may seem to differ from the other, it does in fact both minister to it and result from it. It is carelessness which has so separated between us and God as to make us doubt His love: and again the doubt of His love leads us, by a sort of unconscious despair, to a yet greater excess of carelessness. It is too late, we think, to escape guilt; holy we cannot now be; our only hope, if hope there be for us, must be a late repentance, salvation as by fire; and that may be as well looked for late as early. Such thoughts as these, fearful as they may seem when they are thus expressed in words, do nevertheless, even from an early age, lodge themselves in our hearts, and bring forth bitter fruit. St. Luke knew this. He knew that there is no antidote to carelessness so powerful as the hope of mercy; no inducement to holiness so irresistible as the offer of a free forgiveness. And therefore he has, in one most blessed chapter of his Gospel, brought together so many bright revelations of the grace of God towards sinners, as should establish to the latest generations a truth which was the comfort in earlier days of the repenting Psalmist, "There is forgiveness with Thee; therefore shalt Thou be feared." "O Israel, trust in the Lord; for with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption." The three parables contained in the fifteenth chapter of St. Luke's Gospel, and above all, that of the prodigal son, itself (as it has been well said) "a Gospel within the Gospel;" and then, as a practical comment on these, the history, recorded also by St. Luke alone, of the penitent thief, whose return to his Father's house, even at the latest hour of life, was met by the announcement from the lips of his Judge, "Verily, I say unto thee, to-day thou shalt be with me in Paradise;" have given to this one Gospel a peculiar charm and beauty in the eyes of humbled sinners in every age, and made it indeed a storehouse of wholesome medicines for the healing of the diseases of souls. What I have said of St. Luke's Gospel might have been shown, if time permitted, to apply with scarcely less force to his other inspired Book. What is it, to read there so distinctly the fundamental truth on which the Church of Christ was originally built," The God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus;" "repent therefore, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost?" What is it, to have the earliest and the purest type of the Christian body so set before us as it is in that brief summary, "They continued stedfastly in the Apostles' doctrine, and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers:" 66 they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favour with all the people" "the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul; and great grace was upon them all; neither was there any among them that lacked :" "they rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name; and daily, in the temple and in every house, they ceased not to teach and to preach Jesus Christ?" Have these things no lesson for us? Is such a life so wholly impossible now, individually at least, if not collectively, that we must for ever hear and read of it as an unreal and fantastic thing, or at least a thing gone by? What is it, once more, to have such a history, such a character, as that of St. Paul, set before us with such vivid distinctness as marks St. Luke's description of it; to see a man of education, a man of much ability, a man of uncommon energy, a man deeply prejudiced in one direction in all his opinions and feelings, suddenly, wholly, and for ever changed into a new man by the mere operation of faith in Christ; to see him utterly renouncing comfort and - rest and honour and old associations, facing toil and danger and death itself, yet maintaining all his life the tenderest, kindest, gentlest spirit, weeping with those who wept, burning (to use his own word) at the sight of sin, yet hastening to restore and revive and comfort the sinner; and all this out of love to Christ, a love unfailing, ever growing, never wearied, strongest of all in death? These too are medicines from the divine storehouse, ready for the healing of souls; applicable to our own warning and instruction and comfort and advancement in holiness. But it remains that we take these medicines. It is nothing, to say that they are there; it is little, that, on one day in the year, we should ask God to heal by means of them the diseases of our souls,unless we also take pains to apply them to our own state; unless we study diligently and earnestly that Book in which they are contained, and thus bring our hearts into daily contact with those revelations which God originally gave, which through long years of ingratitude His mercy has preserved to us, and by which His Holy Spirit is still ready to quicken them that believe. SERMON XII. OFFENCES. ST. MATTHEW, Xviii. 7. WOE UNTO THE WORLD BECAUSE OF OFFENCES: FOR IT MUST NEED BE THAT OFFENCES COME; BUT WOE TO THAT MAN BY WHOM THE OFFENCE COMETH ! It must be a solemn and an awful thing to hear of a woe being pronounced, by Him who created and redeemed us, upon the world in which we live. That world is a world of men: it is made up of ourselves and of such as we are: the inhabitants of this place, the members of this school, form a part of it: it is of us, amongst others, that our Lord here speaks, when He says, "Woe unto the world because of offences!" Can any of us listen, with a moment's reflection, to words like these, and not desire to know what that misery or that evil thing is, which drew from a holy and merciful Saviour so mournful a cry? The word here rendered "offence" is expressed in language now more familiar to us as a snare or stumbling block. It is, an obstacle in our way L |