There is no life without the truth. It is best to know the worst—to be aware of the gulf on the edge of which we live, for so only do we learn the height to which God is calling us. Our life is to know the past cleansed by the atonement of the Saviour, and seeing the cloud rolled away from the heavenly Jerusalem, to walk in hope and faith, which no man taketh from us. My brethren, there is no salvation but in Christ Jesus. The law only kills us-speaks the "word of promise to the ear, and breaks it to the hope." Christ makes alive, and they who trust in Him shall not be ashamed.

SERMON XX.

THINGS NEW AND OLD.

(SUNDAY AFTER THE OPENING OF THE INNER TEMPLE HALL, MAY 15, 1870.)

"Jesus saith unto them, Have ye understood all these things? They say unto Him, Yea, Lord. Then said He unto them, Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old."MATT. xiii. 51, 52.

THAT the meaning of this passage is not obvious, I readily admit. Let us endeavour this afternoon to discover the truths which it has to teach us.

Our Lord had been instructing a large and miscellaneous crowd by a series of parables. He had told them, in words which are dear and familiar to us all, of a sower that went forth to sow his seed, and of the destiny of the seed in the various soils in which it fell. From that story He went on by an obvious transition of ideas to speak of the kingdom of heaven being like unto

a man who sowed good seed in his field, and whose enemy came and sowed the deadly tares in their midst. Again, without leaving the analogy of the seed, which was doubtless itself sowing new thoughts and lessons in the hearts of His hearers, He proceeds to the parable of the grain of mustard-seed, which is the least of all seeds, and yet grows into a tree in whose branches the birds of the air find rest and shelter; and lastly, expanding the same idea in a different image, He adds, in language of pregnant brevity, "The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till the whole was leavened."

At this point Jesus dismissed the multitude. He had spoken to them in parables, according to the comment of the recording Evangelist, fulfilling the mood and spirit of the Psalmist, who had announced that in teaching the people he would open his mouth in a parable, and utter things that had been kept secret from the foundation of the world.

When the multitude had dispersed, and the Saviour had retired into the house, His own disciples came to Him and asked for an explanation of the parable of the tares. Jesus complied with the request. We all remember His expla

nation: how that the sower of the good seed is the Son of man, the field is the world, and the enemy who soweth tares the evil one, the tempter and slanderer.. To this parable, so explained, our Lord added others; those of the hid treasure, the merchantman seeking goodly pearls, and the net that was cast into the sea. And then the Saviour turned from teaching to questioning. He said to the disciples, "Have ye understood all these things?"

They seem to have made answer, without hesitation, that they had understood Him as He spoke; whereupon He added those remarkable words, on which we are specially to dwell: Therefore, every scribe that is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, who bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old."

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The comparison is between the householder and the disciples. If they understood these few and seemingly simple analogies which He had unfolded to them, they were instructed unto the kingdom of heaven. My brethren, reflect first upon the importance to us of this declaration. Jesus had given these men no creeds in systematic shape; He had not given them doctrines in holding which they should be models of

Christian orthodoxy; no list of articles to which they must needs subscribe. He had told them a few stories, not drawn from distant scenes, or dealing in abstract truths, but taken from everyday life, and the familiar occupations of the husbandman and the fisherman. That his hearers should find themselves listening with eagerness was not strange; for these operations formed their daily business and interest. To sow the seed which was to produce their daily food, to cast the net which earned their means of subsistence -what tasks could be more familiar, and yet more interesting to them, than these? And though the gulf between these things of the kingdom of earth and those of the kingdom of heaven is in one aspect immense, there is another in which the distance disappears; and in the light which the speaker's very voice and look shed upon His words, the peasants and fishermen who listened to Him saw earth and heaven knit by a new bond. They found the common sights and adventures of earth, that had become meaningless from their very familiarity, actually explaining and commending to them the mysteries of a world, which had only been a real world to them for the few days or weeks during which they had watched and listened to the new Teacher. Other

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