have I to do with the multitude of your sacrifices? saith the Lord." "I am full of the burnt-offerings of rams, and of the fat of fed beasts. When ye come to appear before Me, who required this at your hands? bring no more vain oblations: incense is an abomination to Me: I can not suffer your new moons, nor sabbaths, nor solemn days, it is iniquity, even your solemn assemblies: My soul hateth your new moons, and appointed feasts: they are a burden to Me, I am weary to bear them; and when you shall stretch out your hands, I will hide Mine eyes from you; and though you make many prayers, I will not hear; for your hands are full of blood."

And again, "He that kills an ox is as if he slew a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb as if he cut off a dog's neck; he that offereth an oblation as if he offered swine's flesh; he that burneth incense as if he blessed an idol." And what is the reason of this strange aversion of God from his own ordinances? It follows in the next words: "They have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations."

Terrible are the words which he speaketh to the same purpose in the prophecy of Amos, "I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies: though you offer Me burnt-offerings, and meat-offerings, I will not accept them; nor will I regard your peace-offerings."

Now, beloved, if this hypocrisy, this resting in outward performances, were so odious to God under the law, a religion full of shadows and ceremonies; certainly it will be much more odious to do so under the Gospel, a religion of much more simplicity, and exacting so much the greater sincerity of the heart, even because it disburdens the outward man of the performance of legal rights and observances. And, therefore, if we now under the Gospel shall think to delude God Almighty, as Michal did Saul, with an idol handsomely dressed instead of the true David; if we shall content and please ourselves with being of such or such a sect or profession: with going to church, saying, or hearing of prayers, receiving of sacraments, hearing, repeating, or preaching of sermons, with zeal for ceremonies, or zeal against them; or, indeed, with any thing besides consistent piety toward God, loyalty and obedience toward our sovereign, justice and charity toward all our neighbors, temperance, chastity, and sobriety toward ourselves; certainly we shall one day find that we have not mocked God, but ourselves; and that our portion among hypocrites shall be greater than theirs.

In the next place, let me entreat you to consider the fearful judgment which God hath particularly threatened to this very sin,

of drawing nigh unto Him with our lips, when our hearts are far from Him. It is the great judgment of being given over to the spirit of slumber and security, the usual forerunner of speedy desolation and destruction, as we may see in the twenty-ninth chapter of Isaiah, from the ninth to the fourteenth verses: "Stay yourselves and wonder, cry ye out, and cry, They are drunken, but not with wine, they stagger, but not with strong drink; for the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes. The prophets, and your rulers the seers, hath He covered:" and after, at the fourteenth verse, "The wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid." Certainly, this judgment, if ever it were upon any people, we have cause to fear it is now upon us. For, if the spirit of deep sleep were not upon us, how could we sleep so securely even upon the brink of the pit of perdition? How could we proceed on so confidently in our mirth and jollity, nay, in our crying sins, and horrible impieties; now when the hand of God is upon us, and wrath is gone out, and even ready to consume us? And if the wisdom of our wise men were not perished, how were it possible they should so obstinately refuse the security offered of our laws, liberties, and religion, by the king's oath, by his execrations on himself, and his posterity, in case he should violate it; by the oaths of all his ministers, not to consent to, or be instruments in, such a violation; by the so-much-desired triennial parliament, from which no transgressors can possibly be secure; and instead of all this security seek for it by a civil war, the continuance whereof must bring us to destruction and desolation; or else He hath deceived us, by whom we are taught, that "a kingdom divided against itself can not stand."

Now, what was the sin which provoked this fearful judgment? What but that which I have labored to convince you of, and to dissuade you from, even the sin of hypocrisy? As we may see at the twelfth verse: "Wherefore, saith the Lord, forasmuch as this people draw near Me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor Me, but have removed their heart far from Me; and their fear toward Me is taught by the precepts of men: therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among them; for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish," etc.

Consider, thirdly, what woes, and woes, and woes, our Saviour thunders out against the scribes and Pharisees for their hypocrisy : "Woe be unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites;" and again and again, "Woe be unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites." Beloved, if we be hypocrites, as they were, "tithe mint and cum

min, and heglect the weighty matters of the law, judgment, and justice, and mercy," as they did; "make long prayers, and under a pretense devour widows' houses," as they did; "wash the outside of the dish and platter," while within we are full of ravening and wickedness; write God's commandments very large and fair upon our phylacteries, but shut them quite out of our hearts; "build the sepulchers of the old prophets," and kill their successors: in fine, if we be like "painted sepulchers, as they were, "outwardly gar nished and beautiful, but within full of dead men's bones and rotten ness;" we are then to make account that all these woes belong to us and will one day overtake us.

