we should behave, if God should place us in such, or such circumstances of life-how well we should bestow our wealth, if we were rich; or how vigorously we should act, if God should give us power and authority. All this is absurd. Let us consider only the station in which we are placed. This is our proper business; the whole of our concern here and we may be assured, that he who misapplies the talent he has, would find some excuse for misapplying a superior talent, if it had been intrusted to him. MATTHEW, xxii. 14. MANY ARE CALLED; BUT FEW ARE CH THIS passage, among others, has been s ly perverted by those christians, who inter as if God Almighty had decreed some me eternally happy, and others eternally mis Our own good lives have nothing to say matter. Our Saviour's merits have not say in it. It is God's decree. We rea many are called; but few chosen-that they, out of the number of us sinners, God such a particular set, by his absolute decre all the rest must perish. I think it needless to confute this mischievous interpretation of the text. Indeed it sufficiently confutes itself. Many, we are told, are called. What is meant by being called? It is ridiculous to suppose God calls any one, who cannot answer the call.The real interpretation of the text therefore seems to be this. The christian religion is the call of repentance to many: but, alas! out of these many, very few qualify themselves by their holy lives, to accept its mercies. So that, although many are called, few are chosen: but they are rejected, not through God's decree, but through their own fault. THE text, thus explained, naturally leads us to take a view of the many who are called; that is, of the different kinds of christians-if we are to give all people that name, who live in a christian country. I shall consider them under three heads -as openly wicked men-as specious, or decent men-and as truly religious men: and I shall leave you all to judge, as I go on, among which of them. you are to rank yourselves. IN the first place, by openly wicked men, we mean all those, who are under no kind of restraint either E 2 effect upon them. They trouble themselv more about the next world; and what is come of their souls after death; than if the no souls.All fear of the next world the being removed, we need not wonder to see prepared for any kind of wickedness. Th generally abandoned to low pleasures; an come knaves, because their pleasures make a demand upon them, than they can satisfy honest way. Many of you, I doubt not, have me these men of pleasure, who, without any employment, live upon their wits, as it is ca that is, upon their own knavery, and the plicity of others.-They are found both in life and low.I need not however len my description of this race of men; as none I am persuaded, are among my present he They are not a church-going people. Less religion have no effect upon them. The ន straint only is what the law lays upon them. The jail and the gallows are the only objects of their fear. One thing however let me add; all these profligate people are certainly among those who are called. They are called, every day, by those opportunities of knowing their duty, which, in a christian country, they can never want. If they live within the hearing of a church-bell, they have a call to their duty.-They are called too by their own sense of right and wrong; by. the admonitions of reason; the advice often of friends; and the remonstrances of conscience.They are called also to a better sense of things by the little satisfaction they feel in their ungodly gains, and ungodly pleasures; and by the distresses of various kinds, which they often bring upon themselves and lastly, before things come to this extremity, they are continually called by the bad example of others; who, by following the same wicked courses, draw upon themselves, often fatal, always mischievous consequences.And sometimes it happens, that by one or other of these gracious calls, their hardened hearts are softened they lament their past lives; they acknowledge the grace of God: they repent |