versy which would be more painful than it is were it not that it really tests and tries each doctrine, and sifts it until it is found either to be of God or man. It is a very common feeling, no doubt, to condemn at once what at all seems an addition to the teaching of the past generation. But though we may with reason be extremely cautious, and with St. Bartholomew ask, Can there be any good in what is now brought before us for the first time? yet for all that we are bound to enquire further. Coming after a time of apathy and coldness, it is only prudent to look into the matter for ourselves. It is right to be cautious; it is wrong to be self-satisfied and prejudiced. We must refuse to give up anything that is time-honoured, we may look with suspicion upon all that is novel and strange. But it does not follow that what sounds strange in our ears is in reality new, or that because it has been lost sight of for many years, yet that it is not a necessary truth.

Is any such doctrine to be found in Scripture? was it taught in the early ages of Christianity? is it contained in the forms and services of the Church? is it inconsistent with other religious truths, or does it help us to see them more clearly? These are questions from which we must

not shrink; like Nathanael we must look and see for ourselves; may be, if we enquire with real anxiety of mind, in sincerity and simplicity, the Lord who met him on his way to Him, will encourage and guide us on in our journey of faith; may be He will regard us as we meditate on His Word in secret, and as we humbly ask will lead us into all truth.

Truth generally lies beneath the surface, and as we patiently muse over God's ways, light often appears where all at first seemed dark and misty. It is His arrangement that it should be so. In religion every thing is not made self-evident; room is left for the praise and reward of believing. Enough light is given to enable the faithful to see their way, but it is only as they go on with the search in humility and perseverance that the vision becomes more light and manifest; as we bring forth the fruits of what we do believe, the Lord as it were repeats His words, "thou shalt see greater things than these;" and if we discern Christ's presence in our acts of spiritual communion on earth, let us trust that He will still more clearly reveal Himself in that day, when we "shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man."

We must not be surprised if faith has its trials; only let us turn to God in all our trials, and let us do His will, and He will reveal to us His truth, and we shall know it more and more. At last, God will be more perfectly revealed to us in that world where there are no clouds and shadow, no veil, no obscurity.

JOHN HENRY PARKER, OXFORD AND LONDON.

Sermons for the Christian Seasons,

ST. MATTHEW'S DAY.

ST. MATTHEW AND ORDINATION.

ZECHARIAH ix. 12, 13. Even to-day do I declare that I will render double unto thee; when I have bent Judah for Me, filled the bow with Ephraim, and raised up thy sons, O Zion, against thy sons, O Greece, and made thee as the sword of a mighty man.

WHEN We read the books of the Prophets we must ever bear in mind that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation; inasmuch as every prophecy is in truth a message from God to man; spoken by the Holy Ghost through the Prophets to the Jews first, and in them to us also. Therefore when we are thus allowed to hear the voice of the Lord our God, it is not for us to put any meaning we please upon His words, but it is our plain and bounden. duty to enquire diligently and with reverence what He would have us to understand thereby ;

that so we may in all humility fashion our thoughts according to His mind, instead of bringing His words down to our weak fancies, an offence which men too often, though perhaps unwittingly, commit, in that they clothe their own fond imaginations with Scripture language, and would then have others to submit themselves to these words, as if they were now the voice of God Himself: which is as though an Israelite should have claimed the office of the high-priest because he had possessed himself of the high-priest's holy garments: or as though the robes of a king could give a kingly heart to any common man who wrongfully should put them on.

Now in order that we may be kept from this snare of dressing up our own thoughts in words. of Holy Writ, and then mistaking them for Scripture itself, God has mercifully ordained that many of the prophecies in the Old Testament should be applied and interpreted for us in the New Testament, and the manner of their fulfilment be pointed out by our Lord Himself, and by His Apostles. We are assured that all these are understood and brought forward in the true and proper meaning; since the self-same Spirit who spake by the prophets of old, guided the pens of the evangelists and other writers of the New Testament; and