NOTHING but faith in a sacrifice, in the one perfect and sufficient sacrifice, will enable men to do this-to draw near to God. For all men in the deepest centre of their being feel, that what they need is something which shall enable them to look entirely away from themselves, and entirely unto some other for the ground of their acceptance. The heathen felt this; and all his propitiations, and expiations, and placatory offerings, were dim gropings after it. The Jew felt this, and the blood of bulls and of goats which he offered were weak prophecies of it. The Christian feels it, and the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, once for

all, is the perfect fulfilling of this longing. All have alike felt that there must be some such ground out of a man's self, and beyond him, on which he must rest. For what will all a man's mendings of himself do, as affording the materials of a reconciliation? When once the awful vision of a holy God has flashed upon his soul, never again to be put by; when once the idea of law, and of the transgression of a law, have

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been revealed unto him, and (which is the same thing) when once the abysmal deeps of his own sinfulness have yawned beneath his feet, how idle then doth everything of his own appear for the repairing of the past, for the knitting again the bands of the broken communion with his God! His works! as well might he seek to fill a bottomless pit with pebbles thrown into it one by one, or to pay off at one end a debt with pence, which was accumulating by talents at the other. His works! he cannot so far lie to himself as to believe that they can be better than the source out of which they flow, and that source is unhealed as yet. The deed cannot be better than the man that does the deed: it may be worse, for it may spring not from what is best, but from what is worst within him; but better than himself it cannot be: the water cannot rise higher than its spring; the corrupt tree, according to the miserable necessity of its most inward being, must bring forth corrupt fruit-fruit after its own kind; from the unhealed fountains of life nothing but bitter waters can well forth.

Vain is it, then, for a man to seek in himself the grounds of a restored and renewed intercourse with his God. His doings and his strivings leave him where he was, or leave him further off than before. His sin cleaves to him still, and all his efforts to disengage himself from it serve only to cause it to cling to him the closer: it is to him as the poisoned garment which we read that a fabled hero in an evil hour had put on, and then strove to tear away, but in vain; he could only tear away his own flesh. So doth this gift of hell, this consciousness of sin, cling like a robe of agony to the sinner: in an evil hour he hath clothed himself with it, and now it appears to have become part of himself, eating into and poisoning the very sources of his life, and yet he cannot rid himself of it; he must wear it, as it seems, through a miserable eternity,

And thus it remains with him, till he has learned the meaning of the word "sacrifice," till he has learned to see that the first ground of his peace must be, not in the doing something himself, but in the acquiescing in something that has been done for him, till, looking unto Christ and to his one sacrifice for the putting away of sin, he is enabled to look at his own sin as an alien thing, as something separable, yea, separated from himself, no longer cleaving to him and defiling him and all that he thinks or does, but put at a distance from him; which henceforth he will contemplate, indeed, for shame and for humiliation, but which he will no longer feel to be part of his own most inmost being. For He who is the Word of God, sharper than any two-edged sword, has divided between him and it, so that it shall no longer be as his very self. And thus through faith in his sacrifice the man is put in a condition to draw nigh unto God, unto that living God who must be served in a living manner, who only can truly be served by men whose consciences are purged from dead works, who have no longer a clinging, cleaving sense of defilement, but who have, by his Son and by his offering for them, been made perfect as pertaining the conscience. They may not, they cannot indeed yet be perfect as pertaining their life and work, though to that they are ever tending—that is the glorious end which they shall one day reach, if not here, yet there. But already as pertaining the conscience they are perfect: and so in the way of becoming perfect in all else-justified that they may be sanctified-the two lines, of the righteousness which is imputed unto them, and the holiness which they have realised, starting, indeed, with a wide space between them, yet ever tending to a union; and one day to meet, and to run or as one through eternity.

The master who distributes his talents, is our God, and we are the servants to whom these talents are committed. To one five are intrusted, to another two, and to another only one. In a primary sense, there is no doubt that our Lord referred, in this discourse, to the different situations in which his own immediate followers and the rest of their countrymen stood. To the twelve he had ever spoken openly; they, therefore, knew that he was the Messiah, and knowing this, they enjoyed the higher portion of five talents; whereas the people in general, to whom he addressed himself only in parables, could be said to have been put in possession only of one. Still it was the business of all parties to use their talents aright; and if they who had gotten but one could not make ten out of it, at least they ought to have made two. This, however, they did not do, and the punishment fell upon them. In a secondary sense, again, the story has reference to all mankind, in all quarters of the world. Of us who live in this enlightened country, it may safely be said that we possess five talents, when compared with the ignorant and benighted of other nations, who hold two, or it may be only one: let us be careful to make a good use of our superior advantages. Again, it applies to different individuals in the same nation, who fill different stations in society, possess different degrees of knowledge, and the power of doing good. He who has been baptised into the religion of Christ, and has had frequent opportunities of receiving instruction in the way of holiness, as well as of reading the sacred Scriptures; if such a man choose to go wrong, there is no excuse for him: he has thrown away five talents, and for the loss of five talents he will be called to account. In like manner, he who possesses

none of these advantages, who has not learned to read, who has seen no examples before him but those which lead to evil: to that man only one talent has been intrusted, and for one only will he be held responsible. But for that one he will be held responsible; and let him remember that the responsibility imposed by the possession of even one talent is not light. Nor should I forget to add, that the parable has reference likewise to the means and opportunities which men enjoy of doing good to those around them, by their money, their advice, and most of all by their example. It is not enough for any one of us to abstain from evil; we must all, as far as God has given us the means, strive to do good; because it is in proportion to the active usefulness of our lives, not less than to their freedom from vice, that we shall be rewarded or punished in a world beyond the grave.

Let every one of us, then, strive to do his best; let him who is conscious of possessing much, endeavour to do much good with it. Let him who feels that he has little, not suffer that little to lie idle; and, above all things, let us beware of ourselves. Let us take care lest indolence, or carelessness, or, it may be self-confidence, gain the mastery over us. Put we not off till to-morrow the work which ought to be performed to-day; and let us not go to meet our Lord unprovided with that oil of grace, which alone must keep alive the flame of holiness and piety, and insure us a blessed welcome. In one word, let us, in humble reliance on the Divine assistance, strive to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, and God will not fail to further our cfforts with his grace, and to crown them with his glory.