eth a city." That the recipients of a (so called) liberal
education so often become the votaries of vulgar ambition, and vulgar
pleasure too, is to be accounted for on the three-fold consideration:
first, that what passes for a liberal education is often a very
illiberal thing, doing very little to unfold the spirit to itself,
and so impress the greatness of mastering its capabilities; secondly,
that merely intellectual without moral influences, do not suffice; and
thirdly, the law is supreme, which binds all to suffer, in their
intellectual and spiritual life, from the mental and moral degradation
of a part.

Jesus thought it not beneath the dignity of his office, nor the
sacredness of the Sabbath, nor the proprieties of the synagogue, to
discourse to people on politeness and good breeding; nor to enforce
attention to decorum, by the comparatively low consideration, "Then
shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with
thee." Unworthy alike, both the lesson and the motive, would cry a
false spirituality, if the example of such preaching were set by any
lower authority. A false spirituality it is, for it originates in
missing the close connection between the temporal and the spiritual,
the outward and the inward, the life that now is, and that which is to
come.

In faithfully delivering the whole counsel of God, we may encounter
something like the wrath of the ruler of the synagogue, whose
spirituality was offended at the restoration of a withered hand on the
Sabbath. We may find, that we have cast pearls before swine. We may
be referred to Paul's determination to know nothing among the
Corinthians, save Jesus Christ and him crucified. And, if we
minister to a people who, like the Corinthians, need to be fed with
milk and not meat; like them carnal, factious, party-spirited, and if
we would delicately hint to them their character--let us do it
indirectly, following Paul's example, when he put restraint on the
fullness of matter within, and discoursed only on the elements of
Christian doctrine. But shall the strong man be confined to a
milk diet, because the careful nurse ventures to supply nothing else to
the tender infant? If when for the time our people ought to be
teachers, they need to be taught again the first principles of the
oracle of God, we may reserve pearls for a worthier reception. But, if
they are well-grounded in the elements, let us lead them on to
perfection.

S