praise. It is its natural favourite, because it implies the presence of some engaging properties which render the intercourse of life easy and agreeable. But we should recollect, that in too many this amiableness of temper is, as in Esau, a mere moral qualification, or gift of nature, and may be found in those who are quite aliens to the "one thing needful"-without any deep reverence for God, or any serious impressions of divine things. Little, therefore, does it merit the exclusive admiration it receives, and still less is it to be admitted as a substitute for a principle of religion in the soul. Yet a principle of religion in the soul is not always accompanied by the fruits of righteousness; and such is the deceitfulness of the heart, that the consciousness of the holiness of our general views is apt to make us careless about any little deviations from the moral law. Jacob, with all his desire for God's blessing, and however zealously affected towards the interests of godliness, yet sinks before the profaneness of his brother, in some of the minor charities of life, and appears at times neither so amiable nor so sincere as Esau. The unbelieving world and the world in general, are apt to censure him too severely for those faults, and in their esteem for what is delightful in a companion, rather than what is truly excellent in the sight of God, to condemn both him and every other professor of

piety, who may fall into a fault, as guilty of the worst hypocrisy towards his Maker. On the other hand, the religious world are far too anxious to palliate, or to deny, the existence of the failings of pious individuals, and far too careless of preserving the spirit of cheerfulness in themselves, and of kindness to their brethren. In the earnestness of the pursuit after personal holiness, they regard too little the effect which their ungenial conduct produces on the happiness of others. Against all these faults we may learn to guard from the examples before us. We may there see, not only how valueless are the more amiable qualities of disposition and temper if not sanctified by piety, but also how shameful and how sinful it is, for piety to relax in the smallest degree from the strictness of the moral law, or to neglect the cultivation of the generous and engaging qualities of the heart.

In regulating the affections in domestic life, the lesson we are taught is that of founding them upon some solid basis, and directing them to worthy objects. Regarding only the lusts of the eye, or the dictates of appetite, Isaac fixed his partial love upon his less deserving child, and Esau chose the wife of his bosom from the enemies of the Lord and to the grief of his parents; and the consequences to both were misery and sin. It is

indeed a fearful error to imagine we have a right to dispose of our affections as we will. In their direction, their duration, and degree, they are to be regulated and controlled, like any other gift of God, and to be applied, as they have been communicated, to his, and his people's use and service.

These are the instructions to be gathered from the whole; and if we will but duly examine how liable we are to fail; nay, how frequently we have already transgressed the holiness of God's law upon these points, we shall then be prepared more fully to appreciate our danger, more deeply to be affected by the punishment with which we shall perceive, in our next Discourse, that these errors, in the present instance were visited, and more effectually moved to repentance and to vigilance, lest the same punishment should fall upon ourselves.

LECTURE XVII.

JACOB AND ESAU.

PART II.

EZEKIEL Xxii. 17, 18, 19.

"Their own way have I recompensed upon their heads, saith the Lord God."

THE utmost which retributive justice can legiti mately inflict upon the transgressors of a law, is a punishment proportioned to the offence. It would be a manifest advantage, doubtless, if this punishment were made to follow immediately after the commission of the crime; to arise out of the very circumstances of the transgression; and to bear in all its parts the impress of retaliation as well as judgement. For when the sword with which the murderer has pierced his brother's breast is plunged the very next moment into his own, we are struck with an additional awe. But though the readiness with which the arm of vengeance is lifted up, and the analogy between the penalty

and the guilt be indeed powerful in their effect upon the feelings, they are not absolutely necessary to the ends of substantial justice. If the slayer be slain, no matter how, we deem it enough to give a warning to others against the repetition of the crime and neither the practice nor the precepts of any human legislators prescribe an uniform similitude between the sin committed and the suffering endured. They measure, but they do not mould, the one by the other.

Such being the principles upon which sentence is usually pronounced against a malefactor; and the certainty rather than the time or manner of visiting guilt with the proper degree of punishment, being that which it is of most consequence to bring home to the reflections of mankind, we may next observe, that in order to justify the ways of God to man, it is not necessary that the displeasure of the Almighty against every individual sinner should be uniformly manifested in the life that now is. Confiding in the unerring equity of the Lord, and believing in the reality of a future state, we have no reason for condemning the ways of Providence as unjust, merely because we behold the ungodly rejoicing in the prosperity of the present world. We know that" doubtless there is a God that judgeth the earth,'

a Psalm lviii. 11.