necessity of punishing: call it justice to let the blow fall somewhere no matter where: blood must flow. Hence heathen sacrifices were offered to appease the Deity, to buy off His wrath-the purer the offering the better:-to glut His fury. Instances illustrating the feeling: Iphigenia; Zaleucus; two eyes given to the law: barbarian rude notions of justness mixed up with a father's instincts. Polycrates and Amasis; seal sacrificed to avert the anger of heaven-supposed to be jealous of mortal prosperity. These notions were mixed with Judaism: nay, are mixed up now with Christian conceptions of Christ's sacrifice.

Jewish sacrifices therefore presented two thoughts-to the spiritual, true notions; to the unspiritual, false; and expressed these feelings for each. But men like David felt that what lay beneath all sacrifice as its ground and meaning was surrender to God's will-that a man's best is himself—and to sacrifice this is the true sacrifice. By degrees they came to see that the sacrifice was but a form-typical; and that it might be superseded.

Compare this psalm with Psalm L.

They were taught this chiefly through sin and suffering. Conscience, truly wounded, could not be appeased by these sacrifices which were offered year by year continually. The selfish coward, who saw in sin nothing terrible but the penalty, could be satisfied of course. Believing that the animal bore his punishment, he had nothing more to dread. But they who felt sin to be estrangement from God, who were not thinking of punishment, what relief could be given to them by being told that the penalty of their sins was borne by another being? They felt that only by surrender to God could conscience be at rest.

Learn then-God does not wish pain, but goodness; not suffering, but you-yourself-your heart.

Even in the sacrifice of Christ, God wished only this. It was precious not because it was pain, but because the pain, the blood, the death were the last and highest evidence of entire surrender. Satisfaction? Yes, the blood of Christ satisfied. Why? Because God can glut His vengeance in innocent blood more sweetly than in guilty? Because, like the barbarian Zaleucus, so long as the whole penalty is paid, He cares not by whom? Or was it because for the first time He saw human nature a copy of the Divine nature-the will of Man the Son perfectly coincident with the will of God the Father-the love of duty for the first time exhibited by man -obedience entire, "unto death, even the death of the cross ?” Was not that the sacrifice which He saw in His beloved Son

wherewith He was well pleased? Was not that the sacrifice of Him who, through the Eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God: the sacrifice once offered which hath perfected forever them that are sanctified?

2. Last step, spirit of liberty. "Thy free spirit "literally, princely. But the translation is right. A princely is a free spirit-unconstrained. Hence St. James calls it "the royal law of liberty.'

Two classes of motives may guide to acts of seeming goodness: 1. Prudential; 2. Generous.

The agent of the temperance society appeals to prudential motives when he demonstrates the evils of intoxication; enlists the aid of anatomy; contrasts the domestic happiness and circumstantial comfort of the temperate home with that of the intemperate. An appeal to the desire of happiness and fear of misery. A motive, doubtless, and of unquestionable potency. All I say is, that from this class of motives comes nothing of the highest stamp.

Prudential motives will move me: but compare the rush of population from east to west for gold with a similar rush in the time of the Crusades. A dream a fancy; but an appeal to generous and unselfish emotions to enthusiasm which has in it no reflex consideration of personal greed: in the one case, simply a transfer of population, with vices and habits unchanged; in the other, a sacrifice of home, country, all.

Tell men that salvation is personal happiness, and damnation personal misery, and that goodness consists in seeking the one and avoiding the other, and you will get religionists: but poor, stunted, dwarfish asking, with painful self-consciousness, Am I saved? Am I lost? Prudential considerations about a distant happiness, conflicting with passionate impulses to secure a near and present one: men moving in shackles “letting I dare not wait upon I would."

Tell men that God is love: that right is right, and wrong wrong: let them cease to admire philanthropy, and begin to love men: cease to pant for heaven, and begin to love God then the spirit of liberty begins.

When fear has done its work-whose office is not to create holiness but to arrest conscience-and self-abasement has set in in earnest, then the free Spirit of God begins to breathe upon the soul like a gale from a healthier climate, refreshing it with a more generous and a purer love. Prudence is no longer left in painful and hopeless struggle with desire: love bursts the shackles of the soul, and we are free.

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VII.

OBEDIENCE THE ORGAN OF SPIRITUAL
KNOWLEDGE.

ASSIZE SERMON.

'If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself."—John vii. 17.

THE first thing we have to do is to put ourselves in possession of the history of these words.

Jesus taught in the Temple during the Feast of Tabernacles. The Jews marvelled at His spiritual wisdom. The cause of wonder was the want of scholastic education : "How knoweth this man letters, never having learned ?" They had no conception of any source of wisdom beyond learning.

