to this notion, faith could have told us of itself. But no: the Lord God knew that faith had not in this sense "the gift of prophecy;" wherefore He has noted down our duties, each "in his own order;" and the commandments which God has given to His people, we must not keep covered, even if they would give unto us our "houses full of silver and gold."

One thing may still be said, that it is enough to preach faith, because faith will send us to the Bible, each man for himself, there to learn our Christian duties without being told them in sermons. Now we hope and pray for you, my brethren, that faith may send you to the Bible; we desire nothing better, provided that being sent, you do there also abide and fulfil in deed what you learn therein. Yet we must not forget that there are many who through want of learning can only hear the Bible through the ministration of the Church, so that if we held our peace, it would be to them as a sealed book or a covered fountain. Again, how large a portion of the busy and hard-working classes owe their Scripture knowledge almost entirely to the "priest's lips keeping knowledge';" how ready multitudes would be to grasp, with sanguine hopes, at the promises of the Bible, and, in the same spirit, to disregard its strictness? How many would cry out affectionately and willingly, "Lord, Lord," but would entirely neglect to pluck out the right eye, or to cut off the right

• Malachi ii. 7.

P Luke vi. 46.

hand for Him, unless their home reading was guided, corrected, and quickened by the searching exhortations of the Church?

And now let none say of us that we are either boasters, or encouragers of boasting in our brethren, when we affirm that good works, where they can be done, must go before salvation. We are quite sure that righteous living alone does not earn our redemption, neither could it were it ten thousand times more perfect than it even is. Redemption has already been purchased for us by the precious blood-shedding on the Cross. But do we not see, is it not a plain truth, that the things which cannot save may, in some sense, nevertheless be conditions necessary for salvation? I would repeat, then, for better safety against misapprehension, and I trust I may never cease to maintain, that our good works cannot of themselves deliver us from the wrath to come. But then I also repeat, and, as a humble minister of the Lord Christ, I would engrave it on your minds, that Christ will have them, Christ demands them; demands them as a proof of our thankfulness for His unspeakable loving-kindness, as a proof of the power of His grace; demands them as an honourable tribute to Him to whom all glory is due, as a "light shining before men," that they may be brought, together with ourselves, unto its great and glorious Fountain; demands them as a triumph over the accursed power of sin, as being that channel through which it is His pleasure to be benevolent to His

creation; demands them as being our labour towards the amending and perfecting our own fallen nature, and rendering it more like to the angels, with whom we pray that we may be admitted to dwell.

Good living, therefore, must be kept, carefully kept; and that it may be kept, it must be carefully preached until these words be blotted out from Scripture," Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of My Father which is in heaven." And here the question may fairly and securely rest,Are good works commanded? If they are, they must be practised; but how shall they be practised, unless also they be taught? My brethren, may God grant that we may thirst for, and quench our thirst, in all the fountains of the Bible, in all the well-springs of life equally, not in one alone. May no craft or " subtlety of the devil or man" ever prevent your ministers from teaching boldly, or yourselves from receiving humbly, the truth that faith must have her perfect work. For such indeed must be the mind of us all if we hope ever to see the heavens opened to us, and Jesus sitting at the right hand of God; if we look to be ushered into that glorious Presence with that blessed salutation, "Well done, good and faithful servant enter thou into the joy of your Lord'."

q Matt. vii. 21.

r Ib. xxv. 21.

SERMON XIV.

Septuagesima Sunday.

GENESIS ii. 3.

God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it He had rested from all His work.

HIS verse is taken from the first Lesson of the

Evening Service of this day. It shews us that the Lord sanctified the Sabbath from the very beginning. Some people, hastily reading their Bible, have thought that the Sabbath was first hallowed when the Jews received the Ten Commandments on the tables of stone; but this verse shews us that the Sabbath was a holy-day long before the time of Moses. It tells us that the very first seventh day, that rose upon the new creation, was sanctified, was set apart, was hallowed by the Lord; and that to keep the Sabbath was an ordinance made by God as soon as the light for the seventh time shone upon the earth.

Now this observation seems to me to put to shame those who speak somewhat against the keeping of the Sabbath. Because, my brethren, in these days there are people who will speak against everything:

and so some have been found who say that, as the Sabbath was given only to the Jews, it does not concern us Christians to keep and observe it; that it is no more binding upon us than the other ceremonies which Moses commanded; and that though we may think it, perhaps, a convenient thing to observe the Sabbath, yet that it is not binding on us, as a religious law, to regard it as the Lord's day. Now these people seem to me to meet with an answer in the text; because it tells them that the Sabbath was set apart long before the Jews were in the world, long before Moses taught them as he was led by the Holy Ghost, long before Abraham talked with God, and was blessed with the promises. For it is impossible, with any fairness, but to take this as the beginning of the Sabbath; and here we find that the Sabbath was appointed as soon as the seventh day came. It was pronounced by the Lord, as soon as it rose, to be a blessed day, a day sanctified from other days, made holy and set apart. Whether the Jews, before they received the Ten Commandments, kept the Sabbath or neglected it, may be a matter of doubt; it is very likely the Egyptians, their hard taskmasters, greatly interfered with it. Whether the fourth commandment was to them a new thing, or whether it bound upon them an ancient religious duty, perhaps may be questioned; but we cannot help seeing from the Lesson for this day that the Sabbath itself was an old thing; that it began when the gracious work