therefore, of course, that they must, in many instances, unite for that purpose, and act together. The principles upon which they unite, must be kind affection and harmonizing virtue, such as may extend the interests of charity, and of sympathizing benevolence and of Christian love, in the intercourses of life. Such persons will, in every circumstance, examine their own consciences, to ascertain whether their views be upright and beneficent;--and the known will of God is the test by which they will try them, if any difficulties occur. By this procedure, they will discharge the business of life honestly in every scene, in their private families,-in the wider circle of their transactions with their neighbours,-and in their co-operation with those whom, on account of their good qualities, they have selected as friends. They will mutually assist each other in every laudable and useful undertaking;-and they will not attempt to advance their own separate interests, except in concurrence with the public welfare, without which, no private welfare that they can wish to promote, can be lasting. And all this must be done upon principles of sound religion-of that religion which calls men to glory and happiness, through the practice of every virtue, beginning with the sentiments of kind affection, and settling into habits of beneficence. It is the Christian religion alone that can implant in the understanding the steady conviction that all this is our duty, and that we shall be called to account for the stedfast and conscientious discharge of it. The

spirit of this religion includes every thing that is connected with goodness:-it declines no act, that is not, in its nature or its tendency, immorally foolish, vicious, or malicious. But "we cannot serve God and mammon." A sincere regard for good men, and a close connexion with bad men, are things incompatible with each other. Schemes of sensuality, of corruption, and of oppression,-so frequent in this world-are not the schemes that Christians can form or promote: for men cease to be Christians, when they become parties in them. All such guilty combinations are, in themselves, an avowed resistance to the will of God; and consequently all who join in them are exposed to the just condemnation of our all-righteous Judge. Whoever, therefore, will form a friendship with the world in its worst sense, by countenancing and supporting those kinds of associations, are enemies to our holy religion, and enemies to its great Author. Christ will acknowledge none of them as his disciples: for they are manifestly not in union with him. It is only by "keeping his commandments that we can abide in his love." By such obedience only can the joy of a pure and unsullied conscience comfort us on earth, and be filled and perfected in a better world. May we, therefore, so use this world as good Christians ought to use it,and make God our friend!

SERMON VIII.

THE TEN LEPERS.

LUKE xvii. 17, 18.

And Jesus answering, said, Were there not ten cleansed ?—but where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger.

WHEN our blessed Saviour had taken his last leave of Galilee, and, preparatory to the completion of his great sacrifice on the cross, was passing on to Jerusalem through the intermediate country of Samaria, there met him, at the entrance of a village, ten men who were afflicted with the leprosy. St. Luke describes them as "standing afar off," the reason of which was, that for the sake of preventing contagion, persons who had that disease were required by the Jewish law, to "dwell alone," and to avoid approaching those places which were frequented by healthy persons. These lepers, who, we may take

*Levit. xiii. 46. *

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it for granted, had heard of the miraculous cures which our Saviour had performed, and had so much faith in him as to believe that he was able to cure them, implored with loud supplication his mercy. "And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests." Upon this part of St. Luke's narrative, two questions may be asked :— "Did our Lord, then, not touch or approach these infected sufferers ?"-and-" What was the meaning of his ordering them to shew themselves to the priests?" The answer to the first of these questions is, that he did not touch them, and that probably he went no nearer to them than the spot where he heard their distant intreaty. This we can account for, partly, from his respect to the Jewish law, and partly, from his divine power of healing the diseased however remote from him. His respect for the law was so exemplary that he always conformed to it, in the rational and true method of conformity. True it is, that his enemies sometimes reproached him for violating the sabbath, but he always justified himself even from that charge, by shewing that he, indeed, sanctified the sabbath, not only by observing its holy rest in the true sense of the word, but by performing also works of mercy and beneficence on that sacred day. As the ten lepers, then, kept themselves aloof from him, because, in their state of uncleanness, it was not lawful for them to mix with the public, he seems to have kept at a distance from them for that very reason, or partly so:-though we know that

in the case of another leper in an earlier part of the Gospel history, our Saviour "put forth his hand, and touched"* the patient. His principal reason, however, for not approaching those lepers to whom the text relates, was, unquestionably, to shew the efficacy of his divine power,-to convince even the most incredulous of his attendants or hearers that he could heal diseases, without coming into contact with the parties afflicted. Several instances, indeed, of this had occurred in the previous exercises of his ministry; and this was only a new proof and corroboration of his possessing that faculty.

Then, as to the other question, "What was the meaning of his ordering them to shew themselves to the priests?"—the answer is, that it implied his fulfilling the request which the ten lepers made to him. For the Jewish priests could not cure diseases :--but it was part of their office, and particularly in cases of leprosy-of which a very full account is given in the 13th and 14th chapters of Leviticus,-to examine the state of the person diseased, and to pronounce whether that person was clean or unclean. Our Saviour's answer to the lepers amounted to this-and so they understood it-"Go, shew yourselves to the priests, and you will have the comfort of finding, in consequence of my miraculous removal of your complaint before you arrive thither, that they will pronounce you to be perfectly healed, and therefore free, in the legal sense, from all impurity." Here again was an

*Matt. viii. 3.