baptized Christians around us sufficient to prove that it is not so, it is only a confirmation of the dangers of the world. Our LORD, when He spake of the new birth by water and the Spirit, cautioned us against looking for its effects in any particular way, or at any given season, as if we were ourselves capable of judging of so great a mystery. "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth; so is every one that is born of the Spirit "." All that we know is, that it is a mystery and a treasure: the mystery of godliness, the treasure of more value than all this world, the endowment of a spirit with the gift of immortality : and that it is very easily lost. The door of life is narrow, little children enter it with ease; but it is very difficult for grown men to do so; they have to stoop and become small, they have to go back to childhood in order to do so. And the great thing which little children have to do is to continue such, to be still innocent children in mind and heart. Repentance with them is but the

undoing from day to day of what they contract from the world, and mortifying the evil nature which buds forth from within them. The sense of sin is with children more lively and deep than it is in after years, and consequently their repentance is more sincere.

Faith, also, is more congenial to childhood than to any other age the daily life of children is one of dependence and trust on others, being in themselves helpless and destitute with regard to the things of this life; and this disposes them to trust and dependence on God for the spiritual wants of their souls. Their sense of the unseen world is greater than in after life-their belief in Heaven and hell, and their feeling apprehension of CHRIST'S sufferings, and of God's mercies to themselves as found in CHRIST. Men do not usually imagine all this to be the case, for they mistake increase in knowledge for increase in faith; and reading and understanding so much more as they advance in years, they fondly suppose this to be a Divine light increasing in their minds. But this is not so. We have, I am convinced, most of us to go back and learn charity, the love of God, from our childhood. Even the Apostles thought, that because children could not

8 John iii. 8.

understand parables, and all those treasures of knowledge which they learnt from the discourses of CHRIST, that therefore they were to be set aside as less worthy of His notice. But their Divine Master taught them otherwise, that even they themselves had to learn from little children in order to be accepted of HIM. This surely is a great mystery—a mystery which, as I said, overhangs childhood, and a reason why it should be treated with great reverence and fear; with reverence, as having most fresh upon it the breath and the hand of God; and with fear, lest we make to offend one of these little ones; with fear, it may be added, for ourselves also, lest we fail to become like them, and so be found at last too large to enter at the strait and low door which leads unto life.

9

And how strongly does it set before us the evil of this world in the sight of GOD, that for the most part the longer we are in it the more unfit are we for Heaven, and that this is sure to be the case, unless we go on deepening our repentance and raising our faith all the way y! "Be not conformed to this world," says the Apostle, "but be transformed by the renewing of your mind "," and what is that image or new man, into which we are to be changed, but the likeness of CHRIST? and how opposite all His example and teaching is to that of the world around us is, alas! but too evident. It is throughout the very contrary. Many therefore, and indeed most of us have to unlearn what the world has day by day wrought in us-pride, covetousness, lust, forgetfulness of GOD, and hardness of heart; that is to say, we have to undo what we have been making ourselves, to go back and be as children. And what children have to do is to keep themselves free from these things, and to fix their eyes more and more in faith and repentance on JESUS CHRIST.

1

66

If we do not do this, how is it possible that Baptism can avail with either young or old for good? What every Christian child may say is, He hath set my feet upon the Rock, and ordered my goings 1." But look at the same child in a few years, and his confession will be, I stick fast in the deep mire, where no ground is "." And whose fault is this? However much Parents and Masters and Pastors may be to blame for neglect, and bad

9 Rom. xiii. 2.

1 Ps. xl. 2.

2 lb. lxix. 2.

:

example, yet the light of truth is abroad, as the sun in the heavens his own conscience must bear him witness before GOD that he is himself his own destroyer;-that he has not been tried or tempted above what he was able to withstand;—that there has always been a way to escape, which he might have taken, and been other than he is. If it were not for his own fault, he might have come to greater strength, greater light and knowledge. His only chance of recovery is to see and acknowledge all this, and not accusing other persons, or outward circumstances, to confess how much he has himself done despite unto the Spirit of Grace, and turned a deaf ear to His warnings.

But at the same time, let those who are older, and from their age and position have an influence with children, consider how much may depend upon them-how much they may do to save them by their teaching, by their example, and, above all, by their prayers. It is one of the highest and best ways of charity; add to which, it is one of the most effectual ways by which sinners may themselves be brought to the spirit and temper of little children it will quicken their repentance, to see in others that innocence which they themselves have lost; while they labour and pray that such innocence may be preserved to others, it is one of the best modes of reparation which they can pursue to bring down the mercy of GoD on themselves. It may lesson the covetous, or proud, or lustful, tempers of their hearts, to see how indifferent and ignorant of all such things little children are, and how much more happy and pleasing to GOD for being so.

:

Above all things, let it ever be remembered, that He Who hath said, “Learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly, and ye shall find rest for your souls," hath also more than once-yea, more than twice or three times, also set before us little children, and told us we are to learn of them if we would enter into His kingdom; as if something even of His own meekness and lowliness was to be learned in such little ones. His own remarkable words Whosoever shall receive this child in My Name receiveth Me." And His HOLY SPIRIT, speaking by the Psalmist, seems to say in the person of the Christian-it may be even of CHRIST HIMSELF" LORD, I am not high-minded: I have no proud looks. I do not exercise myself in great matters, which are too high for me. But I refrain my soul, and keep it low, like as a

are,

child that is weaned from his mother; yea, my soul is even as a weaned child"."

Such is the account of humility or Divine childhood: and when St. Paul speaks of that charity which is the perfection of a Christian-better than the tongue of men and angels,—than understanding all mysteries and all knowledge, it will be found to be in a great measure the same: it "envieth not; vaunteth not itself; is not puffed up; thinketh no evil; believeth all things; hopeth all things; endureth all things."

3 Ps. cxxx. 2.

R

SERMON XXI.

THE CONTINUAL REMEMBRANCE.

1 COR. xi. 26.

"For as often as ye eat this Bread, and drink this Cup, ye do show the LORD's death till HE come."

WHEN the Catechism comes to explain the Sacrament of the LORD's Supper, it first asks the question, why it was ordained; and in the answer mentions two reasons, the one the continual remembrance of CHRIST's Sacrifice, and the other the benefits which we thereby receive. Of the first part of this account we

may now proceed to speak.

The word "remembrance" here is taken from our LORD's own institution, for we read that both when He gave His disciples the bread; and also when He gave them the cup, He added “this do in remembrance of ME." And St. Paul in recording this circumstance adds the verse of the text. "For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the LORD's death;" i. e. after mentioning our LORD's words, He thus explains their meaning as a showing forth of His death. We are not to suppose our LORD's words merely to mean that we are to do this in order to remember HIM; for that indeed we could do without; but it means that we are to make this memorial of HIM, of the sacrifice of His death, as a solemn rite in commemoration of the New Covenant in His Blood. This St. Paul here explains to us as our LORD's meaning. And our LORD HIMSELF connects it with the New Testament or New Covenant in His Blood as differing herein from the old sacrifices of the Law.