and an end to the nation; and having what he calls accounted for its history, he thinks he need do no more: whereas, in truth, laws of operation mark the presence, not the absence, of the Divine Hand, and though the outward form of Judaism was earthly, Ged had secretly inspired it and used it for His purposes.

Un

The case is the same with Christianity also. Unbelievers have been busy in assigning human causes for its rise, such as the discipline of the Church, or the doctrine of a future life; and some of its defenders have been as eager to show that these cannot be assigned. It seems, however, to matter little whether we determine the question this way or that; or, rather, it is more likely beforehand that human causes did effect, as we familiarly use the word " effect," what is imputed to them. believers of this day, who profess to be philosophical, speak of Christianity as a wonderful fact indeed in the history of the world, but still as being human. Now we need not deny that in one sense it is human; that is, as far as it is viewed externally. It is a divine treasure, but in earthly vessels. Its history is that of a certain principle of universal empire, repressed and thwarted by circumstances; its conquests, indeed, were achieved by moral instruments, "weapons not carnal," as St. Paul speaks, but still they were conquests; and it may be compared to empires of this world, to the conquests of Nebuchadnezzar, or of the Romans, made with the sword; or, again, it may be spoken of as a philosophy, and compared to the philosophies of men. But if it be an empire, if it be a philosophy, as it had its rise, it will have its fall. This is what unbelievers prophesy. They look out

calmly and confidently for the fall of Christianity at length, because it rose. Since they read of its beginning, they look for its end; since the world preceded it, they think the world will outlive it. Well, and were not

continue to the end,

Scripture pledged that it should when Christ shall come, I see nothing to startle us, though it were to fall, and other religions to succeed it. God works by human means. As He employs individual men, and inspires them, and yet they die; so, doubtless, He might employ a body or society of men, which at length, after its course of two thousand years, might come to an end. It might be withdrawn, as other gifts of God are withdrawn, when abused. Doubtless Christianity might be such; it might be destined to expire, just as an individual man expires. Nay, it may actually be destined so to expire; it may be destined to age, to decay, and at length to die ;-but we know that when it dies, at least the world will die with it. The world's duration is measured by it. If the Church dies, the world's time is run. The world shall never exult over the Church. If the Church falls sick, the world shall utter a wail for its own sake; for, like Samson, the Church will bury all with it. But still, so it may be in very truth, that the Christian Church may come to an end, may well come to an end, as the Jewish Church did; that is, so far as it is mortal, so far as its members are mortal.

This peculiarity of God's Providence which has now been noticed, is almost seen in the creation of man himself. Man was made rational, after he was made corporeal. "The Lord God formed man of the dust of the

ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul1." Here are two acts on

the part of the Creator, the forming the dust, and the breathing the life; and they are to the point here as illustrating the principle I have been insisting on. Man is confessedly formed on the same mould as other animals; his skeleton is like theirs; he is very like some of them. And unbelievers, in consequence, have been forward to assert that he does not really differ from them; and because he is outwardly like them, and has an organized body, and can be treated by medical art, as if he were but a framework of matter, and is obliged to employ his brain as an instrument of thought, that in consequence, he has not a soul; just as in regard to Judaism they have denied it to have a heavenly spirit in it, because it had an earthly body.

And the case is the same as regards the Sacraments of the Gospel. God does not make for us new and miraculous instruments wherewith to convey His benefits, but He takes, He adopts means already existing. He takes water, which already is the means of natural health and purity, and consecrates it to convey spiritual life. He changes the use of it. Again He selects bread and wine, the chief means and symbols of bodily nourishment,— He takes them, He blesses them; He does not dispense with them, but He uses them. He leaves them in appearance what they were; but He gifts them with a Divine Presence, which before they had not. As He filled the Jewish Temple of wood and stone with glory, on its consecration as He breathed the breath of life

1 Gen. ii. 7.

into the dust of the earth, and made it man; so He comes down in power on His chosen symbols, weak though they be in themselves, and makes them what they were not.

Now, from what has been said, this lesson may be learnt, that things of this world are only valuable so far as God's Presence is in them, so far as He has breathed on them; in themselves they are but dust and vanity; and it is as monstrous and insane, if we thought aright, to be enamoured of any thing earthly, except it be instinct with a light from heaven, as to desire to feed on ashes, or to be chained to a corpse.

This was the fault of the Jews, as regards their Law; and this is why St. Paul calls it "ordinances," "rudiments of the world," "weak and beggarly elements,"

carnal," and "unprofitable." They were indeed at all times such, compared with the Christian worship; but they were peculiarly so, when viewed in their then state, when God had left them. The Gospel restored man to the same state, or rather to a higher state than that from which he had fallen. When Adam was in paradise, he had a gift which afterwards he had not,—the gift of the Spirit; he was inhabited by a divine glory, or heavenly power, which he lost on sinning; after sinning, only his natural soul remained to him; and when he died, then that soul went away too. The Gospel then is as far above the Law, even in the best estate of the Law, as the spirit is above the mere soul, as the man of God is above the natural man. Such was the Law at best, being but a step towards restoration in those privileges in which man was first created; framed by God, but not

the dwelling-place of God's Holy Spirit; only visited by Him from time to time, and having in it a certain Presence of God which sanctified it, and made it live. But when Christ came with the recovered gift of grace and glory, then that Divine Presence, whatever it was, ' which once had been in the Law, left it: then it was altogether dead, it was reduced back again to the mere condition of the world from which it had been taken; it relapsed into the deadness and unprofitableness of a fallen and perishable state of being; and for Christians to concern themselves with it, or to profess it, as the Galatians and others did, was as preposterous and as perverse as to join themselves to the world in any other way,-in the service of ambition and the pursuit of wealth. Well then might the Apostle say, in the words of the text, "After ye have known God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?"

And now, too, we are able to see how far the warning of St. Paul against subjection to ordinances applies to us. Granting that this age is in no danger of Judaism,about which I will not here pronounce,-yet, at any rate, there are dead things besides the Law of Moses, on which we are in danger of setting our hearts. The Law became carnal when God left it; but there are things which never were otherwise than carnal, in which God never was at all: and these may be our temptations, as the Jewish Law was a temptation to the Jews. St. John says expressly, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world; for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the