trial of our faith. All these things are suffered for the trial of faith, and all these things "work together for good to them that love God." Faith gains by trial, if it stands the trial; men are not known without trial. What would it be to hold sound doctrine if there were no false, to confess the truth if there were no errors, to accept true teachers, if there were none teaching without authority? It would be no hard thing to believe. It is amid many confusing voices that the ear of faith is exercised in detecting the true sound of the Gospel. It is amid the pleasant windings of many false ways that the eye of faith is exercised in distinguishing the true. It is while doubting and unstable men are asking, "what is truth?" that the tongue of faith makes confession unto salvation. salvation. Divisions should not unsettle, but should rather fix us the more in the faith. The more errors in religion abound, and doubts in other men, and blasphemous doctrines, and corruptions of the word, the more tenaciously should we hold to "the old paths," trning neither to the right hand nor the left, nothing shaken nor confused, shutting our ears, as far as may be, against all contradictory sounds around, avoiding, as far as may be, all wrangling and vain disputation in the midst of a selfwilled and contentious generation..

And while we avoid, to the utmost of our power, all controversy and religious strife as hurtful and unedifying to the soul, we have a better and a wiser work to fulfil. We should seek so much the more earnestly after godliness, after personal purity and single-mindedness, after a living and fruitful faith. We should so much the more seek to comfort ourselves with doing good, with efforts to become more holy, more spiritual, more heavenly-minded, more kind, more full of devout

affections, more dead to the world. We shall only harass, vex, it may be, grievously offend and wound our souls by entering into religious debate; we shall, surely, improve our souls, increase our gifts of grace,

and grow in grace, if we give ourselves to those plain

duties about which there is no dispute. If we seek to be humble in our own eyes, to be self-denying, to be generous to the poor, to "visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction," to interest ourselves in others, to be unselfish in our own homes and home life, we shall indeed be doing our proper work in the world. This is our work, especially in troublous times; this is the work which will fill us with the knowledge of GOD, which will support us, comfort, and bring us peace and serenity of mind when all around is vexation and debate. A daily walk with GOD, a daily sacrifice of ourselves, a daily consecration of our powers, these are the best and strongest and most persuasive arguments for the faith, which prevail above many words of wisdom; this is the true method of confessing JESUS CHRIST in the world, and of proving the excellency of the Gospel of CHRIST; this is the true preparation for His second Coming, when all men, quick and dead together, shall be gathered before His Throne, to be judged according to their deeds.

J. A.

SERMON XXX.

OFFICE OF THE VISITATION OF THE SICK.

JAMES V. 14.

IS ANY SICK AMONG YOU? LET HIM CALL FOR THE ELDERS OF THE CHURCH, AND LET THEM PRAY OVER HIM.

THE Course of Providence in the present world is exactly what might be expected from a holy and merciful God, dealing with sinners whom He desires to reclaim and pardon. It discloses to us, at once, a sinful world, and yet a reconciled GOD. This truth is nowhere more evident than in the condition of our own bodies. The blessing of health is one for which we can never feel too thankful. It is a gift of the truest and purest bounty, from the hand of our allbounteous PARENT in Heaven. It is a proof to us that His mercy cannot have altogether abandoned us; the spirits whom His love has forsaken have no knowledge of it by present experience: there is no health, as there is no happiness, in the regions of the condemned. But then, the frequent occurrence of sickness is a warning that we are sinners. There is no sickness, as there is no misery, in the realms of the blessed. Where sin is not, sickness never comes. We see there is mercy

for us; but we see that it is properly mercy, goodness towards the undeserving. For, if we be ever deserving of sickness at all, it is certain we cannot be deserving of health. But, even in the time of sickness, God's immediate mercy is not the least. Sickness may be, and often is, a greater blessing than health. Nay, it is expressly said, "whom the LORD loveth HE chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth." Like a good Father "HE doth not afflict willingly;" but, like a good Father, HE ever chastises when His children require chastisement. Sickness reminds us of things most necessary to be remembered, but which in health are forgotten by many, and are in danger of being forgotten by all. It shows us our entire dependence on GOD, and His sovereign power over our bodies and souls; it brings the contemplation of death more immediately in view, and forces our thoughts into channels from which, by nature and corruption, they would revolt; to many it affords that leisure for serious meditation which in health they never could enjoy; it sets us upon inquiring the cause why GOD thus deals with us; it has often been eminently blessed by HIM to the conversion of sinners and the establishment of Christians; and, wherever it has failed, it has only been because the wilfulness and ignorance of the human heart have resolutely resisted its holy and softening influence.

Sickness, then, being attended with so many spiritual advantages, it is highly important to have some means of improving them; and none can be better than prayer and instruction. "If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to show unto man His uprightness; then He is gracious unto him, 1 Heb. xii. 6, from Prov. iii. 13.

2 Lam. iii. 33.

and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom. His flesh shall be fresher than a child's; he shall return to the days of his youth; he shall pray unto GoD, and HE will be favourable unto him; and he shall see His face with joy: for He will render unto man His righteousness."" The sick man, who has any serious impressions at all, is desirous of conversations with his Minister. This desire of his is made the subject of Scriptural command. "Is any sick? Let him call for the Elders of the Church, and let them pray over him." It is not said, "for any pious friends; " not that this is forbidden but the presence of the Elders of the Church, that is, of the Clergy, is commanded. It is they who watch for his soul; it is they who may be presumed most competent to instruct, and whose office it is; it is they who alone have authority to speak absolution to his sins, and who pray for him not in their private capacity, but offer for him the supplications of the Church. These are things which laymen, however pious, have no authority to do; and their assumption of them would itself be the strongest evidence that piety was wanting. The sick man is not concerned to be passing judgment on the relative spirituality of his neighbours. His concern is with himself; and if he finds himself commanded to send for the Elders of the Church, and let them pray, he is sure that, in obeying that precept, he is taking the course which is wise and safe; and he can believe, in faith, that it will be accompanied by blessing. If it be asked why, in our Church, we do not anoint with oil in the name of the LORD,

1 Job xxxiii. 23. seq. The whole chapter is observable in reference to this subject.

9 πρεσβύτερους, priests.