Who that is in pain shall eat, or drink, And if we felt our

riches in comparison with healing and pardon. and bodily danger is so anxious about what he or be clothed with; as how he may be cured? burden, and regarded our danger, we should be indifferent to every thing but the recovery of God's favor and likeness. Who in sickness does not deny himself? and who quarrels with an effectual mode of cure? Nor should we quarrel with God's method of saving the world, if we had a just apprehension of our danger. We should eagerly accept the salvation offered upon God's own terms. Till we obtain the right sense of our sin, the sayings of Christ will ever be "hard," and even a stumbling block.

2. A second reason is, an excessive love of the world. This is a base passion, but it is a part of our degradation; and degrading indeed it is to us, when we recollect that we are but travellers, passing through this country. Yet we set our hearts on every thing we see, and forget our home. We are immortal; and yet love that which we must soon quit for ever. Can this be right? Does this accord with our condition as men? It is one of the developements of our worldliness of spirit, that it makes the "sayings" of Christ "hard." Why do rich men so hardly enter into the kingdom of God? Because of the love of the world. Their hearts are set upon wealth, honor, pleasure. Why are men anxiously careful for the morrow? Because of the same love of the world. They fear loss and humiliation, and lest what is so anxiously hoped for should not be obtained. They wish to see the outward good which they love heaped around them, instead of being willing to have their store only in the daily supplies of God's providence.

For the same reason men do not deny themselves. What they are required to put away is more loved than that which is offered. On this ground, too, pardon on God's terms is declined, or quarrelled with. It is not that which men want, but an earthly gratification. Till this love of the world be expelled from our hearts, we shall never cordially accept the sayings of Christ.

Yet are the sayings of Christ full of mercy. They imbody truths which cannot be altered; and it is therefore a mercy that we should know them. God deals openly with us; and for this we should be thankful. Both the rich and the poor must have their peculiar trial and temptation. Sin cannot be permitted, and therefore we must deny ourselves. In one way only will God pardon us; and it is a mercy to us that we should know it. Find no fault with the great Teacher. To wish that he had not spoken so plainly, is to wish that we might be deluded.

These "hard sayings" only meet the case of man, miserable, corrupt, and guilty. Look at them carefully and candidly, and you will find them all to be sayings of mercy. You are not to love the world. Is not that love a source of misery? The same may be said of the pride and selfishness against which we are warned. Anxiety for the future is not only useless, but pernicious. Self-indulgence is the strengthening of our corruption. The body ought to be subjected to the mind. As to the method of our pardon, the sayings of Christ exactly meet our case. We have nothing to pay; and God, for Christ's sake, frankly forgives us all.