about their favorite doctrines ? If he can, they are satisfied, though there is no evidence that he is con- verted. If he cannotj they are always finding fault, and cannot speak peaceably of him, though he may be serving Christ better than themselves. Let us beware of this sj)irit. It is the very essence of hypocrisy. Let our 23rinciple be : " the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." (Rom. xiv. 17.)
We learn, for another thing, from these verses, the great danger of attempting to add anything to the ivord of God. Whenever a man takes upon him to make ad- ditions to the Scriptures, he is likely to end with valuing his own additions above Scripture itself. • We see this point brought out most strikingly in our Lord's answer to the charge of the Pharisees against His discij^les. He says, " Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your traditions ?'' He^j^es boldly at the whole system of adding anything, as needful to salvation, to God's perfect word. He exposes the mischievous tendency of the system by an example. He shows how the vaunted traditions of the Pharisees were actually destroying the authority of the fifth command- ment. In short. He establishes the great truth, which ought never be forgotten, that there is an inherent tendency in all traditions, to " make the word of God of none efiect." The authors of these traditions may have meant no such thing. Their intentions may have been pure. But that there is a tendency in all religious insti- tutions of mere human authority, to usurp the authority of God's word, is evidently the doctrine of Christ. It
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is a solemn remark of Bucer's, that " a man is rarely to be found, who pays an excessive attention to human inventions ill religion, who does not put more trust in them than in the grace of God."
And have we not seen melancholy proof of this truth, in the history of the Church of Christ ? Unhappily we have seen only too much. As Baxter says, " men think God's laws too many and too strict, and yet make more of their own, and are precise for keeping them." Have we never read how some have exalted canons, rubrics^f'^nd ecclesiastical laws above the word of God, and puiiished disobedience to them with far greater severity than open sins, like drunkenness and swear- ing ? — Have we never heard of the extravagant im- ]Dprtance which the Church of Eome attaches to monastic vows, and vows of celibacy, and keeping feasts and fasts ; insomuch that she seems to place them far above family duties, and the ten commandments ? — Have we never heard of men who make more ado about eating flesh in Lent, than about gross impurity of life, or murder ? — Have we never observed in our own land, how many seem to make adherence to Episco- pacy the weightiest matter in Christianity, and to regard '' Churchmanship,"'as they call it, as far outweighing repentance, faith, holiness, and the graces of the Spirit ? — These are questions which can only receive one sorrow- ful answer. The spirit of the Pharisees still lives, after eighteen hundred years. The disposition to " make the word of God of none effect by traditions," is to be found among Christians, as well as among Jews. The tendency practically to exalt man's inventions above God's word,