if

caped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven. *** Wherefore, we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear."

The lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely; for the children of this world are, in their generation, wiser than the children of light. And I say unto you, make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.

No intimation of Scripture is more express than this;-that the world is not that which the disciple of Christ must seek to make his friend. Its friendship is denounced to him as "enmity with God." And yet that passage of the Gospel which I have just read to you, would seem to indicate, that it is the part of a Christian, in some sense, to cultivate the friendship of the world. For, it exhorts us to make to

a James iv. 4.

ourselves friends, of, or (as it may be more properly translated) out of, the mammon of unrighteousness; and, what is still more remarkable, founds the exhortation on an instance of, a person securing the favour of the world, without scruple as to the means which he employs for the attainment of his end. In what sense, therefore, the friendship of the world may be conciliated by the disciple of Christ, becomes an important inquiry. To this inquiry a due consideration of the instruction contained in the text will afford us a satisfactory

answer.

The expressions of the text, it may first be observed, refer particularly to the use of riches. The mammon of unrighteousness there spoken of, is a Hebrew idiom for worldly possessions. And the reason of our Saviour's remark being particularly addressed to the use of riches, and not in general to the things of the world, is to be sought in the circumstances of those to whom he spoke. There were among his hearers, those who prided themselves in riches, without regarding their proper use

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considering themselves as the rightful owners, and not the stewards of their riches-persons, who valued themselves on pretensions to which the Gospel was a stranger; justifying themselves before men;" whereas that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God." As he had, in his former discourse in the preceding chapter, preached against the self-righteousness of the Jew, and shewn that human works in themselves were worthless before God: so he now further teaches the vanity of all human possessions, exclusive of their relation to God as their Giver, and of their consequent employment in his service. But the expressions, though particularly alluding to the rich persons who heard him, apply, in their spirit, to the use of the world in general-directing us to a Christian use of those circumstances in which we are placed, whatever they may be. nt

I

Taking them in this general sense, shall proceed to illustrate to you, by the

b

* Luke xvi. 15. See Sermon X. p. 221–223.

passage now before us, the nature of Christian intercourse with the world:

2

A steward is described in a parable, as accused of having wasted the goods entrusted to his care; and, under the fear of being put out of his stewardship, thoughtfully planning with himself the means of securing a retreat, in the event of his dismissal. One expedient occurs to him, and then another; and, at length, he fixes on one, which he instantly executes. He directs the different debtors of his lord, to deliver a reduced statement of their respective debts with the view, as it seems to be implied in the parable, of making his deficient payments to his lord coincide with his receipts; and thus escaping detection in what he had wasted; or, in case of detection, of conciliating the good-will of those, whom he had relieved of a portion of their debts, and implicated in a common fraud with himself. The parable does not expressly say which of the alternatives succeeded. The concluding words, given in the text, are only, "The lord commended

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