of suffering, imprisonment, and martyrdom for the Word of God. It has been baptized with fire. Its central subject is the cross. Its original propagators and possessors endured death oft in preserving it. It has been transmitted to us through ages of persecution and sorrow-committed to us by a hand stretched out of the midst of the fire. It has been sent to us from the dungeon, bequeathed to us from the rack. It is the precious legacy of a host of martyred saints. Do you, I ask, sufficiently prize it? Do you receive and press it to your heart as the true sayings of God? They all expect it from you. They will demand it at your hands when you meet them at the bar of God. Hearers of the Gospel! are you aware of your position? The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. Every time you hear it, you stand as in the focus of all the threatenings, promises, invitations, commands, and doctrines of the Bible-they all gather around you-settle upon you. Have you not felt them?-trembled, believed, surrendered yourselves up to their influence?

As often as you come here, the Spirit of God is herehere to enlighten dark minds, and to renew depraved hearts. Every time you have come, you have come within the scope, passed within the verge of His influence; you have been surrounded by it as by an all-encompassing element. Have you not heard at times His still small voice-felt His startling touch-invoked His regenerating breath to breathe upon you? Have you ever come with a conscious desire to be made a new creature in Christ Jesus?

How many, brethren, how many of the charges and commendations contained in these seven epistles are applicable to this assembly? Were the Divine Redeemer to dictate an epistle to this Church, say, what would be its prevailing tone? Granted that it would not be the tone of stern and withering rebuke, but of sympathy and approval, would its commendation be unmixed?

But if the text thus summons you to an examination of

the past and the present, it charges you indirectly to act on a wise and comprehensive plan for the future. In engaging that if you are faithful unto death He will give you a crown of life, what is the Saviour doing, but leading you to a mount of vision which commands a view of eternity? and what is He but saying to you there, Let the sweep and compass of your views take in that eternity? View existence as a whole. Let a grand and comprehensive purpose connect to-day with a period ten thousand ages hence. My young friends, resolve to wear a crown in heaven. "I" (said one in early life, and the resolution was a splendid instance of moral sublimity), "I will do whatever I think to be most for God's glory and my own good, on the whole, without any consideration of time, whether now, or ever so many myriads of ages hence." What is this but simply echoing back the language of Christ in the text? It is time doing homage to eternity -faith taking the man to an immeasurable distance from the earth, and bidding him look down, and look back upon this world, shrunk in its dimensions, and dwindled to a point. It is the soul enjoying a foretaste of future freedom-ascending the throne-asserting its royalty, and putting on its promised crown before the time. Go thou; and, in the strength of God, do likewise.

Finally, our Lord reminds us here, in effect, that the Spirit is present in the Church expressly to reprove, assist, and animate its members. By commanding us to hear what the Spirit saith-though He himself is the speaker, He would remind us that this is emphatically the dispensation of the Spirit-that everything in the Churchevery voice—even His own voice-is in a sense subordinated to the Spirit, and can be heard with effect only as the Spirit repeats it and conveys it into the soul. And is it true that a regard to the voice of the Spirit would have saved those seven Churches from decay and death? and is it true that this Divine Spirit is in the Church still?-that we can obtain His unmeasured influence?

Oh, were there some one spot on this wide earth where the presence of Christ was visible the earth's holiest of all-where, whoever entered heard His voice, saw corruscations of His glory; slept only to have visions of the Son of man as seen by John; and awoke only to feel that all around was instinct with His Divine presence;-who would not make a pilgrimage thither, though it should be as far as Patmos, where John was? Brethren, that pilgrimage would end only in disappointment, if the sacred precincts were entered with an unprepared heart; and with a prepared heart the pilgrimage is unnecessary. That presence is nigh to ussurrounds us-is here. Without the heart to desire it, and the eye to perceive it, that presence might indeed as well be far off, at the outskirts of the universe. The preoccupied mind might sleep at the very gate of heaven and no celestial dreams would visit it. The worldly mind might find itself even in the holiest of all-but the skirts of the Divine glory would sweep by it unnoticed. A mind keen after earthly objects-engrossed by the interests of time, might live here threescore years and ten-with the powers of the world to come all the time surrounding it, soliciting it, pressing in upon it and yet never once recognize a single indication of the Divine presence. And he who finds nothing of heaven on earth would find nothing but earth even in heaven. It is the pure in heart that sees God—that beholds Him even here— the impure could not see Him there. Let there be a congregation of such hearts-let there be here an assembly of hearts humbled before Him-craving His aid-yearning for His spirit and visions, precious as those which John saw, would stand disclosed to us. No sight of angels round about the throne might flash on our view; but "I say unto you, there would be joy among the angels in the presence of God." The gates of the celestial city might not brighten to our eye, nor the music of its harps fall on our ear :-but the reality would be here without the imagery; the Spirit without the rushing mighty wind; Pentecost, in its converting and trans

forming results; Patmos, in its manifestation of a present Saviour; Truth, in the calmness of its power; Love, in its purifying flame; the kingdom of heaven in the soul. He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches. Let the Churches hear and suitably respond to the Divine Spirit, and a new apocalypse—an era of glorious prosperity-should be the result.

SERMON VIII.

VITAL CHRISTIANITY BOTH EXCLUSIVE AND COMPREHENSIVE.

1 COR. xvi. 22.-"If any man love not our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema, maran-atha.”

THE apostle, you remember, had written this epistle by another hand. It ends at the 20th verse. But no sooner has his amanuensis laid down the pen, than he himself takes it up. And the text is the substance of his weighty postscript. "The salutation of me Paul with mine own hand. If any man love not our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema, maran-atha―reserved to the coming judgment of the Lord." Here is Christianity in its vital substance, its stern exclusiveness, and its loving comprehensiveness. To this threefold aspect of Christianity let me now invite your devout attention, as bringing us into contact with some of the questions of the day.

I

Here is, first, Christianity-personal, subjective Christianity-in its vital substance, love to Christ. What is implied in the fact that the essence of Christianity consists in love to Christ? Evidently, in the estimate of the apostle, Christ could not have been a mere myth, as some would have us believe-a bare impersonal idea-the poetic creation of man's hopes. Strictly speaking, you cannot love an idea; you may conceive it, believe it, admire it, act on it, but love must have a personal object. Loosely and popularly, indeed, we speak of loving a place, a thing, and even an occurrence. We may be gratified by it, have pleasant