connected with their object, but in a distorted and unfavourable point of view. There may, no doubt, be instances of misconduct, so gross, so repeated, and so aggravated, that no stretch of candour or charity can put any other construction upon them, than that they indicate fixed habits, either of unprincipled malignity, or of abandoned profligacy. In such cases, if signal disgraces, defeats and calamities are seen to overtake the offenders, it seems impossible to form any other opinion, than that they are indubitable signs of Divine displeasure. Still, however, we are bound to bear in mind, that every dispensation of Providence, here below, is ordained in mercy and pity. To the all-gracious God no vindictive feeling must, in any case, be imputed. Of the demerits of the sufferers there may be no room to doubt; but it is their reformation which he has in view. It is in a future life, not here, that the final punishment of the irreclaimable is to take place: and so long as the Almighty suffers the offenders to live, we may be assured, that he does not exclude them from the benefit of repentance. The general belief, that whatever passes here below is observed by an eye that can never be closed; directed by an intellect that never can err; and prompted by a love to mankind that even their offences can scarcely abate; will inspire us with gratitude and humility, when every thing succeeds to our wishes; and, in adversity, with patience and fortitude. Numerous are the occasions, in which it becomes evident (as in the cure of the man who had been born blind), that the apparent evil, inflicted upon some individual, was designed to conduce in the end, not only to his own good, but to the welfare of many. And, if many cases occur, as must inevitably happen, of which it is impossible for human sagacity either to comprehend the justice, or even to conjecture the design; by these we should but be the more firmly convinced, that there is another and a better world, where an eternal crown is laid up for the righteous, and where the unjust, the oppressor, the impure, the worshipper of Mammon, and all the workers of iniquity, however they may appear to have prospered in this life, will meet a dreadful reverse, and receive the just reward of their misdeeds. SERMON XIII. The Portrait Of Charity. 1 Cor. Xiii. 8. Charity never faileth. When our Lord and Saviour was urged by the Pharisees to decide—" which was the great commandment of the Law"—he instantly replied; '' Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart: this is the first and great commandment; and the second is like unto it; thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets."' To this authority, no doubt, the Apostle of the Gentiles referred, when he reminded the converts at Rome, that " Love is the fulfilling of the Law:" * for, in the preceding sentence, he repeats the very i * Matth. xxii. 37—39. 'Ro"- *'"■ 10« words of that which our Saviour terms "the second commandment" —" thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." Precisely parallel with these expressions is the declaration addressed to Timothy by the same Apostle—that "the end of the commandment is charity:"" for, in the original language, charity and love are expressed by the same word. To the same purpose, in his wellknown and beautiful delineation of charity, he affirms, that "charity never faileth :"—an assertion which I have chosen for the subject of our present reflections, with a view to set before you the vast extent of duties connected with it, by examining, in substance, the entire passage in which it is found. The more closely we look into the nature and effects of this vital principle, the less we shall be surprized at the importance here attached to it. In all possible situations of life; in every department, and at every period, of social intercourse; the influence of charity is discerned by the happiest and most conspicuous results. In the absence of this divine and benignant impulse, even the "1 Tim. i. 5. |