ceive (x). Bleffings in the prefent life, blesfings beyond the grave, are enfured to thofe who are bountiful; bountiful, that is to fay, from the Christian motive. When the divine bleffing is pledged to attend any courfe of conduct, it is on the affumption that the conduct proceeds from love to God. Otherwise, ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Let bounty be the fruit of religion; and alms no less than prayers fhall come up for a memorial before God (y). Blessed is he that confidereth the poor: the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble.

The Lord will preferve him, and keep him alive, and he shall be blessed upon the earth: Thou wilt not deliver him into the will of his enemies. The Lord will strengthen him upon his bed of languishing. Thou wilt make all his bed in his fickness. Come, ye bleffed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a ftranger, and ye took me in; naked, and ye clothed me (z). You know the reverse of the defcription. You know the doom of the uncharitable.

(y) Acts, x 4.

(x) Acts, xx. 35.
(≈) Pfalm xli. 1—3.

Matth. xxv. 34, 35.

My

My brethren, as children and stewards of God, objects of His love and difpenfers of His bleffings, inay 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) I Theff. iii. 12.

SER

SERMON 'ΧΙ.

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 Christian or unchristian temper on Morality is manifeft. There are other difpofitions, Chriftian and their contraries, as humility, pride, gratitude, unthankfulnefs, 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 corr duct towards men depends.

In the present difcourfe the nature and the effects of Discontent, a temper wholly oppofite to a Christian difpofition, are to be inves tigated.

The parable of the labourers in the vine, yard 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 Christ, the admiffion of the Gentiles to a participation of the bleflings of the gofpel on a footing of equality with the defcendents from Abraham: and partly, to warn men in all future ages

againft

against 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 assembled 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 should also be paid to the others, who had been hired at later periods of the forenoon, or in the afternoon, or even but an hour before funfet. This determination raised no inconfiderable discontent 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. Disappointed in their expectation, they murmured against the good man of the boufe, faying; Thefe laft have wrought but one hour, and thou haft made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and beat of the day. But he answered one of them, fome one who stood 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

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