Gradual progress of grace. MARK, iv. 26-29. 26. So is the kingdom of God, and such the progress of the Gospel-dispensation, as if a man should have cast seed into the ground; 27, and should sleep by night, and rise by day, passing his life as usual, after having done all in his power in sowing the seed; and the seed should sprout, and grow up he knoweth not how. (28. For the earth bringeth forth spontaneously, by her own energy, first the blade, then the green ear; after that, the full corn in the ear.) 29. But when the ripe fruit delivers itself to the sower (v. 26) he immediately puts in the sickle, because the harvest is come. THIS parable is recorded by St. Mark only. It was probably intended to encourage the apostles to persevere in their labours, though they were not attended with immediate suc cess. All teachers in the Church of Christ, all godly parents, all Christian friends, derive from this parable much encouragement. The advice which they urge, in their respective vocations, may seem to be lost on obdurate hearts; but let them take courage respecting the final result: their pious admonitions are seeds, which, by God's blessing, may grow and spring up they know not how. Let them not despair in their Christian course; but pray that God, in his own good time, may bring the humble work to perfection. When the father shall have been carried to his grave, the son may revert, in gratitude and repentance, to former lessons; whereby the parent, though dead, yet speaketh. These friendly reproofs and affectionate counsels may, like bread cast upon the waters, be found after many days. We may trace in this parable a beautiful representation of the gradual progress of grace in the soul, represented by the seed, which imperceptibly vegetates, peeps above the surface, springs higher and higher, and produces first the verdant blade, then the ear, afterwards the grain, gradually filling the ear, till it arrives at maturity; and is then reaped and collected into the store-house. God, being a God of order, does not work but in order, and by degrees; bringing men from one extreme to the other by middle courses; and therefore, seldom brings a man from the wretchedness of forlorn nature to the blessed estate of saving grace, but where first he does, by his restrain ing grace, in some good measure, correct nature and moralize it. "The path of the just" (says Solomon) " is as the shining light; that shineth more and more unto the perfect day." This corresponds not only with St. Peter's injunction, "Grow in grace;" but with his representation of the Christian character as combining an assemblage of excellent qualities, the result of habitual practice: "giving all diligence, add to your faith, virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience; and to patience, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, charity." St. Paul did not consider himself, even at a very advanced period of his ministry, as having yet attained to Christian perfection; but "forgetting those things which were behind, he reached forth unto those things which were before.” He exhorts the Corinthians, "So run that ye may obtain." He prays for the Philippians, that their love might abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment. If our sanctification be thus a progressive work, it seems almost necessarily that it commences with our Christian life. The injunction to "grow in grace" presupposes that there is a spiritual principle already implanted within us; and as the exhortations of St. Peter and St. Paul are addressed to Christians in general, without exceptions of any kind, it is to be presumed that all who have been admitted into the Christian covenant, had this principle actually bestowed on them, immediately upon their entrance into that covenant; or, in other words, at the instant of their baptism. This is that regeneration or new birth, or commencement of our spiritual life, spoken of in Scripture, as the common privilege of every Christian. It were in vain to exhort individuals to grow or improve in their spiritual state, unless there were this vital spark within them, ready to put forth its energies. Our Church, accordingly, invariably connects baptism with regeneration; considering every member of the Church, whether adult or infant, as thereby made partaker of all the spiritual benefits of the Gospel, according to their respective capacities of receiving them; and thenceforth assured of sufficient help and strength to fulfil the covenanted engagements. At the same time, the injunctions to grow in grace warn us, that the help bestowed must be faithfully and diligently ap plied to the purpose intended. Baptism places us in a state of salvation; but does not perfect us in that state, nor preclude the possibility of apostasy and perdition. Regeneration, therefore, must not be confounded with final perseverance: it is the seminal principle only of holiness and virtue, which are to be brought [gradually] to perfection by subsequent supplies from the same heavenly source, accompanied with proportionate exertions on our part to render them effectual. If grace be thus progressive in its nature, it is a dangerous error to conceive, that at any period of life, or under any circumstances of apparent proficiency in spiritual attainments, we may presume upon an absolute assurance of obtaining the prize of the high calling that is set before us. The farther we have advanced in our Christian course, the greater probability there may be of our persevering unto the end: but the awful warning of St. Peter may well guard us against any implicit reliance upon presumptuous expectations: "It were better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them." (2 Pet. ii. 21.) (ARCHBIShop Van MildeRT, chiefly.) Miraculous propagation of the Gospel. MATTHEW, xiii. 31, 32; MARK, iv. 31, 32: THE kingdom of heaven [the conversion of the world to the Christian faith,] is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field: which indeed when it is sown in the earth, is smaller than all seeds: but when it is sown, it rises up, and becometh greater than all the other herbs: yea, it becometh a tree, and shooteth out great branches: so that the birds of the air may come and harbour in the branches thereof, and under its shade. 