We have now spoken of obtaining the light. The text goes on to say what we are to do with it. "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works." True religion is threefold: love which lays hold of faith, and love united to faith produces good works. "What doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to Do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" "Work while it is day," said our blessed Lord, "the night cometh when no man can work." "Work out your salvation," said the Apostle Paul: "work out your salvation with fear and trembling." "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good

works."

Scared by the error of remote days, when men claimed merit in their works, often puerile works, before God, our immediately preceding teachers, and indeed many at the present day, have laid too little stress upon GOOD WORKS, and magnified faith in certain opinions, as if such faith were all in all. You have not to keep God's commandments, you have not To Do anything that you may be saved. But surely this is pushing notions to a very dangerous extreme.

Are we sure that the widespread want of fidelity to duty in some parts of society and fraudulent dealing in the commercial world are not the consequences of the preaching that only believing is essential to prepare for heaven? There is too much reason to fear that many an unhappy career, many a blighted manhood and a miserable home, are due to the whispering of a poisoned conscience, that deeds have nothing to do in religion,-only belief in what our Saviour has done, and a short prayer pleading this in dying moments are the necessary sureties for eternal happiness. HERE, my beloved hearers, the pulpit will never forget that it is its grand purpose to throw a golden light over life, to plead with all who people these walls as the Saviour did. "Why call ye Me Lord, Lord, and Do not the things that I say?" He that shall have DONE GOOD shall come forth to the resurrection of life. "The fruit of the Spirit is in ALL GOODNESS, and righteousness, and truth; proving what is acceptable unto the Lord" (Eph. v. 9). It is, however, necessary to be observed that good works have sometimes been misunderstood, and been supposed to be limited to works especially connected with the externals of religion. Prayers unreasonably long and unreasonably often have sometimes been supposed to be good works. To pray fervently with the heart and mind is truly good, but to repeat prayers unthinkingly as a parrot is not good at all. To worship the Lord devoutly and receive His love and light in humbly drawing near to Him is good. To make a theatrical display in unmeaning bowing and spectacular show is the opposite of good. Extravagant self-denial to the detriment of health and the refusal of sensible enjoyment have been thought by some to be GOOD WORKS. But it is miserable and mistaken self-righteousness, and rather unfits for heaven, which is a land of happiness, than prepares for it. Such works have a name that they live, but are dead. True good works are works really useful in themselves and performed

in faith, from love to the Lord. They are threefold. Everything in the universe is threefold from the God of heaven Himself, in whom there is a Divine Trinity, to the tiniest flower, whose life, form, and fragrance show the Divine stamp upon it. There are good works of daily duty; good works of kindly benevolence; and good works of religious devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ.

The good works of daily life are all the duties of the weekday; the household duties of father and mother, husband and wife, sister and brother, which make home happy. Uprightness in commerce. The conscientious discharge of his duty by the workman; using honestly his master's time, and performing his work diligently to the utmost of his ability, that the consumer may rejoice that the goods are a sterling comfort and a blessing. Uprightness in an employer, giving a diligent and skilful servant fair wages, that he can have a comfortable home. These are all good works. Conscientiousness in these duties throughout society would incalculably increase the happiness of human life, and go far to accomplish that for which we daily pray, "Thy will be done on earth, as it is done in heaven."

66

Religion in these respects may be called the religion of the feet, and is in this relation emphatically, and often, referred to in Scripture. "My foot had well-nigh slipped," said the Psalmist, "when I was angry with the foolish." "My feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem." "If thy foot offend thee, cut it off." The Lord Jesus washed His disciples' feet to mean that the lower parts of life must be purified. Peter objected, "Lord, Thou shalt never wash my feet." But Jesus solemnly declared, "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part in Me. . . . He that is washed needeth but to wash his feet, and he is clean every whit." Let religion fill the heart with love, the mind with light and faith, and the life with virtue, and the man is clean every whit.

"Religion's path they never trod

Who equity contemn;

Nor ever are they just to God
Who prove unjust to men."

Let your light so shine in this respect that men can see your good works.

Good works of the second class may be called good works of the breast and of the hands; they are works of sympathy, generosity, brotherly love, kindliness, and goodwill; they are such as show that the heart is in the right place. These good works are called for by all the necessities of life, to alleviate the sorrows of society and to contribute to the advancement of everything that tends to the improvement, the comfort, and happiness of the world around us. Church is a central good work of this class. Your hearts have pulsed with generous emotions as you have watched its progress, and you now behold its completion. You wish to crown it with your blessing. Once more, do what you can to speed it on its way rejoicing, a triumph in the present, a boon to many generations. The Lord is

This

watching over us. Let us strive that His all-gracious reception of the efforts of your generous love to-day may be like His sweet judgment of old. They have done what they could. "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in the heavens." Good works of the highest class are good works of the head. They refer to our strictly religious duties— works of devotion and of interior love. If this beautiful house is filled with devout and attentive worshippers; if all avail themselves of the services as constantly as circumstances will permit; if the Sacrament of the Holy Supper is felt to be a blessing, and shared by all who desire earnestly to live for heaven, then will the glory of this latter house be greater than the glory of your former house, and in this place the Lord will give peace. 66 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in the heavens."

SCRAPS OF CHURCH HISTORY.

NO. V. THE CERINTHIANS.

CERINTHUS is said to have been a Jew who studied philosophy at Alexandria. He was a Gnostic, but introduced several variations from the generally accepted principles of Gnosticism.

He regarded the Lord as an ordinary man, the son of Joseph and Mary, who knew nothing of the high destiny to which He was called, until it was revealed to Him at His baptism by John that He was chosen as the Messiah. Up to this time Jesus, though superior to all other Jews on account of His greater wisdom and more complete obedience to the Law of Moses, was destitute of miraculous power, which, however, was now conferred upon Him.

