SERMON V.

THE ACTIVE AND CONTEMPLATIVE LIVES.

S. LUKE X. 41, 42.

AND JESUS ANSWERED AND SAID UNTO HER, MARTHA, MARTHA, THOU art careful AND TROUBLED ABOUT MANY THINGS: BUT ONE THING IS NEEDFUL, AND MARY HATH CHOSEN THAT GOOD PART WHICH SHALL NOT BE TAKEN AWAY FROM HER.

How great is the difference of feeling we find in ourselves in the more advanced stages of a conversion to God, and in its early beginnings. At the first outset of our renewal of heart, there has been, together with the freshest feelings of love to GOD and good will to man, a tide of such tumultuous emotions as have prevented our discerning correctly the proper character of the many new objects that meet our spiritual eye. Though the workings of the SPIRIT of GOD within us so restrain the motions of our fleshly mind as to preserve us on the whole free from the greater errors of thought and action, at least in the purpose of our hearts; yet the comparative obscurity of our vision, as though a misty haze

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were before our eyes, denies us all steady sight and pursuit of our ultimate end. Up to this time we are, as was the blind man whom JESUS restored to sight; and who first saw men so indistinctly, that they seemed "as trees walking." Something, indeed we are, at such a time, willing to do. Our hearts swell with great and good purposes. strain after some conception of a holy life; and long to realize thoughts as yet too vague to mould into shape. Indeed, we yearn for we hardly know what; till, at length, becoming more familiarized with the novel objects which meet our view in the spiritual world, more skilled in the use of the new faculty which enables us to discern them, the veil is withdrawn from before our eyes; and what before our minds only imperfectly imaged that they now perfectly realize. The HOLY SPIRIT with His gracious influences asserts His quiet dominion, and reducing the chaos of the soul to order, illumines with a clear and steady light the whole man, and brings about that holy calm and intense fervour of which He is always the source in the heart of the devoted disciple of CHRIST.

Thus it was with S. Mary Magdalene at the period to which we are now about to bring her history. No longer do we find her kneeling at the SAVIOUR'S feet with the anguished spirit of a suppliant; but sitting" at His feet, there to receive in holy calm His Divine instructions-indeed, in such calm as results from any person's knowing assuredly the

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undoubted end of a business on which he is intent. She was no longer in any degree unsettled in mind or purpose; for, from our LORD's words, we may safely conclude that she had now fully committed herself to some definite course of life.

And this we may gather, from her subsequent history, to have been the entire devotion of herself to religious duties near the Sacred Person of our LORD. It is this fact which enables us to account for Martha's absence in many scenes described in the Gospels, at which Mary Magdalene, following the dictates of her more fervent spirit and the obligations of her choice of life, is present.

And we may also not unreasonably conclude that she had been the means of persuading her sister Martha and brother Lazarus to belief in JESUS: and further that, like herself, Martha had taken up a settled line of duty. This last is a thought suggested by the words of our SAVIOUR, Who represents Martha as also having a part as well as Mary. Her part embraced " many things," and with this HE contrasts Mary's choice, consisting of one single object, the "one thing needful." Now, to make the contrast perfect, Martha's acceptance of the

many things" her part must have been, no less than Mary's, her voluntary act,-embraced at least with the affections, if not by an act of positive volition. As Mary's praise consisted in having chosen her part in life, so Martha could not have been humbled by the higher merit of her sister's choice,

had she not, too, in some sense, chosen her way of serving GOD.'

Now the difference in the parts selected by these two converts is the very point to which the text invites our attention. It would seem that Martha was the elder sister; and therefore, as the mistress of her brother's house, the duty of hospitably entertaining CHRIST Would properly devolve upon her. We are the more anxious to establish this point, as it helps us to the belief that Martha being the elder was not out of place in her endeavours for CHRIST's entertainment; and that she could not well have participated in the privileges which Mary enjoyed of sitting at CHRIST's feet without a breach of duty. In this manner, therefore, by showing the piety of her action, and, as far as on this head is concerned, exonerating her from all blame, we shall be enabled more clearly to understand what indeed it was which brought on her CHRIST's rebuke, and, moreover, on what principle His preference was given to Mary's conduct.

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And first let us notice in the very place from which our text is taken these words,-" And a certain woman named Martha received HIM into her house," where Martha appears to be mentioned as the mistress, if not the proprietor, of the house. It is to be confessed, indeed, that, in the first verse of the eleventh chapter of S. John, Mary is men1 See Appendix. 2 Bp. Hall, Book IV., Cont. xvii. 3 See Appendix.

tioned first, "Bethany, the town of Mary and Martha:" but in this place, from her being the prominently religious character of the two sisters, and from the mention he is about to make of her in the second verse, we might naturally expect to find her coming first in order in the Evangelist's thoughts. In the fifth verse, however, we haveNow JESUS loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus ;" and again, in the nineteenth verse, "And many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary," this being the natural order, as it would appear, of their birth. In the twentieth, too, we find that Martha, as would be natural to the mistress of the house, "as soon as she heard JESUS was coming, went and met HIM," while "Mary sat still in the house."

Besides this, we shall do well to trace out those qualities in Martha which had gained for her, no less than for her sister, our SAVIOUR'S love. And first, she had, regardless of the Jews, plainly committed herself a disciple to His cause; and this was no mean act of faith. And next, her anxiety that He should be suitably entertained, as in the present instance, gains for her the praise of that virtue which "lodging strangers, sometimes entertaineth Angels unawares." Then we may observe the great faith evinced by her, in common with her sister, in sending unto CHRIST when Lazarus was dying. For they go not to HIм themselves; but in confidence of His at once perfect love 1 See Appendix.