PSALM CXXXI.-Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me. Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother : LUKE ii. 49. And He said unto them, How is it that ye MATTHEW ix. 28.-And when He was come into the house, the blind men came to Him: and Jesus saith unto them, PSALM XCIV. 16.—Who will rise up for me against the evil- 1 TIMOTHY iv. 16.-Take heed unto thyself, and unto the SERMON I. THE TWO LIVES. ROM. VI. 2 and 11. .... How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. THE life of the holy is the life of God; and therefore it is one life, wherever and in whomsoever it is manifested. Every spirit of living man is begotten of the great Father of Spirits; yet so wide are the apparent differences in the manifestation and clothing of such spirits, that many presumptuously say, 'This, and this, cannot be offspring of the Father.' Such presumptions are the work of shallow philosophy and partial knowledge of both man and God. It is true that certain philosophers, looking at a Bosjesman or an Esquimaux, exclaim, "This is less than man; this is not the spirit-child of the Eternal Father' and we need not be surprised that when partially-informed Christians see certain forms of divine life crushed with infinite burdens, trying to express that life through distasteful ceremonial; B striving to realize some impossible ideal; living upon partial truth, mere crumbs of the great verity; dishonouring, according to the standards of such critics, even the name of the Master and the glory of God, that they should say, 'This is the life of the devil, and not the life of God in the soul.' The signs of a divine life and a divine sonship are very difficult to define or limit. In attempting to enumerate some of them, I do not for a moment suppose that I shall exhaust the theme. In stating many signs of the divine life in the soul, in a determinate order, I do not imply that the order of this progress can be dogmatically determined. The life of God will develop itself in entirely different modes, according to temperament, circumstances, and duties. Some men are called to work for their Lord, others to wait patiently for the coming of the Bridegroom. There is the Greek and the Jew, the male and the female, the bond and the free, the wise and the unwise, but they are all one in Christ Jesus. When the representative of a gorgeous traditional Church celebrates the sacrifice of the eucharist with all the pomp of worship and ceremonial, which seem to him necessary to express the sacrament of the body and blood of the God-man, what sympathy can he have with that group of humble worshippers of the unseen Master, who strive by simply sitting round a table, eating bread and drinking wine in His Name, to realize the mystery of Incarnate Love? Alas, these brothers do not understand, cannot believe that they are alike |