the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, ye sin against Christ."

The meaning, then, of the precept in the text, is plain, "Give none offence;" -never let any part of your conduct be a snare or a stumblingblock to others; never do that which may be to any man a temptation and encouragement to sin; never let it be in the power of any man to set a guilty conscience at rest, by pleading your sanction and example.

"Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles;" as if the Apostle had said,—Here are on the one side the hostile Jews, who watch for the halting of Christians; who seek an occasion of casting a reproach upon your name and profession. Lay nothing in their way which shall be calculated to excite their enmity, or furnish an excuse for their rage and revilings. Do not, by appearing to countenance idolatry, call forth their cursing and bitterness, and cause the name of Christ and his doctrine to be blasphemed. On the other side, are the poor blind Gentiles, worshipping dumb idols, falling down before stocks and stones, perishing in their sin. Do not confirm them in their fatal ignorance and error; do not strengthen the hands of the wicked by your connivance ;-do not put in their path additional obstacles and hindrances. Neither in the one case, "give the enemy cause to blaspheme;" nor in the other, "put a stumblingblock before the blind."

"Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God;" or, as St. Paul has expressed the same thing in the Epistle to the Romans, "Let us not, therefore, judge one another any more, but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling-block, or an occasion to fall, in his brother's way."

I have thus explained the meaning of the rule of duty laid down in the text. We are in all things so to act, as may appear to us best calculated to give honour to God, and to bring honour to God. And we are to take care that not any part of our conduct shall be either a sanction of evil, or a temptation to evil; that it shall have no tendency either to encourage those who are sinning, or to draw others into sin.

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I am now to show you the inseparable connexion of this rule of duty with the Christian character :-that no man can be a Christian who does not adopt it as the guide of his conduct and who does not daily and diligently endeavour to walk according to it. And here a few words will suffice for the conviction of every one who receives the Bible as the Word of God. is no truth more fully and peremptorily insisted upon in the Sacred Scriptures than this; that an obedient heart-a disposition and desire to serve and please God in all things-is essential to true religion; and that all hopes and pretences to true religion, which are not proved and vindicated by

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this evidence, are delusive, and hypocritical, and vain. "If ye love me," says Christ, "keep my commandments." "Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?" "What shall be the end of them that obey not the Gospel ?"

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Hereby do we know that we know Him, if we keep his commandments." "He that saith, I

know Him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him." To bring forward all the passages which correspond with these, would be to quote a large portion of the Bible. Its invariable, perpetual testimony, whether under the Old Dispensation or the New, shows that conscientious obedience is the necessary evidence, and the sure mark of true religion. The first desire which the Spirit of God puts into the hearts of the subjects of his grace, is, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do ?" And all their do?" journey through, till they appear before God in Zion, it is the prayer of their inmost soul, "O, that my ways were directed to keep thy commandments!" and it is their daily practice, "Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against Thee."—And for any persons to hope that they are Christians, so as to be in the favour of God, and partakers of the blessings and benefits of the Gospel, without giving this evidence, is one of the most aweful delusions of the devil. It is to make God a liar. It is to say, in direct contradiction to the plainest and most frequently

repeated declarations of his Word, "I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart."

Now, the rules laid down by the Apostle in the text, are not only a part of God's law, to which our obedience is required; but they involve the two essential principles of that law. They are but a varied expression of those two very commandments on which, as our Saviour declares, "hang all the law and the prophets." "Do all to the glory of God." What is this but to love the Lord our God with all our heart, and soul, and strength; "for this is the love of God, that ye keep his commandments.” "Give none of

fence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God." What is this but to love our neighbour as ourselves; for "love worketh no ill to his neighbour, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”

The obedient heart, then, is essential to true religion; no man can be a Christian, in the scriptural sense of the word, without it. The rules laid down by the Apostle in the text, are the sum, and soul, and substance of God's law.And, mark it well-these are not some of the minuter details of the rule of duty, of which even the most obediently-disposed might possibly be ignorant; they are not precepts of occasional use merely, and which can only be carried into practice at particular times; but they involve the

constituent principles of God's law; they are of universal and perpetual application; there is not an action of our lives to which they do not extend; we cannot perform a single duty without them; they are to regulate and control us through the whole course of our conduct, in all that we design, or do, or say. We cannot, therefore, by any arts of sophistry, escape the conclusion,that the rule of duty laid down by the Apostle in the text, is inseparably connected with the Christian character. No man can be a real Christian, not even the lowest in the scale, who does not take this rule as his standard; and who does not desire, and intend, and endeavour to guide all his conduct according to it.

I proceed now to point out the utter incompatibility of an attendance upon Theatrical Amusements, with even a sincere desire and honest intention of walking by this rule.

I will not waste your time in shewing, what I think all will admit, that the Stage is neither intended nor calculated to promote the glory of God and the spiritual benefit of man. The attendants upon Theatrical Amusements, therefore, are confessedly guilty of the sin of omission, with respect to the rule of duty laid down in the text. They are not "doing all to the glory of God." But I place the condemnation of the Theatre on much stronger grounds. The sanction and support of the Stage is not merely one of our defi