spiritual discernment) in the latter days, when the unformed grace, isolated and inchoate, stunted in growth, and dissevered from its Divine Object-not a spiritualized and intelligent obedience, but (to use its own accepted and awful title) a cæca obedientia ’—is made a fearful occasion of stumbling. "Many false Prophets," says our LORD, "shall arise and shall deceive many; and because avoμía shall abound, the love of the many shall wax cold" (S. Matt. xxiv. 11, 12.) Claiming to be sent by GoD, they will exact 'blind obedience' to their precepts and doctrines. And then will it be that this other, most difficult, supplementary function of obedience -spiritual discernment will have to be called into exercise. In the normal condition of the Church, whatever God's Prophets, speaking officially, pronounce, 'that' the faithful are to observe and do.' But what, if " the Prophets" themselves "prophesy falsely in the Name of the LORD?" What, if a false Prophetess' is found "teaching, and seducing God's servants to commit fornication ?" (Rev. ii. 20.) What, if the Mystical Woman herself who claims to be the Bride, and to rule all nations by authority delegated from her LORD, is found propounding dogmas utterly irreconcileable with the Faith once delivered, industriously circulating throughout her dependent nations an intoxicating chalice of adulterated doctrine? Is the poison to be imbibed? Is the counsel to be followed? Is the teaching to be blindly' accepted and believed? No the natural course of obedience has here to be arrested, and its order inverted. The teaching can no longer be implicitly received because of the Teacher; the doctrine, because of the official authority of its propounders. The Prophets' themselves have now to be tested by the conformity of their doctrines with the 'Law and the Testimony.' The teachers have to be tried by their teaching: the tree by its fruits: the fountain by its streams.

They may parade their Divine mission and spiritual powers-the "horns of the LAMB" (Rev. xiii. 11)—and with LORD, LORD' on their lips, may come in CHRIST's Name; but if their tenets conform not with the Will of God revealed in His Word, and witnessed by His Holy Church from the beginning even though like the old Prophet of Bethel they claim angelic revelations in support of their developments-they "lie:" they must be determinately resisted. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see GOD." In His Light they shall see Light. In gazing on His Blessed Countenance, in studying His Mind and Will as revealed in His Holy Scriptures, they shall become divinely wise; and during the long protracted season of temptation, ever darkening, as the stars one by one 'fall from Heaven,' and the Lights of the world' are obscured, until midnight darkness folds the earth in her deathlike embrace, they shall hold on their course "seeing HIM Who is invisible;" and "enduring to the end," "shall be saved."

VII. But now we come to the last section.

As we have had the subject of temptation brought before us, and have witnessed some of its forms and manifestations, so are we now called upon to see the dread consequences of yielding to it. We have seen temptation in action: now we must see it- -as essentially evil,' and coming of the evil one '-exhibited in its inevitable results. As "lust when it hath conceived bringeth forth sin," SO "sin when it is finished bringeth forth Death."

The Day of Grace, the twilight shadows of which seemed trembling, in the last section, has now passed. The Day of Judgment has dawned-"judgment beginning at the Household of GOD." "Many shall say to Me in that Day." The first judicial act, in this final paragraph, (vii. 22, 23) is confined to the visible Church, and corresponds with the solemn proceedings pictured forth in S. Matt. xxiv. 42-xxv. 30. The last scene (24-27) portrays the terrible course of judgment in more general terms: the two together being designed to paint the miserable end of ungodliness, and particularly of unfaithfulness; and to force from all, the earnest cry wherewith the LORD's Prayer concludes, and which is so beautifully expanded in the touching words of our Litany, "From all evil and mischief, from sin, from the crafts and assaults of the Devil, from Thy wrath, and from everlasting damnation-Good LORD, deliver us.”

It is interesting to observe that the inverse parallelism which we have seen to subsist between the third and fifth sections of the Sermon; then between the second and sixth, extends also to the first and seventh.

