every gift of Christ's bounty should rise up in the Judgment against you and condemn you-as you would not be cast off from the True Vine as withered branchesguard, I pray you, against the very first beginnings of

sin.

But, further:—whilst we thus acknowledge all our spiritual blessings to be from Christ through the Holy Spirit, while we "receive them in an honest and good heart" through the appointed means of grace, let us look for them in that portion of His Church in which our lot is cast. I well know that there is more excitement in other services than in those appointed for us. I well know that other preachers may be more eloquent than we are. I well know that there are undisciplined minds to whom the decent solemnity of our worship, with its alternations of prayer and praise and thanksgiving seems artificial and unreal; but it by no means follows that the Holy Spirit speaks either in the multitude of words, or in the utterances of excited feelings. This, too, we can testify, that, whatever may be the case with others, those who have attained the highest saintliness, who have borne their witness most faithfully for Christ, who have laid down their lives for Him, have ever received the Word of GOD in His Church, have ever been fed with His Sacraments, have ever attained spiritual perfection through the devout use of the means of His appointment.

It might, indeed, be difficult to define the exact nature of the connection between the Sacramental life

odour, so also the good food is life to the good, death to the bad. For whoso shall eat unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not to thee.S. Aug.: Hom. 2, 10, pp. 675-6.

and the future restoration and exaltation of our bodies; but this we do know from our Lord's Own words, that from the Flesh of Christ "our very bodies do receive that life which shall make them glorious in the latter Day"-thus intimate is the connection between Himself9 and us.

In conclusion:-the multitude whom Christ fed with the loaves and fishes has long since passed away from this earth. That miraculous banquet did but for a few hours support their physical strength, and satisfy their natural appetites; but we have a life covenanted to us as eternal as Eternity itself, and we are promised food whereby that life is to be ever sustained. Are we, then, hungering and thirsting after the gifts of God's grace? Are we "feeding on Him in our hearts by faith with thanksgiving?" Are we as earnest to "labour after the meat which endureth unto everlasting life" as this mul

9"The grace which we have by the holy Eucharist doth not begin but continue life. No man, therefore, receiveth this Sacrament before Baptism, because no dead thing is capable of nourishment. That which groweth must, of necessity, first live. If our bodies did not daily waste, food to restore them were a thing superfluous. And it may be that the grace of Baptism would serve to eternal life were it not that the state of our Spiritual being is daily so much hindered and impaired after Baptism. In that life, therefore, where neither body nor soul can decay, our souls shall as little require this Sacrament as our bodies corporal punishment; but as long as the days of our warfare last during the time that we are both subject to diminution, and capable of augmentation in grace, the words of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ will remain forcible-Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His Blood, ye have no life in you.'-Life being therefore proposed unto all men as their end, they which by Baptism have laid the foundation and attained the first beginning of a new life have here, then, nourishment and food prescribed for continuance of life in them. Such as will live the life of GOD must eat the Flesh and drink the Blood of the Son of Man, because this is a part of that diet which if we want, we cannot live. Whereas, therefore, in our infancy we are incorporated into Christ, and by Baptism, receive the grace of His Spirit without any sense or feeling of the gift which GOD bestoweth, in the Eucharist we so receive the gift of GOD, that we know by grace what the grace is which GOD giveth us, the degrees of our own increase in holiness and virtue. We see and can judge of them; we understand that the strength of our life begun in Christ is Christ, that His Flesh is meat and His Blood drink, not by surmised imagination, but truly, even so truly that through faith we perceive in the Body and Blood, sacramentally presented, the very taste of Eternal Life, the grace of the Sacrament is here as the food which we eat and drink."-Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, Book V. lxvii., 1.

titude was for the meat which perisheth? Soon, indeed, will the Lenten discipline of life be over. Soon will dawn upon us that last Easter of which all Easters are types. Soon will the shrill and piercing echoes of the trumpet awake from their resting-places the multitude of the dead. Soon shall we lay aside these mortal tabernacles, and be "clothed upon with our house which is from heaven." But, in the mean time, let us diligently and faithfully make use of all those special gifts whereby we communicate with Christ now, and whereby the spiritual life within us is nourished and supported. In heaven we shall have no more need of means of grace, for we shall have continued access to the Tree of Life, and to the refreshing waters of "the River which maketh glad the people of GOD." In heaven we shall see Christ, no longer under the veil of sacraments, but face to face. We shall no more behold Him present to the eye of faith on earthly Altars; but we shall see Him in His Own Person visibly, seated on His throne, surrounded by the innumerable company of the redeemed, gathered out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation. In heaven we shall no more lisp His praises in the feeble utterances of services like these in which we have joined, but we shall help to swell the glad acclamations of those who ascribe "glory and honour and praise and majesty and dominion to Him That sitteth upon the throne and to the Lamb !"

SERMON VIII.

Fifth Sunday in Lent.

CHRIST'S GODHEAD ESSENTIAL TO THE MERIT OF HIS PASSION.

You

S. JOHN viii., 58.

"Before Abraham was, I AM.”

must often have been struck, my brethren, with the way in which the Services of the Church have been ordered: how one part sets forth and illustrates another part; how in the choice of the Proper Lessons and the Gospels, the Old and New Testaments are made to confirm one another.

This was true last Sunday, and it is true to-day, though similar examples might be found almost every week.

Last Sunday, the first Morning Lesson gave the account of the famine in Canaan, when Jacob sent his sons into Egypt to buy corn; the first Evening Lesson told us of Joseph's reconciliation with his brethren, and that memorable saying of his, "God sent me before