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SERMON XII.

WHAT IS OUR TREASURE, AND WHERE ARE OUR HEARTS?

MATT. VI, 21*.

"Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

WE are accustomed at this season to gaze with mingled admiration and delight on the revived energy, the renewed loveliness of nature. Quickening suns and genial showers have combined to draw forth freshness of verdure and luxuriance of foliage; and a profusion of kindly blossom, affording the glad and welcome promise of an abundant crop, has adorned the trees which bear fruit for the sustenance of man. But it is striking to observe, even where that promise is, comparatively speaking, not delusive, how small a portion of these fair blossoms are impregnated with the germ of the future fruit; how many are nipped

* Second Lesson, May 8.

by the frost, or shaken off by the wind, or withered by the blight, and bring no fruit to perfection; and how the earth around every tree is strewed with a covering of untimely flower, which falls unproductive from the parent stock, and is, to all useful purposes, as if it had never been.

Now such a tree, more or less flourishing, may be taken, and it is to be feared with too much truth, as the lively, faithful, and appropriate emblem of many a Christian congregation; perhaps, among others, of that which I now address. This may, indeed, be fitly compared, from its numbers, its regularity, and the decent and becoming attention which those who compose it outwardly exhibit, to a fruit tree covered with blossom; and thus presenting at once an object of beauty to the spectator, and of deep and lively interest to him by whom it is cultivated. But, alas! will not the similitude hold equally good, when pursued beyond this point? Will it not be equally remarkable, equally exact, when we proceed to estimate the proportion between the quantity of blossom exhibited, and of fruit produced? Are there not many who make a fair show, exhibit a promising aspect, while every thing around them is favourablewhile the suns are warm and the showers are mild—but who will drop off beneath the frost of disappointment, or during the storms of opposition

and persecution; and, still more, amidst the withering blight of selfish and secular interests and pursuits? Will not the dark grave, like the space around the tree, be hereafter filled with those, who, like nipped or blasted blossoms, have produced no fruit that can remain? It will be well, then, for each of us to inquire of his own heart and conscience, how far there is reason to believe that he-he himself is indeed a lively, vigorous, fruitful blossom of the tree of life, or whether he will be shaken thence by the first adverse blast, to wither and decay in the dark and dreary region of the tomb?

Now the text suggests a method, by which this inquiry may be effectually proposed, and answered without risk of error. "Where your treasure is, there will be your heart also," was the declaration of Him who needed none" to testify to him what was in man ;" and as in this emphatic sentence there is nothing qualified or conditional-as the terms in which it is expressed are obviously and fully comprehensible, even by the most limited capacity—every person of age and ability to judge, must be able to answer the question, "Where is my heart?" and, consequently, every such person may determine, according to the reply, where also is the place of his treasure. All our natural propensity and disposition to deceive ourselves-all

the solicitude and ingenuity we exercise in casting a veil over our own eyes, which may prevent them from discovering the naked and unsophisticated truth, will be insufficient to evade the application of this simple and direct criterion. If, however, any should at first profess himself unable to return a definite answer to the question, What do I most desire? he will find no difficulty whatever, if he expresses the inquiry in another form, What do I most diligently seek? since it may safely be assumed as a moral axiom, that whatever is most earnestly desired will be also most perseveringly sought.

Nor is it at all probable, that in answering the question, the attention should be distracted by a multiplicity of objects, all equally desired and sought, or which, either in the desire or the pursuit, even approach to equality. The moral here resembles the natural world. As there is but one sun in the heavens by day, and one moon reigns unrivalled queen of the ascendant in the midnight skies; so there will be, generally speaking, but one leading and primary desire and object in the heart of man. Earth could better bear two Alexanders, than the human mind admit two conflicting principles of equal energy: one or the other must prevail. This we have on the highest authority. "No man can serve two masters.-Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.-One

thing is needful;"- while the conduct of the Apostle Paul himself furnishes a striking and instructive comment on these very declarations: "One thing I do, forgetting those things that are behind, and reaching forward to those before, I press towards the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Bearing this in mind therefore, let us proceed, with a perpetual reference to our own case, to inquire, I. "WHAT IS OUR TREASURE?"

II. "WHERE ARE OUR HEARTS?"

The word here rendered "treasure," means in its primary application the storehouse or depository, in which wealth of any description was laid up and preserved; and though the word is transferred, by a natural and obvious application, to the stores themselves, rather than the place where they are deposited, there is no necessity, in our consideration of this text, to depart even from the original and limited meaning. Spiritually speaking, there can only be two storehouses, where a man deliberately and intentionally collects or conveys his provision for the future -Earth and Heaven: for though we read in Scripture of those awful characters who "treasure up wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God," and whose treasury, accordingly, almost without a figure, may be said to be

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