The first section, as we showed, proclaims the duties devolving on us as members of CHRIST, partakers of the Blessed Life,' named with the Name of God.

The All Holy Name being on us, we must take good heed that Ir be "hallowed" in and by us; that the Sacred Flame be kept burning; "our odorous Lamp filled with deeds of Light;" that in our Light others may see Light, and "glorify their FATHER in Heaven."

Now what is the plea of the miserable castaways which introduces this last section ? "LORD, LORD, have we not prophesied in Thy Name, and in Thy Name, cast out Devils, and in Thy Name, done many marvellous works ?" Here is the thrice-repeated Name. And here too is the bitter sting of the now inevitable rejection. They who are about to be consigned to the dungeons of black despair, have been impressed with the Name of the HOLY TRINITY, and in the might of that Name profess to have worked. But alas! the stern answer extinguishes hope.

66

Lord, Lord!"-We have always owned Thee as our Master :Save us!

"Depart from Me!"

We are called by Thy Name, we are Thine own Household and Family.

"I never knew you!"

"We have done marvellous" and religious
many
"Ye workers of iniquity!

"works."

The principle of Love has been wanting in all their deeds. The works have been done to be seen of men,' not for the glory of GOD. Hence, as 'Love is the fulfilling of the Law,' the deeds done without that actuating influence are simply called avoμía (v. 23.)

It is most instructive to note, from a comparison of the first and last sections of the Sermon with the first and last petitions and Beatitudes, wherein, according to the mind of our LORD, consists the highest good, and wherein the greatest evil, to men. The highest good we here find to consist in knowing and being known of GOD-maintaining full and loving communion with Him; in not only having His Name upon us, but being so emptied of ourselves, filled and penetrated with Him, that His Name is 'hallowed' in us, its Sacred Influences actively and beneficially diffused-the Light' shining, the 'salt' vivifying, the Lamp' burning (for 'it is more blessed to give than to receive'):-it consists in making,' restoring, disseminating Peace,' and thus showing ourselves so truly the children of GOD,' that the FATHER looking upon us sees HIMSELF in us and is refreshed. Whereas the greatest evil consists in having our old nature so effectually in the ascendant that GOD is shut out: Far from diffusing 'Peace,'-ourselves eternal strangers to Peace; (for "there is no peace, saith my GOD, to the wicked"): The Divine Name and Image obliterated in us: Insomuch that God looking on us sees nothing of Himself, and 'knows us not.'

The mysterious close of the whole Sermon, pointing to the security of the righteous and the destruction of the wicked-with its iterated description of the desolating and inexorable career of Judg ment-defies all exposition, and must be left in its simple and terrible language, to proclaim its own solemn lesson.

One point yet deserves notice-we mean the corroboration incidentally afforded by the close of the Sermon, to the fact (so abundantly attested from external sources) of the Doxology, which the Church has been guided by the Spirit to adopt in her ordinary use of the LORD's Prayer, having yet had no place in its original delivery.

Stier, fully admitting that MS. testimony is against him, yet argues strongly for the Doxology, on the ground of it being "in every view inconceivable that the LORD should actually have closed the prayer with " Deliver us from evil." It may appear strange. Still it becomes us not to speculate what our LORD should have said, but to inquire what He has said.

It seems most strange to us that His first Sermon which opens with such words of peace, should yet conclude with such words of terror;—that His Public Ministry which was ushered in with an

octave of Benedictions should close with an octave of Woes ;-that His later parables should all ring forth such notes of alarm. There may be some mysterious connection underlying all this. The Apostolic narrative terminates in a shipwreck. S. Paul disappears from view a prisoner in Rome. The last great event which marks the corporate history of the visible Church is "the Apostacy." The last Apocalyptic Epistle speaks of haughty, self-dependent, faithless Laodicea, as about to be "spued out of CHRIST's mouth."

