My brethren, as children and stewards of God, objects of His love and dispensers of His bleffings, may we give all diligence in the exercife of Chriftian bounty; of bounty habitual, ample, cheerful, difcriminating ; bounty directed to the glory of God, bounty for the fake, and according to the example, of our Redeemer. May the Lord make us to encreafe and abound in love one towards another, and towards all men (a) !

(a) Theff. iii. 12.

SER

SERMON XI.

ON DISCONTent.

MATTH. XX. 15.

Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?

CHRISTIAN tempers, and their oppo

fites, have an intimate connection with Christian Morality. The one, and of course the other, may be in their nature fuch, that their immediate exercife can reach only to men. Thus of the Chriftian temper, Liberality, and of its oppofite, Covetousness, man only can be the actual object. In this cafe, and in every fimilar example, the influence of the Chriftian or unchriftian temper on Morality is manifeft. There are other difpofitions, Chriftian and their contraries, as humility, pride, gratitude, unthankfulness, of which the immediate exercise may be directed either towards God or towards men. When it is directed towards men,

the influence on Morality is unequivocal. Nor, when the exercife of the difpofition is directed towards God, is the influence on Morality difputable. The exercise towards God of any frame of mind, becoming or unbecoming one of His creatures, has a decided bearing on the Morality of the individual: partly, by forming a habit of mind favourable or unfavourable to right conduct towards men; and partly, by promoting or impeding thofe communications of divine grace, on which, as the fruit of the vine-branch on nutriment derived from the vine, right condu towards men depends.!.

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in the prefent difcourfe the nature and the effects of Difcontent, a temper wholly oppofite to a Chriftian difpofition, are to be investigated.or

The parable of the labourers in the vineyard appears to have had, like other parables delivered by our Lord, a twofold purpose. It seems to have been defigned partly, to indicate in a prophetical manner the malignant diffatisfaction, with which the Jews. would contemplate, after the afcenfion of Chrift, the admiffion of the Gentiles to a participation of the bleffings of the gofpel on a footing of equality with the defcendents from Abraham: and partly, to warn men in all future ages

againft

gainst the indulgence of a kindred spirit of difcontent on any other occafion. It is to the latter purpose that the parable is now to be applied...

When the labourers affembled in the evening to receive their wages, the owner of the Vineyard bountifully directed that a fum the fame with that which he had contracted to give to the perfons who had been hired early in the morning fhould also be paid to the others, who had been hired at later periods of the forenpon, or in the afternoon, or even but an hour before funfet. This determination raised no inconfiderable difcontent among the labourers who had been fent early to the work, and who now imagined that they fhould receive an addition to the terms for which they had bargained. Difappointed in their expectation, they murmured against the good man of the house, faying; Thefe last have wrought but one hour, and thou haft made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day. But he answered one of them, fome one who ftood forward more clamorously than the reft, and faid; Friend, I do thee no wrong. Didft not thou agree with me for a penny? Take that thine is, and go thy way. I will give unto this laft even as unto thee. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with

mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good? We may easily suppose the master, kind no lefs than juft, to have perceived various motives, which might well induce a man of fuch principles to act as he had done. Perhaps

he was aware that it was not from unwillinguefs to labour that several sets of his workmen had loft parts of the day; but merely because no man had hired them. Perhaps he obferved that, when they were fent into his vineyard, they worked with greater diligence than their companions who had been hired fooner. Perhaps he reflected, that the men, who were hired at the eleventh hour, would have to pay as much money for the maintainance during the past day of themselves and their families as the others. At any rate, he was under no obligation to account to the murmurers for the reasons of his liberality to the reft. They did not complain that he was withholding from them any portion of the fum which he had promifed. They did not intimate that the fum which they received from him was not an equitable recompenfe for their labour. Their eye was evil, because he was good. they were grudging.

Because he was kind,
Did that fpirit point

them out as worthy objects of bounty? And was not the master to be the judge where

it