October 9

knowledge than others. We are like the members of the body, all are necessary, but all have not the same office. The eye is for seeing, the hand for working: the one requires light; the other strength.

Above all we should learn from hence to compare our advantages with those of others. If superior, their pre-eminence should be applied to three purposes. First, to produce gratitude. "He hath not dealt so with any nation; and as for his judgments, they have not known them. Praise ye the Lord." Not that our gratitude is to turn on the destitution of others: but we need contrasts to excite our feelings. Thus, to induce us the more to be thankful for health, we compare ourselves with those who are made to possess months of vanity, and have wearisome nights appointed unto them. And thus we teach our children to say,

"No more than others I deserve, Yet God hath given me more; For I have food while others starve, Or beg from door to door."

And did we deserve our religious privileges? Did it depend upon us in what country we should be born, whether heathen or Christian, popish or protestant? Or from what parents we should descend, whether such as would neglect our souls or bring us up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? Who sent us an evangelical ministry? Why have we been fed with the choicest of the wheat, and with honey out of the rock have we been satisfied? "Not unto us, O Lord, but unto thy name be glory." Secondly, to promote holiness. It would be shameful if persons below us in means and advantages should be above us in attainment and practice. Surely there is to be a correspondence between privilege and duty. He who holds the largest farm must expect to pay the largest rent. Where much is given much will be required. "What do ye more than others?" The Lord does not look for much where he bestows little; and he will not accept of little where he bestows much. Thirdly, to awaken fear. "That servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes." "To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin." And what ignorance can we plead? Or what want of motive? Or what refusal of assistance? "Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it." How did our Saviour upbraid the cities in which he had done so many mighty works, because they repented not: "Wo unto thee, Chorazin! wo unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you."

OCTOBER 9.—"All the house of Israel are hardhearted."—EZEKIEL in 7.

How is this charge to be taken? There are two things in which hardness of heart is to be known; insensibility and inflexibleness.

A hard heart is an insensible heart. The Apostle speaks of "men being past feeling." This is to be restrained to its subject. He does not refer to inhumanity, but impiety. Persons may have

feeling in other things, but here the senselessness regards "the things of the Spirit." Feeling, though not the noblest of our senses, is the most necessary and extensive: other senses are confined to particular parts, but feeling is diffused over the whole body. When there is no feeling in a member there is no more intercourse of the animal and vital spirits: and where feeling is totally absent there are no remains of life. There may be life where other senses are wanting. A man may be deaf and alive, blind and alive, scentless and alive; but if he has no feeling he must be dead. Upon the same principle the Apostle says men are "dead in trespasses and sins;" and as a dead body is insensible to material things around it, so it is with the unrenewed soul! it meets all the objects and agencies of the spiritual world with indifference and unconcern. Though he is charged with numberless transgressions, and the wrath of God abideth on him, he is sensible of no burden, and though destruction and misery are in his ways he is secure and unalarmed.

A hard heart is an inflexible heart.

It does not yield to the dictates of his word. At this a good man trembles. As he turns to the Scriptures he says, I will hear what God the Lord shall speak: but the hardened sinner says, with Pharaoh, "Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice?" He may not indeed in so many terms, but he really says unto God, "Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways." Though God reproves, encourages, asserts his authority, displays the reasonableness of his commands, addresses our hope and our fear, draws back the veil that hides the eternal world, and sets life and death, blessing and cursing, before them, they turn away from him that speaketh, and reject the counsel of God against themselves.

It does not yield to the dispensations of his providence. God begins perhaps with others; and a good man when he sees their visitations, says with David, "My flesh trembleth for fear of thee, and I am afraid of thy judgments." It is the design of them: "I have cut off the nations: their towers are desolate; I made their streets waste, that none passeth by: their cities are destroyed, so that there is no man, that there is none inhabitant. I said, Surely thou wilt fear me, thou wilt receive instruction; but they rose up, and corrupted all their doings." He then comes nearer, and strikes themselves. He afflicts them in time, that they may not be condemned for ever. But they regard the suffering as the effects of chance; they feel the pain, but never think of the procuring cause, which is sin, or the final cause, which is their spiritual profit. Yea, sometimes instead of falling in with the design, they directly oppose it; when stricken they strike again; they rush upon the thick bosses of his buckler, and "say in the pride and stoutness of heart, The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones; the sycamores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars." Nothing can be more offensive to God than such stubbornness as this;—"In the time of his distress did he trespass yet more against the Lord: this is that king Ahaz." It is equally inflexible to kindness and mercy. Other creatures live upon God, but they are incapable of knowing the source of their supplies; but the inspiration of the Almighty giveth man understanding, and enables him to see the cause and author of all good; and a tender heart would love and acknowledge