Cerinthus taught that Jesus really suffered on the cross, but maintained that the Spirit of God which had entered into Him at the time of His baptism had departed from Him previous to His suffering. He denied the fact of the Lord's Resurrection, and yet, with strange inconsistency, he held that there would be a future resurrection of the bodies of men, after which the righteous would enjoy a paradise of delight in Palestine as the subjects of Jesus Christ, who would come again as the Messiah, and reign a thousand years. He accepted the Old Testament Scriptures, the Gospel according to Matthew, and the Apocalypse as authoritative, but rejected the other three Gospels and the Epistles. He also considered that the Jewish Law was binding upon Christians.

Cerinthianism seems to have included the errors of Nazarenism and Nicolaitanism to a very large extent, in addition to some of the principles of Gnosticism. Epiphanius and Theodoret say that Cerinthus "opposed the Apostles in Judæa, and out of it, early and late;" and the former writer states that St. Paul was contending in every place

against the followers of Cerinthus. Some idea of the state of feeling which existed between Cerinthus and the Apostles may be gathered from an incident reported by Irenæus, upon the authority of Polycarp, the disciple of St. John. St. John and Cerinthus both resided at Ephesus, and upon one occasion when John went to the baths he perceived that Cerinthus was there; St. John instantly retired, saying, "Let us flee, lest the bath should fall, while Cerinthus, an enemy of truth, is there." This incident may or may not be literally true, but the bare fact of its recital upon such high authority is sufficient to show how carefully the members of the early Church were to avoid the society of the enemies of the faith. And this attitude does not necessarily imply the cherishing of a spirit of intolerance. John in his second Epistle warns the lady to whom it was addressed: "If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds." It was essential that the members of the Church should be clearly distinguished from the pretended Christians who in doctrine and in life brought discredit upon the Name of the Lord.

Cerinthianism was dangerous to Christianity because it denied the Divinity of the Lord and repudiated the fact of the Lord's resurrection, to which the Apostles appealed as a convincing proof of the genuineness of Christianity as a system of faith. as a system of faith. In the opinion of the Apostles, Christianity was founded upon facts, the chief of which were His miraculous conception and His resurrection. To deny these would be to deny the bases of the faith. If He was not Divine, how could this religion be capable of converting the whole world? If He had not risen from the dead, how could they so positively preach the certainty of life and immortality brought to light by the Gospel? If Judaism still retained its claims upon the world, how could they preach the glad tidings of salvation to the Gentile race? If the Divine Spirit had abandoned the Lord prior to the finishing of His great work, how could He have led captivity captive, and have given good gifts unto men? All these were questions that must have forced themselves upon the attention of those who had been commissioned by the Lord to preach the Gospel to every creature. Theirs was a holy, a sacred charge, and they would not betray it. Faithful witnesses they determined to be before God and before man. They were not to be carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of man; not even the gentle pleading of an angel's voice would have charmed them away from what they regarded as the Gospel message. There were brave men in those days, men of principle and moral courage, men qualified to be martyrs for the truth, men esteeming it an honour to be permitted to suffer for their Master's sake. We have great reason to be thankful that the Apostles were not theologians of the jelly-fish type, prepared to mingle in the "Happy-Family" style with all manner of theological nondescripts.

Correspondence.

(To the Editor of the Intellectual Repository.)

THERE are some points in S. T.'s comment in the Repository for March on my letter in the February number to which I trust the Editor will kindly permit me to reply. As before, I shall labour to be brief, even although incurring the liability of seeming in consequence to be abrupt and harsh.

In my letter it was claimed for pure unfermented natural wine that New Churchmen might properly use it in the Holy Supper, not restricting themselves to the "pure fermented natural wine," which S. T. had declared "ought alone to be used" therein. It was also claimed for the unfermented wine that it was, unlike the fermented sort, easy to get and to guarantee. S. T. now rejoins that "with care pure fermented wine is to be had." By those who understand the business, I daresay it is; but few are in this position. Every one knows grapes, and can express their juice, and be quite certain that his wine is genuine.

S. T. says further that my "assertion as regards the necessity for the yeast torula or fungus, from extraneous sources, coming in contact with the expressed grape-juice, does not apply." What S. T. had argued was, that the juice of the grape "naturally contained" leaven or ferment, from which the process of fermentation freed it. This I denied, and must still deny, for it is an important part of the argument. That the "assertion" may not be mine merely, let me quote Mr. Huxley:

"The yeast-plant being essential to the production of fermentation, where does the yeast-plant come from? Of course, the first obvious suggestion is that the torula has been generated within the fluid. In fact it seems at first quite absurd to entertain any other conviction. But that belief would most assuredly be an erroneous one. Whatever may be true or not be true about spontaneous generation,' as it is called, in respect to all other living things, it is perfectly certain, as regards yeast, that it always owes its origin to this process of transportation or inoculation, if you like so to call it; and as far as yeast is concerned, the doctrine of spontaneous generation is absolutely out of court."-Lecture on Yeast, by Professor Huxley, LL.D., F.R.S.

S. T. goes on to say "that such fermentation, without care, is liable to pass into other chemical changes, is no argument at all." Sorry to have again to contradict: I must insist that it is. S. T.'s doctrine was this: That only that wine ought to be used sacramentally which "has been freed by the process of fermentation from all the leaven or ferment it naturally contains, and has been converted from a corruptible juice into a clear, bright aromatic fluid, capable of preserving itself for almost an indefinite period-a true correspondence of Divine Truth." The supposed superiority of a juice "capable of preserving itself," to one which is corruptible, was of the essence of S. T.'s argument. In reply, I pointed out that fermented wine, unless taken great care of, is as liable as grape-juice to decomposition, and that in any