He Himself gave a different account of the matter. "My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me. And how He came possessed of it, speaking humanly, He taught (chap. v. 30): "My judgment is just, because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.'

That principle whereby He attained spiritual judgment or wisdom, He extends to all. "If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." Here, then, manifestly, there are two opinions respecting the origin of spiritual knowledge: 1. The popular one of the Jews, relying on a cultivated understanding.

2. The principle of Christ, which relied on trained affections, and habits of obedience.

What is truth? Study, said the Jews. Act, said Christ, and you shall know. A very precious principle to hold by in these days, and a very pregnant one of thought to us, who during the next few days must be engaged in the contemplation of crime, and to whom the question will suggest itself, how can men's lives be made true?

Religious controversy is fast settling into a conflict between two great extreme parties-those who believe every thing, and those who believe nothing: the disciples of credulity, and the disciples of skepticism.

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The first rely on authority. Foremost among these, and

the only self-consistent ones, are the adherents of the Church of Rome; and into this body, by logical consistency, ought to merge all-Dissenters, Churchmen, Bible Christians; all who receive their opinions because their sect, their church, or their documents assert them, not because they are true eternally in themselves.

The second class rely solely on a cultivated understanding. This is the root principle of Rationalism. Enlighten, they say, and sin will disappear. Enlighten, and we shall know all that can be known of God. Sin is an error of the understanding, not a crime of the will. Illuminate the understanding, show man that sin is folly, and sin will disappear. Political economy will teach public virtue; knowl edge of anatomy will arrest the indulgence of the passions. Show the drunkard the inflamed tissues of the brain, and he will be sobered by fear and reason.

Only enlighten fully, and spiritual truths will be tested. When the anatomist shall have hit on a right method of dissection, and appropriated sensation to this filament of the brain, and the religious sentiment to that fibre, we shall know whether there be a soul or not, and whether consciousness will survive physical dissolution. When the chemist shall have discovered the principle of life, and found cause behind cause, we shall know whether the last cause of all is a personal will or a lifeless force.

Concerning whom I only remark now, that these disciples of skepticism easily become disciples of credulity. It is instructive to see how they who sneer at Christian mysteries as old wives' fables, bow in abject reverence before Egyptian mysteries of three thousand years' antiquity; and how they who have cast off a God believe in the veriest imposture, and have blind faith in the most vulgar juggling. Skepticism and credulity meet. Nor is it difficult to explain. Distrusting every thing, they doubt their own conclusions and their own mental powers; and that for which they can not account presents itself to them as supernatural and mysterious. Wonder makes them more credulous than those they sneer at.

In opposition to both these systems stands the Christianity of Christ.

1. Christ never taught on personal authority. "My doctrine is not mine." He taught "not as the scribes." They dogmatized: "because it was written "-stickled for maxims, and lost principles. His authority was the authority of truth, not of personality: He commanded men to believe, not because He said it, but He said it because it was true.

Hence John xii. 47, 48, "If any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day."

2. He never taught that cultivation of the understanding would do all, but exactly the reverse. And so taught His apostles. St. Paul taught, "The world by wisdom knew not God." His Master said not that clear intellect will give you a right heart, but that a right heart and a pure life will clarify the intellect. Not, become a man of letters and learning, and you will attain spiritual freedom: but, Do rightly, and you will judge justly: obey, and you will know. "My judgment is just, because I seek not mine own will but the will of the Father which sent me." "If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself."

I. The knowledge of the truth, or Christian knowledge. II. The condition on which it is attainable.

I. Christian knowledge-"he shall know." Its object— "the doctrine." Its degree-certainty-" shall know."

Doctrine is now, in our modern times, a word of limited meaning; being simply opposed to practical. For instance, the Sermon on the Mount would be called practical: St. Paul's Epistles doctrinal. But in Scripture, doctrine means broadly, teaching: any thing that is taught is doctrine. Christ's doctrine embraces the whole range of His teaching -every principle and every precept. Let us select three departments of "doctrine" in which the principle of the text will be found true-" If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.”

1. It holds good in speculative truth. If any man will do God's will, he shall know what is truth and what is error. Let us see how willfulness and selfishness hinder impartiality. How comes it that men are almost always sure to arrive at the conclusions reached by their own party? Surely because fear, interest, vanity, or the desire of being reckoned sound and judicious, or party spirit, bias them. Personal prospects, personal antipathies, these determine most men's creed. How will you remove this hindrance? By increased cultivation of mind? Why, the Romanist is as accomplished as the Protestant, and learning is found in the Church and out of it. You are not sure that high mental cultivation will lead a man either to Protestantism or to the Church of England. Surely, then, by removing self-will, and so only, can the hindrance to right opinions be removed. Take away the