priesthood; not one transmissible, beginning and end ing in himself, Heb. vii. 1 to 3. A priesthood, in other words, of character, of inward right; a call in ternal, hence more Divine; or, as the writer calls it, a priest "after the power of an endless life." This was the Idea for which the Jewish psalms themselves ought to have prepared the Jew. 2. Again, the priests offered gifts and sacı fices. Distinguish. Gifts were thank-offerings; first-fruits of harvest, vintage, &c., a man's best; testimonials of infinite gratefulness, and expressions of it. But sacrifices were different: they implied a sense of unworthiness; that sense which conflicts with the idea of any right to offer gifts. Now, the Jewish Scriptures themselves had ex plained this subject, and this instinctive feeling of unworthiness for which sacrifice found an expression. Prophets and Psalmists had felt that no sacrifice was perfect which did not reach the conscience (Ps. li. 16, 17), for instance; also, Heb. x. 8 to 12. No language could more clearly show that the spiritual Jew discerned that entire surrender to the Divine Will is the only perfect Sacrifice, the ground of all sacrifices, and that which alone imparts to it a significance. Not sacrifice "Then said I, Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God." That is the sacrifice which God wills. I say it firmly-all other notions of sacrifice arefalse. Whatsoever introduces the conception of yindictiveness or retaliation; whatever speaks of appeas ing fury; whatever estimates the value of the Saviour's sacrifice by the "penalty paid;" whatever differs from these notions of sacrifice contained in psalms and prophets, is borrowed from the bloody shambles of Heathenism, and not from Jewish altars. 3. This alone makes the worshipper perfect as pertaining to the conscience. He who can offer it in its entireness, He alone is the world's Atonement; He in whose heart the Law was, and who alone of all mankind was content to do it, His Sacrifice alone can be the Sacrifice all-sufficient in the Father's sight as the proper Sacrifice of humanity; He who through the Eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, He alone can give the Spirit which enables us to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. He is the only High Priest of the Universe. 16 XIII. [Preached April 25, 1852.] WORLDLINESS. 1 JOHN ii. 15–17.——“If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever." RELIGION differs from morality in the value which It. places on the affections. Morality requires that an act be done on principle. Religion goes deeper, and inquires the state of the heart. The Church of Ephesus was unsuspected in her orthodoxy, and unblemished in her zeal; but to the ear of him who saw the apocalyptic vision, a voice spake, "I have somewhat against thee, in that thou hast left thy first love.” In the eye of Christianity he is a Christian who loves the Father. He who loves the world may be in his way a good man, respecting whose eternal destiny we pronounce no opinion; but one of the Children of the Kingdom he is not. Now, the boundary-lines of the love of this world, or worldliness, are exceedingly difficult to define. Bigotry, pronounces many things wrong which are harmless; laxity permits many which are by no means innocent; and it is a question perpetually put, a question miserably perplexing to those whose religion consists more in avoiding that which is wrong than in seeking that which is right, what is Worldli ness? To that question we desire to find to-day an answer in the text; premising this, that our object is to put ourselves in possession of principles. For otherwise we shall only deal with this matter as empirics; condemning this and approving that by opinion, but on no certain and intelligible ground; we shall but float on the unstable sea of opinion. We confine ourselves to two points. I. The nature of the forbidden world. I. The nature of the forbidden world. The first idea suggested by "the world" is this green earth, with its days and nights, its seasons, its hills and its valleys, its clouds and brightness. This is not the world the love of which is prohibited; for, to forbid the love of this would be to forbid the love of God. There are three ways in which we learn to know Him. First, by the working of our minds. Love, Justice, Tenderness—if we would know what they mean in God, we must gain the conception from their exist ence in ourselves. But, inasmuch as humanity is imperfect in us, if we were to learn of God only from His image in ourselves, we should run the risk of calling the evil good, and the imperfect divine. There fore, He has given us, besides this, the representation of Himself in Christ, where is found the meeting-point of the Divine and the human, and in whose Life the character of Deity is reflected as completely as the sun is seen in the depth of the still, untroubled lake. ! But there is a third way, still, in which we attain the idea of God. This world is but manifested Deity,God shown to the eye, and ear, and sense. This strange phenomenon of a world, what is it? All we know of it all we know of matter-is, that it is an assemblage of Powers which produce in us certain sensations; but what those Powers are in themselves we know not. The sensation of color, form, weight, we have; but what it is which gives those sensations, in the language of the schools, what is the Substratum which supports the accidents or qualities of Being, we cannot tell. Speculative Philosophy replies, It is but our own selves becoming conscious of themselves. We, in our own being, are the cause of all phenomena. Positive Philosophy replies, What the Being of the world is we cannot tell; we only know what it seems to us. Phenomena appearance- beyond this we cannot reach. Being itself is, and forever musi be, unknowable. Religion replies, That something is God. The world is but manifested Deity. That which lies beneath the surface of all Appearance, the cause of all Manifestation, is God. So that to forbid the love of all this world, is to forbid the love of that by which God is known to us. The sounds and sights of this lovely world are but the drapery of the robe in which the Invisible has clothed Himself. Does a man ask what this world is, and why man is placed in it ? It was that the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world might be clearly seen. Have we ever stood beneath the solemn vault of heaven, when |