shows us the truth. But if we are rational, we can assume such an eternal point of view, can see God everywhere, and can so enter, not merely with mystical longings, but with a clear insight into an immediate com5 munion with the Lord of all being. And this Lord, he is indeed the author of matter. The earth, the sea, yes, the very geometrical figures themselves write his truth in inanimate outward forms. But meanwhile (and) herein lies the hope of our mystical religion) this sub10 stance, this deity, possesses and of its nature determines also and equally an infinite mind, of whose supreme perfection our minds are fragments. We are thus not only the sons of God; so far as we are wise our lives are hid in God, we are in Him, of Him; we recognize 15 this indwelling, we lose our finiteness in Him, we become filled with the peace which the eternal brings; we calm the thirst of our helpless finite passion by entering consciously into his eternal self-possession and freedom. For the true mind, like the true natural order, 20 knows nothing of the bondage of time, thinks of no be

fore and after, has no fortune, dreads nothing, laments nothing; but enjoys its own endlessness, its own completeness, has all things in all things, and so cries, like the lover of the "Imitation," "My Beloved, I am all 25 thine, and thou art all mine.”

In the fifth part of Spinoza's "Ethics," his own description of the wise man's love of God closes his wonderful exposition. This love is superior to fortune, renounces all hopes and escapes all fears, feeds alone on 30 the thought that God's mind is the only mind, loves God with a fragment of "that very love wherewith God loves himself," The wise man thus wanders on earth

in whatever state you will,-poor, an outcast, weak, near to bodily death; but "his meditation is not of death, but of life;" of the eternal life whereof he is a part, and has ever been and ever will be a part. You may bound him in a nut-shell, but he counts himself king 5 of infinite space; and rightly, for the bad dreams of this phantom life have ceased to trouble him. "His blessedness," says Spinoza, "is not the reward of his virtue, but his virtue itself. He rejoices therein, not because he has controlled his lusts; contrariwise, be- 10 cause he rejoices therein, the lusts of the finite have no power over him." "Thus appears how potent, then, is the wise man, and how much he surpasses the ignorant man, who is driven only by his lusts. For the ignorant man is not only distracted in various ways by 15 external causes, without ever gaining true acquiescence of mind, but moreover lives, as it were, unwitting of himself and of God and of things, and, as soon as he ceases to suffer, ceases also to be. Whereas the wise man, in so far as he is regarded as such, is scarcely at 20 all disturbed in spirit, but being conscious of himself and of God and of things, by a certain eternal necessity, never ceases to be, but always possesses true acquiescence of his spirit. If the way which I have pointed out as leading to this result seems exceedingly hard, it 25 may, nevertheless, be discovered. Needs must it be hard since it is so seldom found. How would it be possible if salvation were ready to our hand, and could without great labor be found, that it should be by almost all men neglected? But all things excellent are as dif- 30 ficult as they are rare."

With these words closes the book of Spinoza's experience.

IX.

Peace: Wabat it is.

JOHN FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE.

1805-1872.

This sermon on Peace by the Rev. John Frederick Denison Maurice was first preached in Lincoln's Inn Chapel, London, November 13, 1859, the Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity. It has since been reprinted several times, the last and best edition being in the "Lincoln's Inn Sermons" in six volumes, London and New York, 1892.

It is hardly necessary to call attention to the fact that the style Maurice adopts in expounding this religious doctrine, and the text upon which it is based, is specially intended for oral delivery, and probably loses somewhat in printing. The clear arrangement of the whole is, however, as effective in written as in spoken discourse.

"Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you."-JOHN xiv. 27.

THESE words were spoken to the Apostles on the night of our Lord's betrayal. A few hours after they had received this gift of peace, their souls were in more awful disquietude than they had ever been. They saw 5 Him, in Whom they trusted that He should redeem Israel, delivered up to the heathen. Their own rulers condemned Him; no hosts of Angels appeared to rescue Him; presently they themselves forsook Him and fled. That last act must have added to all their

other sorrows the sharpest stings of conscience. They had not only lost Him, but themselves. The Cross and the grave did not separate Him from them so much as the recollection that they had proved false to Him.

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How strangely must the thought, "He said, I leave you peace, I give you peace," have mingled with these confusions! What peace had He bequeathed to them? Where was it? How could they claim it? Nothing seemed further from them than this. Nay, Ic there was something yet more fearful in their minds : He Who gave them peace, had seemed Himself to lose it. They had seen Him in the Agony of the Garden; they had heard the cry upon the Cross. Was it not one of conflict and anguish? Did it not seem as if the 15 whole world were at war with Him, and as if He were forsaken by His Father?

And yet, brethren, these were the very hours which interpreted to the Disciples the words they had heard, but not understood, at the Last Supper; to these they 20 must have turned in all their after life, when they would consider the nature and reality and fulness of the blessing which our Lord assured to them.

I. "Peace I leave with you." What! peace with the people about them,—with the rulers of the synagogue, 25 with proconsuls or emperors? He had warned them in this very discourse that all these would carry on with them a continual war. He had come into the world with a sword. His Gospel would divide men asunder, in the same nation, in the same household. 30 He had told them this that they might not be offended. It was strange that when they preached of mercy and

goodwill to men, they should stir up rage and hatred. But He said it would be so, and they found it was so. The peace then which He spoke of must be something different from external ease and quietness. "In the 5 world ye shall have tribulation," was part of His legacy. But did it mean that they should have peace within their own circle, if there was war in the world? For a few months or weeks after the day of Pentecost they might have thought this gift was really theirs. They 10 had all things common; they ate their bread with joy and singleness of heart. But soon there arose in that infant community heartburnings and hypocrisies; widows of Greek proselytes murmuring against the Hebrews, because they were neglected in the daily ministration; 15 men and women seeking to deceive men and God by boasting that they had laid the whole price of their possessions at the Apostles' feet when they had kept back a part. Speedily there were debatings about circumcision; Apostles separating one from another because 20 the contention was so sharp between them; St. Paul withstanding St. Peter to the face, because he was to be blamed. By giving peace, our Lord could not mean that they would find all quiet within the chosen body, any more than in the outward world.

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Did it mean then freedom from internal conflict, from fierce temptations to pride, self-glorification, to lust, to covetousness, to open sin, to unbelief, to apostasy? How little St. Paul took it to signify this, these words from the Epistle to the Ephesians may testify: “We 30 wrestle," he says, "not with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers, with the rulers of the darkness of this world, with spiritual wickedness in high