'A grain of mustard seed' proverbially denoted a very small thing. The Rabbins state wonderful things respecting the growth of mustard seed. "Rabbi Simeon said, A stalk of mustard seed was in my field, into which I was wont to climb as men do into a fig-tree." One bough is said to have covered the tent of a potter. THIS parable is prophetic: it predicts the miraculous increase of Christianity, in defiance of impediments on the part of its enemies. While, therefore, it was well calculated to encourage the disciples who, judging the Gospel by its beginning, might have fallen into despair; it also remains, in all ages of the Church militant on earth, a powerful argument for the truth of our holy religion. For let us consider what the Blessed Jesus proposed to effect, and by what instruments. Our Saviour was to put a period to the rites of Moses, of which the Jews were zealous even unto pertinacity; to reform the manners of all mankind; to confound the wisdom of the Greeks; to break in pieces the power of Satan, and to destroy the worship of all false gods. But see what was to be believed,-a Trinity in the Unity of the Godhead: a man-God and a God-man; the same person, finite and infinite; born in time, and yet from all eternity the Son of God; but yet born of a woman, and she a virgin, but yet a mother resurrection of the dead, re-union of soul and body; this was part of the Christian doctrine. But was the morality of Jesus easy ? Not to flesh and blood, whose appetites it pretends to restrain, or else to mortify; fasting and humility, loving our enemies, restitution of injuries, and self-denial, and taking up the Cross, and losing all our goods, and giving our life for Jesus. As the doctrine was hard to believe, so the precepts were hard to do. But for whom, and under whose conduct, was all this to be believed, and all this to be done, and all this to be suffered? Surely for some glorious and mighty prince, whose splendour as far outshines the Roman empire, as the jewels of Cleopatra outshined the swaddling clothes of the Babe at Bethlehem. No; all this was for Jesus, a poor babe, born in a stable; the son of a carpenter; scourged; nailed to a cross. He fell under the malice of the Jews, his countrymen, and the power of his Roman lords, a pitiful sacrifice, without beauty and without splendour. The design is great; but does not yet seem possible. But let us see what instruments the holy Jesus chose, to effect these so mighty changes; to overcome so great enemies; and to master so many impossibilities. Twelve men of obscure birth, of contemptible trades and quality, without learning,-these men were sent into the midst of a wise world, to dispute with the most famous philosophers of Greece; to out-preach all the Roman orators; to introduce into a newly-settled empire, which would be impatient of novelties and change, such a change as must destroy all their temples, or remove thence all their gods. Against which change, all the zeal of the world, and all the passions, must needs be violently opposed a change that introduced new laws, and caused them to reverse the old; to change that religion under which their fathers long did prosper, and under which the Roman empire obtained so great a grandeur, for a religion, which in appearance was humble and meek; teaching peace, and making the soldiers' arms in a manner useless; a religion that gave countenance to the poor; but in a time when riches were adored, and ambition esteemed the greatest nobleness, and pleasure thought to be the chiefest good, it brought no peculiar blessing to the rich or mighty, unless they would become poor and humble in some real sense or other; a religion that would pierce into the secrets of the soul, unravel all the intrigues of hearts, and reform all evil manners. That such a religion, in such a time, preached by such mean persons, should triumph over the philosophy of the world, and the arguments of the subtle, and the sermons of the eloquent, and the power of princes, and the interest of states, and the inclinations of nature, and the blindness of zeal, and the force of custom, and the pleasures of sin, and the busy arts of Satan; that is, against wit, and power, and money, and religion, and wilfulness, and fame, and empire, which are all the things in the world that can make a thing impossible; this argues a higher cause than the immediate instrument. Now how a higher power did intervene, is visible and notorious. Jesus had promised, that in a few days he would send down the Holy Ghost upon his apostles: and he fulfilled his word. After ten days, they felt and saw lights of moveable fire sitting upon their heads. And that light did illuminate their hearts and the mighty rushing wind inspired them with a power of speaking divers languages, and brought to their remembrances all that Jesus did and taught; and made them wise to conduct souls, and bold to venture, and prudent to |