Consider, lastly, the terrible example of Ananias and Sapphira, and how they were snatched away in the very act of their sin; and hat their fault was (as the text tells us) that "they lied unto God." Beloved, we have done so a thousand thousand times: our whole lives (if sincerely examined) would appear, I fear, little less but a perpetual lie. Hitherto God hath been merciful to us, and given us time to repent; but let us not proceed still in imitating their fact, lest at length we be made partakers of their fall.

God of His infinite mercy prevent this in every one of us, even for His Son our Saviour Jesus Christ's sake; by whom, and with whom, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, be all honor and glory to the eternal Father, world without end. Amen.

DISCOURSE SIXTEENTH.

RICHARD BAXTER.

THE first half of the seventeenth century will be ever memorable for the brilliant galaxy of great and excellent men which it produced. Not to mention others, this period gave birth to Baxter, and Owen, and Milton, and Flavel, and Leighton, and Bunyan, and Taylor, and Keach, and Tillotson, and Barrow, and Howe, and Phillip Henry. These men, and a few kindred spirits, became the great conservators of virtue and religion, amid the grossest prevailing corruption. Conspicuous among them stands RICHARD BAXTER, whose birth fell on the 12th of November, 1615, at Rawton, in Shropshire. His conversion and deep religious feelings were mainly attributable to the counsels and instructions of his father, and an old tattered book with which he met at the age of fifteen, called "Bunny's Resolution;" composed, originally, by the Jesuit Parsons. Baxter was admitted to orders in connection with the Church of England, in 1638; when his scruples were raised by the oath of "Submission to Archbishops, Bishops," etc., which he utterly rejected; and became pastor of a church in Kidderminster. His ministry at this place covers, in all, about sixteen years; and was eminently successful. Beyond this, though preaching constantly, he held no extended pas

torate.

As a Non-conformist, he suffered much from persecution; being twice seized and condemned to imprisonment, from which, however, he was mercifully delivered. He at length died in 1691, and was interred in Christ Church.

As a pastor, Baxter was most faithful and laborious; presenting, in all respects, a model worthy of imitation. As a preacher, he spoke with earnestness and affection, out of a full soul; as he says in his own memorable lines:

"I preached as never sure to preach again,

And as a dying man to dying men."

He neither preached about his hearers, nor above them, nor beside them, but to them-a genuine pulpit-archer, who, like the Benjaminites, shot

his arrows to the breadth of a hair, leaving his hearers groaning and crying for relief. Amid his untiring pastoral labors Baxter found time to write largely, and his works-by no means of equal value-are computed to be sufficient to fill sixty octavo volumes. As a controversialist some of his writings show him to have indulged in undue severity. It is chiefly because of his practical and devotional writings, such as the "Call to the Unconverted," the "Reformed Pastor," the "Saint's Everlasting Rest," the "Right Method for a Settled Peace and Spiritual Comfort," and "Dying Thoughts," that his name will ever remain fragrant in the churches.

The leading characteristics of Baxter are, eminent piety and vigor of intellect, keenness of logic, burning power and plainness of language, melting pathos, cloudless perspicuity, graceful description, and a certain vehemence of feeling which brings home his words with an irresistible force. He wrote with haste, which, combined with the lack of early literary advantages, makes him inaccurate and slovenly in his style, so that his gems are often incrusted in native earth; yet his amazing genius, his manly eloquence, and his mighty grapple upon the mind, turning it now this way, now that, whithersoever he listeth, entitle him to the name given by Doddridge-the English DEMOSTHENES.

The following is from a sermon first preached at Kidderminster and afterward at London; and which at the time of its delivery produced a profound sensation. The sermon entire, as it comes to us, forms a considerable volume. He has already shown whom it is that men make light of; what it is to make light of Christ; and the cause of this sin. He here comes to the uses of the doctrine, where his powers of argumentation and appeal are generally seen to the best advantage.

MAKING LIGHT OF CHRIST AND SALVATION.

"But they made light of it."—MATT. xxii. 5.

Seeing this is the great condemning sin, before we inquire after it into the hearts of our hearers, it beseems us to begin at home, and see that we, who are preachers of the Gospel, be not guilty of it ourselves. The Lord forbid that they that have undertaken the sacred office of revealing the excellences of Christ to the world, should make light of Him themselves, and slight that salvation which they do daily preach. The Lord knows we are all of us so low in our estimation of Christ, and do this great work so negli gently, that we have cause to be ashamed of our best sermons but should this sin prevail in us, we were the most miserable of all men.