but the free a 1 Cor. v. 10. obedience of the heart and understanding. So far as the service of the world is a necessary service, so far as we must needs be conversant with its concerns, it hath no connection with the question, and cannot be opposed to the service of God, of which indeed, as the necessary business of human life, it is an essential part; but so far as the service of the world is a service of affection and choice, for the sake of what the world has to give, it is justly opposed to the service of God, with which it is declared to be incompatible: that is, so far as men propose to themselves even the necessary things of this life, without submission to the will of God, but much more when they propose its good and pleasant things as worthy of their pursuit for the sake of gratification and enjoyment here,-in this the service of the world is opposed to the service of God. For God's service promises nothing of the sort; nothing like ease, gratification, or enjoyment here; but His Word absolutely declares that earthly gratifications are often dangerous, and generally unprofitable, and points out the more substantial joys of a distant day and of a spiritual nature, as worthier of our pursuit; and promises to confer the same upon us in abundance beyond our present wishes, and in degree far beyond our conception. When men, therefore, seek as their first object the comforts and gratifications which the present world affords, they evidently hold to the world and despise the wages of God's service, preferring the present to the future. Again, when past enjoyments and present pleasures affect the heart, and men, for the gratification's sake they have experienced, love the things that have afforded it, they more readily cultivate and serve that world to which those things belong. Now, on the other hand, since the service of God is naturally productive of trials, of suffering, and affliction,—since its precepts inculcate mortification and self-denial, having no other source of present enjoyment but the inward consciousness of peace and the hope of a future alteration for the better, and of distant, though final and lasting, happiness,-in this respect also the service of God and the service of the world are clearly in opposition. And when men in this way love the things of the world, they indisputably can have no relish for the things of God. And, in this restricted sense to the freewill service of the heart and the understanding, it is impossible for us, as our Lord teaches, "to serve God and Mammon." The doctrine may not be very grateful to human nature as it is, but it is nevertheless true and agreeable to reason. The use of it is to prevent us from deceiving ourselves, for we are too ready to suppose, or rather to flatter ourselves somehow, that, if we generally fear God, and are upright when not tempted to be otherwise, circumstances may be allowed to plead for an occasional departure from the straighter paths of sincerity and truth. We are but too apt fondly to imagine that we at least have been fortunate enough to discover a mode of serving God, and keeping well with the ways and manners of a |