and abstraction-soldiers that hid themselves in the day of battle, labourers that took shelter from the heat and burden of the day. In our time there is not much temptation to seclusion; but if any one under the influence of a fervid piety, feels disposed to leave the station in which Providence has placed him, on account of the obstacles it opposes to his principles, he should well consider, before he recedes, whether they are difficulties or impossibilities; if the latter, he must fly from them. God places no man in a situation in which he cannot live a holy and religious life; therefore, come there how he might, he is not where God would have him be, and must withdraw at any sacrifice ;but if the former, Christ never fled from difficulties, never shunned obloquy, nor hid himself from opposition. Or when the newly awakened spirit feels the ties of natural connexion become onerous by reason of uncongeniality of sentiment, much is to be considered before those ties are severed. We must leave all for Christ, but then we must be sure it is for Christ; we must be

sure it is not to lighten our own cross, by flying from the influence we might have resisted, and escaping the opposition we might have borne with. No earthly ties or earthly duties can be pleaded in excuse for sin. It is impossible; because God never places any man in such an opposition of claims, that one or other of his laws must needs be broken. There is a first commandment, and the second is like unto it; they can never stand in competition. Perhaps we mistake our social duties, calling by that name some sinful compliances, which stain our conscience, whilst we want courage to refuse them. Perhaps the temptation to sin arising from our near connexions, does not so much proceed from without, as from within: we fear their censures, when we should only bear with them; we desire their approbation, when we know it to be against the mind of God. Thus it is our feelings, rather than our connexions, that require to be changed. If no duty binds us to them, and no bonds of providential ap pointment unite us, we may better shew our

honest fear of sin, and willingness to part with all for God, by removing from the temptation, than presuming on our power to overcome it. But we must not break the ties of nature, where we need only loosen them. We must not cease to love, where we should only love differently; and in all cases we must be sure it is the fear of sinning against our principles, not the fear of disgrace and difficulty in maintaining them, that induces us to abandon our position in life, and hide ourselves from the legitimate intercourse of society. This did not Christ. "I spake openly to the world; in secret have I said nothing."

On the other hand, Christ never wilfully exposed himself to temptation. Pure and sinless as He was, and all-powerful to resist it as He knew himself to be, Jesus did not go of his own choice into the wilderness, to try his strength against the tempter. Wherever that event is mentioned, it is distinctly said, "He was led of the Spirit into the wilderness," an expression peculiar to those passages, as

if on purpose to distinguish that act from every other of his life, and show us that He, even He, went not willingly to meet his Father's enemy, and listen to the language of seduction. What a lesson, what a reproof! We, predisposed as we are to sin, incapable of resisting it as we know ourselves to be-do we go boldly and without necessity where Satan keeps his court, where he spreads his blandishments, where we know we must meet him, and either defeat his wiles or be seduced by them? Do we venture to say, that if our own principles are good, there is no risk to us in any company, in any place? we can walk side by side with the enemies of God, and sit in the counsels of sinners, without any danger of being seduced from our allegiance to God? Jesus was not thus bold, though He might have been. If we set one step into the wilderness of temptation without the leading of the Spirit, for the fulfilment of some known command, we follow not in the footsteps of our Lord. God took Him there, that He might

in all things be more than conqueror.

God

may take us there; and if he does, it will be to conquer too. But of those who go thither unbidden, to break a lance with the enemy for pastime; or knight-errant like, to free the world from his enchantments, let no one think he does as Jesus did.

Next of the choice our Saviour made of his companions. We all have companions, associates, friends; individuals more or less numerous, with whom we pass our time, and hold a more intimate converse than with the world at large, exclusively of our domestic ties. Of these there is but one that admits of any choice, and that may be indissolubly formed, before we have the light of truth to form it by. I include all voluntary intimacies. The choice that Jesus made was so contrary to what men thought it should be, as to be an occasion of scandal and reproach: "The friend of publicans and sinners." The charge was false; Jesus never chose profligacy or immorality for his companions; He endured their