must be mortified within while she is in honour in the world, and must wear the Baptist's hair-shirt and leathern girdle under the purple ephod and the jewelled breastplate.

Let us

And lastly, let us beware, on the other hand, of dishonouring and rudely rejecting God's gifts, out of gloominess or sternness; let us beware of fearing without feasting. Every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused." Let us beware, though it must be a sad perversion of mind which admits of it,— let us beware of afflicting ourselves for sin, without first coming to the Gospel for strength to do so. And let us not so plunge ourselves in the sense of our offences, as not withal to take delight in the contemplation of our privileges. Let us rejoice while we mourn. look up to our Lord and Saviour the more we shrink from the sight of ourselves; let us have the more faith and love the more we exercise repentance. Let us, in our penitence, not substitute the Law for the Gospel, but add the Law to the Gospel. Those who do despite to baptismal grace fall under the Law; but they do not fall from the Gospel, if they are repentant; they fall under the Law without the Gospel, if they continue in sin; they receive the Law with the Gospel, if they return. The Law which once introduced the Gospel, in such cases becomes its instrument. They fall indeed under bondage, but they have the power of Christ's grace to enable them to bear it.

And in like manner, as they must not defraud themselves of Christian privileges, neither need they give up God's temporal blessings. All the beauty of nature, the

kind influences of the seasons, the gifts of sun and moon, and the fruits of the earth, the advantages of civilized life, and the presence of friends and intimates; all these good things are but one extended and wonderful type of God's benefits in the Gospel. Those who aim at perfection will not reject the gift, but add a corrective; they will add the bitter herbs to the fatted calf and the music and dancing; they will not refuse the flowers of earth, but they will toil in plucking up the weeds. Or if they refrain from one temporal blessing, it will be to reserve another; for this is one great mercy of God, that while He allows us a discretionary use of His temporal gifts, He allows a discretionary abstinence also; and He almost enjoins upon us the use of some, lest we should forget that this earth is His creation, and not of the evil one. I am not denying that there are certain individuals raised up from time to time to a still more self-denying life, and who have a corresponding measure of divine consolations. As some men are Apostles, others Confessors and Martyrs, as Missionaries in heathen countries may be called to give up all for Christ; so there are doubtless those, living in peaceable times and among their brethren, who acknowledge a call to give up every thing whatever for the sake of the Gospel, and in order to be perfect; and to become as homeless and as shelterless, and as resourceless and as solitary, as the holy Baptist in the wilderness: but extraordinary cases are not for our imitation, and it is as great a fault to act without a call as to refuse to act upon one.

May God give us grace to walk thus humbly, thus

soberly, thus without censoriousness in this day of confusion; enjoying His blessings, yet taking them with fear and trembling; and disciplining ourselves without gloom, yet not judging or slandering those who are more rigid or less secular than ourselves!

!

SERMON X.

CONNEXION BETWEEN PERSONAL AND PUBLIO

IMPROVEMENT.

(WHITSUNTIDE.)

ISAIAH xi. 9.

"The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea."

IT

more

T was promised that "the waters should no become a flood to destroy all flesh';" that "the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth 2;" and yet a flood there was to be, a mighty flood of waters, all-compassing, all-absorbing, in God's good time, and in His merciful foreknowledge, when He spake the former word; but not to destroy all flesh, but to save it. And in its season, as on this day, this second, and more wonderful and more gracious deluge came to pass; the rain of grace descended; "the heavens dropped down. from above, and the skies poured down righteousness 3;" "the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew";""the sea made a noise, and all that therein is; 1 Preached during a very wet season.

2 Gen. ix. 15. Isa. liv. 9.

4 Matt. vii. 25.

3 Isa. xlv. 8.

3

the round world, and they that dwell therein ';" the earth began to fill with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord; for "the Spirit of the Lord filled the world; and that which containeth all things had knowledge of the voice "."

How different a fulfilment was this from that for which the Apostles had been waiting! For ten days had they waited for the fulfilment of a promise, the coming of a Comforter. And surely they imagined, that such as Christ had been, would be the Paraclete which was to come. Christ was a present, visible, protector; a man, with man's voice and man's figure. Who was to be their Comforter, how could they conjecture, seeing He was to be such, that it was expedient for them that Christ should depart? Some one greater than Elias, who was expected to come before the last day; greater than the Baptist, of whom Herod thought that he had risen again in Christ, with miracles; greater than "Jeremias, or one of the prophets;" greater than Moses, who saw God face to face; more than a prophet, more than any born of woman, more than man; perhaps an angel, such as had appeared in bodily form to the Patriarchs (for of a spiritual nature He was to be), but still surely a present, a visible Being, one whose individuality and intelligence they could not doubt, and need not take on faith.

For such an one they waited during ten days to guide them into all truth, little deeming that knowledge about Himself was one main portion of the truth He had to teach them; and then, when they were waiting for this

1 Ps. xcviii. 8.

2 Wisd. i. 7.