judgment on the condition of man, in reference to his state before God. For, in this respect, knoweth no man what is in man, unless the spirit of man that is in him, 1 Cor. ii. 11. Whether a man is the complete slave of sin, and voluntarily and gladly serves it, to obey it in the lusts thereof; whether he is awakened by the call of God, and thus is altogether in a changed condition; whether he has repented, and turned himself from the evil of his ways; whether, with the eye of faith fixed on Christ his Redeemer, he has acknowledged the only begotten Son, "full of grace and truth," and before this Son of man has bowed the knee, repentant, but happy, as before his Lord and his God; whether he is born again of water and the Spirit, and become a new creature, another man; on which of these various steps of salvation any individual is standing, my friends, we may have conjectures, opinions, surmises, but we do not know; no man knows; the Searcher of hearts alone knows; the Lord who tries the hearts and the reins, and is inexpressibly near to us all; the Lord to whom each one of his servants stands or falls. Let us therefore always abstain from judging and deciding on such questions, and wait with humility and patience till the Lord shall come, who shall bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and reveal the secrets of all hearts. Only let each of us "work out his salvation with fear and trembling," and seek to escape the doom which awaits unconverted sinners at the last day. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God," Heb. x. 31. Let us rejoice in the Lord, if we know him, and seek to lead back the wanderers to him. "Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more. Bless thou the Lord, O my soul. Praise ye the Lord." Amen. LECTURE XV. JAMES iv. 13-17. : Go to now, ye that say, To-day or to-morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that. But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil. Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin. IN our text to-day, the apostle animadverts on the conduct of those persons, who, forgetful of their dependence upon God, as if they were the masters and arbiters of their own lives, form their plans for the future with the utmost security and confidence. "Go to now, ye that say, To-day or to-morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain." It is easy to perceive what class of persons he had immediately in view; evidently those who for the sake of traffic moved about from one city to another, which was the case with most of the Jews, or Jewish christians, who "of the dispersion," that is, who lived in different were parts among heathen nations. As such a mode of life is attended with very frequent changes, and the trader must often form new schemes for the future, it often happens that many persons, in laying down their plans of operation, as to whither they will go, and in what manner they intend to traffic and get gain, say, unthinkingly and confidently, "I will do this or that; I will accomplish this or that object." In acting thus, they evince an earthly mind, which is regardless of God, and seeks only after the things of the earth, while it indulges pride and boasting in this independent mode of living and acting. But such boasting is directly opposed to humility; nor is it consistent with self-abasement, and submission to the will of God. On this account the apostle says, in the 16th verse, "But now ye rejoice in your boastings; all such rejoicing is evil." As the apostle had rebuked that kind of self-estimation which manifests itself in judging and condemning our fellow men, with the close and pungent interrogation, "Who art thou that judgest another?" so in the text he rebukes the presumptuous forgetters of God, who made their calculations for the future in a spirit of entire self-dependence, by reminding them, "Ye know not what shall be on the morrow." Powerless mortal! thou wouldst mould the future according to thy wishes, and reckon with certainty on the success of thy undertakings; thou speakest as if no design of thine could miscarry, and yet art so short-sighted that thou canst not foresee with certainty what will happen the next moment, much less what the next day will bring forth! And thy power is still less than thy knowledge. To form some plan which may appear feasible, to entertain some plausible conjecture respecting the future, is within thine ability; but to bring it about, to accomplish it, this thou canst not do; thou hast no inherent, independent power. Weak mortal! thou knowest not on any day whether thou shalt live the next. "For what is thy life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away." The apostle, in this comparison, does not refer to the whole life of man, or rather to its nobler part, which is designed for heaven, and even here belongs to eternity, but to the life of a man of the world, which is limited and devoted to his earthly body and earthly sustenance; this life, (and of any other life than this, such a man would know nothing,) what is it but a vapour? As the holy Scriptures, in other passages, compare this natural life to a stream, which with ceaseless motion hastens away, wave after wave, to the all-comprehending ocean; or to a sleep, during which we are in a state of unconsciousness, or occupied with a succession of evanescent and perplexing dreams; or to a tale, with which we pass away the hours we know not how; or to the grass, which blooms in the morning, droops under the mid-day sun, and at evening is cut down and withers; or to the flower of the field, which, when the wind passeth over it, is blown away, and its place is known no more: so St. James here compares life N |