unto me, and I will give you reft, and makes us willing to take his yoke upon us.

Oxen are yoked to labour. From hence the yoke is a figurative expreffion to denote fervitude. Our Lord feems to use it here, both to intimate, our natural prejudices against his fervice, and to obviate them. Though he submitted to fufferings, reproach, and death, for our fakes; though he invites us, not because he has need of us, but becaufe we have need of him, and cannot be happy without him; yet our ungrateful hearts think unkindly of him. We conceive of him as a hard mafter; and fuppofe, that if we engage ourfelves to him, we must bid farewel to pleasure, and live under a continual reftraint. His rule is deemed too ftrict, his laws too fevere; and we imagine that we could be more happy upon our own plans, than by acceeding to his. Such unjust, unfriendly, and dishonourable thoughts of him, whofe heart is full of tenderness, whose bowels melt with love, are ftrong proofs of our bafenefs, blindness, and depravity; yet ftill he continues his invitation, Come unto me-As if he had faid, "Be not afraid of me. Only make the experiment, and you shall find, that what you

have accounted my yoke is true liberty; and that in my fervice, which you have avoided as burdenfome, there is no burden at all; for my ways are ways of pleasantness, and all my paths are peace." I have a good hope, that many of my bearers can teftify from their own happy experience, that (according to the beautiful expreffion in our liturgy) his fervice is perfect freedom.

If we are really Chriftians, Jefus is our Mafter, our Lord, and we are his fervants. It is in vain to call him Lord, Lord *, unless we keep his commandments. They who know him will love him; and they who love him, will defire to please him, not by a course of fervice of their own devifing, but by accepting his revealed will, as the standard and rule, to every part of which, they endeavour to conform in their tempers, and in their conduct. He is, likewife, our Mafter in another fenfe; that is, he is our great Teacher; if we fubmit to him as fuch, we are his dif tiples or fcholars. We cannot ferve him acceptably, unless we are taught by him. The philofophers of old had their disciples, who imbibed their fentiments, and were therefore

* Luke vi. 46.

called

gne;

called after their names, as the Pythagoreans and Platonifts, from Pythagoras and Plato. The general name of Chriftians, which was firft affumed by the believers at Antioch * (poffibly by divine direction) intimates that they are the profeffed difciples of Chrift. If we wish to be truly wife, to be wife unto falvation, we must apply to him. For in this fenfe, the difciple or fcholar, cannot be above his Master. We can learn of men no more than they can teach us. But he fays, Learn of and he cautions us against calling any one mafter, upon earth. He does, indeed, inftruct his people by minifters and instruments; but unless he is pleased to fuperadd his influence, what we feem to learn from them only, will profit us but little. Nor are the beft of them fo thoroughly furnished, nor fo free from miftake, as to deferve our implicit confidence. But they whom he condefcends to teach, fhall learn, what no inftruction, merely human, can impart. Let us confider the peculiar, the unfpeakable, advantages of being his fcholars.

1. In the first place, this great Teacher can give the capacity, requifite to the reception of

his fublime inftructions. There is no profpect of excelling in human arts and sciences, without a previous, natural ability, suited to the fubject. For inftance, if a person has not an ear and taste for music, he will make but small proficiency under the best masters, It will be the fame with respect to the mathematics, or any branch of fcience. A fkilful mafter may improve and inform the fcholar, if he be rightly disposed to learn, but he cannot communicate the difpofition. But Jefus can open and enliven the dullest mind; he teaches the blind to fee, and the deaf to hear. By nature we are intractable, and incapable of relishing divine truth, however advantageoufly propofed to us, by men like ourselves. But happy are his scholars! he enables them to furmount all difficulties. He takes away the heart of ftone, fubdues the moft obftinate prejudices, enlightens the dark understanding, and infpires a genius, and a taste, for the sublime and interefting leffons he proposes to them. In this refpect, as in every other, there is none teacheth like him *.

2. He teacheth the most important things. The fubjects of human science are, compara* Job xxxvi. 26.

tively,

tively, trivial and infignificant. We may be fafely ignorant of them all. And we may acquire the knowledge of them all, without being wifer, or better, with respect to the concernments of our true happiness. Experience and obfervation abundantly confirm the remark of Solomon, That he who increafeth knowledge increafeth forrow. The eye is not Satisfied with feeing, nor the ear with bearing *. Unless the heart be seasoned and fanctified by grace, the fum total of all other acquifitions, is but vanity and vexation of Spirit †. Human learning will neither fupport the mind under trouble, nor weaken its attachment to worldly things, nor controll its impetuous paffions, nor overcome the fear of death. The confeffion of the learned Grotius, towards the clofe of a life fpent in literary pursuits, is much more generally known, than properly attended to. He had defervedly a great name and reputation as a fcholar; but his own reflection upon the refult of his labours, expreffes what he learnt, not from his books, and ordinary courfe of ftudies, but from the Teacher I am commending to you. He lived to leave this teftimony for the admoniEcclef. i. 8, 18, + ↑ Ecclef. ii. 17.