behave in God's House otherwise than you would in a common room, is an act of faith; to come to it on week-days as well as Sundays, is an act of faith; to come often to the most Holy Sacrament, is an act of faith; and to be still and reverent during that sacred service, is an act of faith. These are all acts of faith, because they all are acts such as we should perform, if we saw and heard Him who is present, though with our bodily eyes we see and hear Him not. But, "blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed;" for, be sure, if we thus act, we shall, through God's grace, be gradually endued with the spirit of His holy fear. We shall in time, in our mode of talking and acting, in our religious services and our daily conduct, manifest, not with constraint and effort, but spontaneously and naturally, that we fear Him while we love Him.

SERMON III.

UNREAL WORDS.

ISA. xxxiii. 17.

"Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty: thou shalt behold the land that is very far off."

THE Prophet tells us that under the Gospel covenant God's servant will have the privilege of seeing those heavenly sights which were but shadowed out in the Law. Before Christ came was the time of shadows; but when He came, He brought truth as well as grace; and as He who is the Truth has come to us, so does He in return require that we should be true and sincere in all our dealings with Him. To be true and sincere is really to see with our minds those great wonders which He has wrought in order that we might see them. When God opened the eyes of the ass on which Balaam rode, she saw the Angel and acted upon the sight. When He opened the eyes of the young man, Elisha's ser

VOL. V.

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vant, he too saw the chariots and horses of fire, and took comfort. And in like manner, Christians are now under the protection of a Divine Presence, and that more wonderful than any which was vouchsafed of old time. God revealed Himself visibly to Jacob, to Job, to Moses, to Joshua, and to Isaiah; to us He reveals Himself not visibly, but more wonderfully and truly; not without the co-operation of our own will, but upon our faith, and for that very reason more truly; for faith is the special means of gaining spiritual blessings. Hence St. Paul prays for the Ephesians "that Christ may dwell in their hearts by faith," and that" the eyes of their understanding may be enlightened." And St. John declares that "the Son of God hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true: and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ1."

We are no longer then in the region of shadows: we have the true Saviour set before us, the true reward, and the true means of spiritual renewal. We know the true state of the soul by nature and by grace, the evil of sin, the consequences of sinning, the way of pleasing God, and the motives to act upon. God has revealed Himself clearly to us; He has "destroyed the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations." "The darkness is past, and the True Light

now shineth'." And therefore, I say, He calls upon us in turn to “walk in the light as He is in the light." The Pharisees might have this excuse in their hypocrisy, that the plain truth had not been revealed to them; we have not even this poor reason for insincerity. We have no opportunity of mistaking one thing for another: the promise is expressly made to us that " our teachers shall not be removed into a corner any more, but our eyes shall see our teachers;" that "the eyes of them that see shall not be dim;" that every thing shall be called by its right name; that "the vile person shall be no more called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful2;" in a word, as the text speaks, that "our eyes shall see the King in His beauty; we shall behold the land that is very far off." Our professions, our creed, our prayers, our dealings, our conversation, our arguments, our teaching, must henceforth be sincere, or, to use an expressive word, must be real. What St. Paul says of himself and his fellow-labourers, that they were true because Christ is true, applies to all Christians; "Our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world, and more abundantly to you

1 Isai. xxv. 7. 1 John ii. 8.

2 Isai. xxx. 20; xxxii. 3. 5.

wards. . . . The thing that I purpose, do I

purpose

according to the flesh, that with me there should

But, as God is true, our

yea and nay. For the

be yea, yea, and nay, nay? word toward you was not Son of God, Jesus Christ, ... was not yea and nay, but in Him was yea. For all the promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him amen, unto the glory of God by us1."

And yet, it need scarcely be said, nothing is so rare as honesty and singleness of mind; so much so, that a person who is really honest, is already perfect. Insincerity was an evil which sprang up within the Church from the first; Ananias and Simon were not open opposers of the Apostles, but false brethren. And, as foreseeing what was to be, our Saviour is remarkable in His ministry for nothing more, than the earnestness of the dissuasives which He addressed to those who came to Him, of taking up religion lightly, or of making promises which they were likely to break.

Thus He," the True Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world," " the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God'," said to the young Ruler, who lightly called Him "Good Master," "Why callest thou Me good?" as bidding him weigh his words; and then abruptly told him, "One thing thou

1 2 Cor. i. 12-20.

2

John i. 9. Rev. iii. 14.