with; whereas they merely impose duties on us in God's sight. A man says, "I have a right to do this or that; I have a right to give my vote here or there; I have a right to further this or that measure." Doubtless, you have a right-you have the right of freewillyou have from your birth the birthright of being a free agent, of doing right or wrong, of saving yourself or ruining yourself; you have the right, that is, you have the power (to speak plainly) the power to damn yourself; but (alas!) a poor consolation will it be to you in the next world, to know that your ruin was all your own fault, as brought upon you by yourself-for what you have said comes to nothing more than this; and be quite sure, men do not lose their souls by some one extraordinary act, but by a course of acts; and the careless, or rather, the self-sufficient and haughtyminded use of your political power, this way or that, at your pleasure, which is now so common, is among those acts by which men save or lose them. The young man whom Solomon speaks of, thought he had a right to indulge his lusts, or, as the rich man in the Gospel, to "take his ease, eat, drink, and be merry;" but the preacher says to him, "Rejoice, O young man in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.”1

So, again, many a man, when warned against the sin of leaving the Church, or of wandering about from one place of worship to another, says, "he has a right to

1 Eccles. xi. 9.

do so." So it is, he has a strange notion that it is an Englishman's right to think what he will, and do what he will, in matters of religion. Nay, it is the right of the whole world, not ours alone; it is the attribute of all rational beings to have a right to do wrong, if they will. Yet, after all, there is but one right way, and there a hundred wrong ways. You may do as you will; but the first who exercised that right was the devil when he fell; and every one of us, when he does this or that in matters between himself and his God, merely because he wills it, and not for conscience' sake, is (so far) following the devil's pattern.

Now let us put aside these vain fancies, and look at our position steadily. Every one of us here assembled is either a vessel of mercy or a vessel of wrath fitted to destruction; or rather, I should say, will be such at the Last Day, and now is acting towards the one or the other. We cannot judge each other, we cannot judge ourselves. We only know about ourselves whether or no we are in some measure trying to serve God; we know He has loved us and "blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ," and desires our salvation. We know about others around us that they too have been blessed by the same Saviour, and are to be looked on as our brethren, till, by word or deed, they openly renounce their brotherhood. Still it is true that the solemn process of separation between bad and good is ever going on. The net has at present gathered of every kind. At the end of the world will be the final division; meanwhile there is a gradual sorting and sifting, silent but sure, towards it. It is also true that all the matters

which come before us in the course of life are trials of our faith, and instruments of our purification. It is also true that certain principles and actions are right and others wrong. It is true, moreover, that our part lies in finding out what is right, and observing and contending for it. And without judging of our brethren's state, and, again, without being over-earnest about little matters, it is our duty plainly to witness against others when we think them wrong, and to impress our seriousness upon them by our very manner towards them; lest we suffer sin in them, and so become partakers of it.

If all this be true, may God Himself, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, enable us heartily to act upon it! May He give us that honesty and simplicity of mind, which looks at things as He views them, realizes what is unseen, puts aside all the shadows and mists of pride, party-feeling, or covetousness; and not only knows and does what is right, but does it because it knows it, and that not from mere reason and on grounds of argument, but from the heart itself, with that inward and pure sense, and scrupulous fear, and keen faith, and generous devotion, which does not need arguments, except as a means of strengthening itself, and of persuading and satisfying others.

SERMON XVI.

THE CHURCH VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE.

2 TIM. ii. 20.

"In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honour, and some to dishonour."

IN

these words St. Paul speaks of the Church as containing within it good and bad, after our Saviour's pattern, who, in the parables of the Net and of the Tares, had, from the first, announced the same serious truth. That Holy House which Christ formed in order to be the treasury and channel of His grace to mankind, over which His Apostles presided at the first, and after them others whom they appointed, was, even from their time, the seat of unbelief and unholiness as well as of true religion. Even among the Apostles themselves, one was "a devil." No wonder then that ever since, whether among the rulers or the subjects of the Church, sin has abounded, where nothing but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost should have been found. It is so at this day; our eyes see it;

we cannot deny it.

But, though we all see it, we do not all see it in that particular light which Scripture sheds upon it. We

often account for it differently, we view it in a different relation to other truths, from that in which it really stands. In other words, we admit the fact, but adopt our own theory about it. I will explain what I mean, which will introduce a subject worth considering.

The sight of the sins of Christians has led us to speak of what are called the Visible and the Invisible Church in what seems an unscriptural way. The word Church, applied to the body of Christians in this world, means but one thing in Scripture, a visible body invested with invisible privileges. Scripture does not speak of two bodies, one visible, the other invisible, each with its own complement of members. But this is a common notion at present; and it is an erroneous, and (I will add) a dangerous notion.

It is true there are some senses in which we may allowably talk of the Visible and Invisible Church. I am not finding fault with mere expressions; one is not bound in common discourse to use every word with scientific precision. It is allowable to speak of the Visible and of the Invisible Church, as two sides of one and the same thing, separated by our minds only, not in reality. For instance, in political matters, we sometimes speak of England as a nation and sometimes as a state; not meaning different things, but one certain identical thing viewed in a different relation. When we speak of the Nation, we take into account its variety of local rights, interests, attachments, customs, opinions; the character of its people, and the history of that character's formation, On the other hand, when we speak of the State, we imply the notion of orders, ranks,