The Church's daily Prayer may then contain in its still depths some hidden reference to Her Prophetic history. And it may be that as the gloomy twilight begins to fall, and "evil men and seducers to wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived," and "the foundations of the earth" to be shaken and "out of course,' she will have some peculiar and appalling need for the anxious and agonized cry, "Lead us not into temptation:" "Deliver us from Evil."

LITTON'S BAMPTON LECTURES.

The Mosaic Dispensation considered as introductory to Christianity, (being the Bampton Lecture for 1856.) By the Rev. EDWARD ARTHUR LITTON, M.A. London: 1856.

THE amount of knowledge of the mysteries which underlay his external forms of religion possessed by the ancient Jew, is a subject to the investigation of which Christians of all denominations have delighted to devote time and talents. While some have entered upon this inquiry with the desire of throwing contempt, as it were, upon the old dispensation, considering it as useless, and abrogated, and disannulled; others have seen Christianity in every part of it, and have set the belief of the theocratic people, and their insight into the typical and symbolical import of their worship, upon a level with the fuller information possessed by the members of CHRIST'S Church. The truth in this case lies between the two parties. It is an insult to the Omniscience of God to depreciate the ordinances whereby He once ordained that His Presence should be made known; or to think lightly of that earlier Covenant wherein He, Who sees the end as well as the beginning, adapted His means to produce the knowledge of the mighty consummation. Throughout God's revelations of Himself a perfect unity reigns, and each new development of the eternal purpose does not destroy the importance and value of former revelations; it fulfils them; it adds something to them; it changes their nature, preserving the idea which they embodied; it produces the fact which they antici

pated. On the other hand, if it were true that the Jew, in performing his various acts of worship, and in obeying the minutiae of the Law, understood the import of his actions, and saw clearly whither they looked, and what and whom they prefigured, the type in his case would have lost its value; for, with full knowledge of the doctrine conveyed by it, the prophetic nature of the type would have ceased to exist, and the gradual development of the scheme of man's redemption would at once have been overthrown. For, although our LORD tells the Jews, "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it, and was glad," yet these words can at most allude to the patriarch's own knowledge of CHRIST'S Incarnation by faith, or special revelation; and some have thought that they have no reference whatever to any perception of mysteries which Abraham obtained while in the flesh, but signify that after death he knew of CHRIST's advent into the world, and rejoiced to see that the "time appointed of the FATHER" was accomplished. Nor can we predicate of the Jews in general that which is said of Abraham, and the prophets, kings, and righteous men, who desired to see and hear those things which the Apostles saw and heard. If ancient believers were counted righteous and accepted before GOD, as we doubt not they were, it was by the exercise of the special grace of faith, which led them to feel their own impotence, while they acknowledged their own responsibility, and trusted to GOD's good Providence to discover for them some sufficient atonement. It was given, perhaps, to few to attain to the faith of these; for the majority the appointed observances of the Law were rather symbols of deep truths, rather the embodiment of ideas with which the mind of the believer had to be familiarised, than the figures and types of the stupendous facts of man's redemption. And even so, was not that ancient economy replete with spiritual instruction for the pious Hebrew? If it did not teach him whither to look for some better atonement, some more perfect cleansing, than the ceremonial law afforded, at least it kept before him the chief ideas on which the worship of GOD by His creatures depends. How firm must have been his conviction of the truth, that "without shedding of blood there is no remission," that on the death of some other, man's forgiveness rested! He must have seen that the Law offered no way of recovery from the guilt of presumptuous sins, and must have been led to expect some more acceptable offering, which could cover the utmost of human transgression. The holiness of GOD, the sinfulness of man, the reverence due to the service of the ALMIGHTY, the order and splendour which alone beseem His worship, the nature and necessity of an appointed priesthood, the fact that the Church of GOD was a peculiar people called out of the world, these and other like truths were forced upon the apprehension of the Jew from his early years.

1 See Maldonatus, Comment. in S. John viii. 56.