to the Lord. "Is not this," rather, exclaims the prophet, in the name of Jehovah, "Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh®?" And to the same purpose, our Saviour in the remarkable words which we have before quoted,— remarkable, because they show how high a degree of religious privilege may exist together with an inconsistent life," Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them," even to those who had taught, and prophesied, and even worked miracles in His Name, "I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity." I would not disparage for a moment the peace, the joy, the glimpses, as it were, of Heaven, which it pleases the merciful Father to pour at times into the sincere believer's soul; but as an evidence of our Christian life and state of acceptance with God, there is, I trust, no irreverence in saying, that there is more virtue in the gift of a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in Christ's Name, than in being caught up in imagination into the third Heaven, and hearing unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a man to utter.

And now, my brethren, let me, on these grounds, beseech you to institute a strict inquiry into your

8 Isa. lviii. 6, 7.

own tempers, actions, and lives. You all, at least, bear the name of Christians, "as a nation that does righteousness;" you come here to seek the Lord; and by coming, profess, at least, that you delight to know His ways. You, many of you, I trust, are not strangers to some of the pleasures of religion,-the calm confidence of faith, the gladness of hope, the peace of prayer, and the joyfulness of praise. But your profession may be a name; your devotion may be a counterfeit. Interrogate your lives. Do not trust to your works; do not fancy there is merit in them; Oh, no! the reasonable service of a sinful, weak, helpless, redeemed creature has no merit. But seek to find in your lives an evidence of the reality of your principles. If they are irregular, uncharitable, worldly, unmortified, do not, on your soul's peril, I charge you, rest satisfied with your state. Go to Christ for a new heart, and strive, and wrestle, and pray, in entire dependence on the strength of the Holy Spirit, till you are becoming more conformed to the living image of the All-Holy God, the Man Christ Jesus. And if you do find in your lives any evidence of a renewed heart, still "work out your salvation with fear and trembling." Remember, there is no standing still. A Christian's life is a race, a journey, a warfare; and it can be supported only by daily watchfulness, daily conflict, daily prayer. Turn to the utmost account the talents committed to you, that, when the Lord comes to take account of His servants, you may be greeted with the thrice happy sentence, "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, LONDON.

THE TARES AND THE WHEAT.

MATTHEW Xiii. 30.

"Let both grow together until the harvest."

(From the Gospel for the Fifth Sunday after Epiphany.)

THE admixture of the bad and good in this life, and the apparent impartiality with which prosperity and adversity are measured alike to each, have ever been a stumbling-block and difficulty. Every notion of a God, which has any claim whatever to correctness, must include Justice among His attributes. As a moral Governor, it is at once admitted to be His part to reward virtue and to punish vice. And yet in fact the wicked are often found to prosper, and the upright to suffer; injustice triumphs, while justice is depressed; and the moral law of the retribution of right and wrong is clogged with so many exceptions, and contradicted so frequently, that men's minds are staggered and perplexed. Some among the ancients were led by these irregularities to deny the existence of a superintending Providence, and to imagine the events of human life to be tossed about by the impulses of a blind chance, or dragged along by the course of a stern and irrespective necessity. Others, with far greater sagacity, drew from these infractions of moral justice one of their strongest arguments for [No. 13.]

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seem to

a future state of existence; and concluded, or rather hoped, that as vice was often prosperous here and virtue suffering, there would be another life in which their conditions would be reversed, and the equipoise of justice restored. Even inspired men have felt this difficulty, and were perplexed with it. "As for me," said one of them, till he learnt a better lesson in the sanctuary of the Lord, "my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped. For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world; they increase in riches. Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency 1."

2

But if we are surprised at this indiscriminate mingling, as it were, of bad and good in the world, how much is the difficulty increased, when a similar admixture is discovered in the Church, that Church which is called out of the world, which is Christ's body, whose epithet is holy, for which "Christ gave himself, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing "," and of which it is said, in the imagery of Prophecy, that she "is all glorious within; her clothing is of wrought gold "." Many, indeed, have stumbled at this stumbling-block, and have either fallen into doubt, perplexity, or unbelief, as if the predictions of Scripture were unfulfilled; or have been led to deny the existence of an universal visible Church, contradicting the express teaching of Holy Writ, and depriving themselves of many inestimable privileges.

And yet our Lord has forewarned us of the state of 1 Ps. lxxiii. 2, 3. 12, 13. 2 Eph. v. 25. 27.

3 Ps. xlv. 13.

things which causes this difficulty, and has given us a key to it, as far probably as our limited comprehension is yet able to bear it, in the parable which was read as the Gospel for to-day. The chapter in which it occurs is almost wholly occupied by parables relating to the progress of the Gospel. It is the Kingdom of heaven, the Church, which is the subject illustrated by the various similitudes. So here.

"Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way." This He afterwards explains to His disciples as follows: "He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; the field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom: but the tares are the children of the wicked one; the enemy that sowed them is the devil." In the field of the world the good Husbandman sowed the holy seed which was here to constitute His Church, the Kingdom of heaven, and was to bring forth a plentiful harvest unto everlasting life. In the midst of this, on the very same seed-plot, cast in the same furrows, watered by the same dews, his enemy, the devil, sowed tares. The word thus translated is supposed to mean a kind of darnel, which bears a considerable resemblance to corn, and may be mistaken for it on a careless inspection, though it is intoxicating and poisonous in its properties. There may thus be a similarity in many points between the true and false members of Christ's Church. Baptized with the same Baptism, and grafted into the same body, they bear the same name, and make the same profession. They grow up