Mediation, and also deny it? Allow the one, and the Sacramental system is a groundless superstition: allow the other, and the Anti-Sacramental system is a presumptuous unbelief.

The same contrast might be exhibited in respect to the Holy Eucharist. If Our Lord's intercession as man be a real act, whereby we participate through that perpetual oblation, wherein we show the Lord's death till He come, then should this service be the very centre of our worship, and the basis of our prayers. We should look upon it as our continual means of participating in that divine nature, which mercifully submitted to the conditions of humanity, in order that the finite might be pervaded by the Infinite. Is such a thing impossible? Then has not God become man: then is Christianity a dream, and the Doctrine of the Cross a fable. For if nature can save us, then is it an idolatry to rest on grace; but if we can only be saved by grace, then to rest on nature is an infidel delusion.

Which of these systems, brethren, shall be adopted by ourselves? I ask not as if the question were doubtful, but because the Church looks to this place, and to this congregation, to show that they are ready to testify to the truth by their deeds. For why have you a faculty of theology, and a local government, and institutions which are independent of the popular voice, and associations which bind you to past times, save that in you the Church should have a rallying-point in moments

of trial, and a safeguard against the sudden movements of popular caprice? "For if thou altogether holdeth thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to Israel from another place; but thou and thy Father's house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come into authority, for such a time as this?" It can never be expected, indeed, that a Rationalistic religion will want supporters, when unchecked scope is given to that lawlessness of the human will, which not even the strongest coercion could master. Yet there is a majesty in truth, which is strong enough finally to prevail. Especially when such an appeal addresses itself to the young, whose truthfulness is guaranteed by the independence of their age, as well as by the hereditary integrity of our nation.

For the principles which have been set before you will come into collision not now only nor once, but during those long years, when it will be yours to guide the public sentiment, and give utterance to the public voice. Provide yourselves then, I beseech you, with true principles of action, that when you have entered upon the arena of middle life, you may not be compelled to rescind your judgment, and retrace your steps. Yet think not that such principles are to be gained only by intellectual culture, or that to admit the irrefragable conclusions of logic is an Evangelical belief. Among the most telling arguments against Sacra

mental grace is the experience of ungodly men, who having sinned against it by riot in their youth, sin against it by incredulity in their age. For with our moral as with our intellectual opportunities, those who are the last to use are commonly the first to disparage them. Who so ready to undervalue that incomparable discipline, which the poets, historians, and philosophers of ancient time supply to the understanding, as those whose self-will or idleness has shrunk from sustaining it? Nor is it unnatural that men should desire to charge their defects upon their circumstances, rather than on themselves. Especially is this the case in the things of the Spirit: for what argument so sways with men as their own consciousness, and what so probable, therefore, as that ungodliness should engender unbelief? Inquire why men deny Sacramental grace, you will find the common reason to be that they have themselves misused it. Having cut themselves off from Christ's presence by deadly sins, and impatient of so tedious a mode of reconcilement as confession, repentance, and amendment, they seek some shorter road of approach to God. And such they fancy themselves to possess in that excitement of feeling, which brings them into natural relation with their Maker. And they forget that the thing which they despise is the Mediation of Christ, and His true presence with His people. For these depend on that coming in the flesh, which has its effect through those Sa

cramental ordinances which they have slighted. Thus do they shut their eyes to the true Sun of righteousness, and walk in the light of their fire, and of the sparks which they have kindled.

So close is the alliance between a pure life and a right creed. Would you be fitted then to engage safely in the contentions of the world; to maintain the ancient institutions of your country, and to vindicate the real dignity of man, your present selfdenial, purity, and faith, must be the true husbandry which will precede so honourable an harvest. Do not wait for a new place, or fresh associates, or a riper age; but live now in purity of heart, if you would not lose the power of appreciating truth in time to come. For truth comes only from that Infinite Source, whose presence must be anticipated by grace in this life, if we would possess His full fruition in life everlasting.

R

242

SERMON XX.

CHURCH UNION.

ST. JOHN, XV. 5.

"I am the vine, ye are the branches."

THIS is almost the only parable, if such it may at all be termed, in St. John's Gospel. The last surviving Apostle was too much charged with the realities of Our Lord's teaching, or his hearers were too well prepared for the strong meat of the Gospel, to make it needful that he should linger in similitudes. Therefore we should expect a peculiar measure of reality in the parable before us.

Each of Our Lord's examples has its leading feature. The parable of the leaven describes the unseen and silent manner in which the faith of Christ spread from one to another, till it had infected the whole Pagan world. The parable of the growing crop describes the gradual increase which it maintained from generation to generation. The