ledge as to what she does, or what she does not teach.—But where any one, professing attachment to the Church, and not uninstructed in her doctrines, is disposed to be offended in her, surely it is but fair to inquire of him whether he is carefully living up to what she prescribes to him. If he is not, he is wholly unfit for the office he has assumed.

I would fain hope that those whom I address are so rooted and built up in the faith, so thankful for the innumerable blessings they have received at her hands, that they have not a wish, nor a thought, beyond the Church of the Prayer Book; and that they are so satisfied that all things necessary to salvation may be found within her pale, that they would never join with those who find cause of offence in her. But while I gladly believe this of you, let me remind you, that to be a sincere Churchman implies something more than a mere profession of principles. It implies a constant, diligent walking in all the Church's ordinances. It implies habits of discipline and self-restraint. It implies a life spent, according to your means and abilities, in prayers, and fasts, and alms. It implies steadfastness, and diligence, and discretion, and humility: a dread of false doctrine, heresy, and schism, and yet a charity that thinks no evil and hopes the best; that loves the sinner, even while it hates the sin. It implies a

spirit of patience and forbearance, a readiness to submit to misrepresentation and calumny, and a willingness to forgive them and pass them by. It implies an earnest desire to remove all causes of offence, and a special care of creating them; but it, likewise, implies a full practical belief in our Saviour's words, "Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in Me;" and an earnest fear lest by putting any slight upon the Church, we should incur the anger of the Church's Lord, of Him who declared to the founders of that Church, "He that heareth you, heareth Me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me; and he that despiseth Me, despiseth Him that sent Me.”

SERMON VI.

HOLINESS IN OURSELVES, AND FORBEARANCE TO

OTHERS.

MARK ix. 50.

Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another.

WHATEVER may be the difficulties and uncertainty attending the interpretation of that part of our blessed Lord's address to the beloved disciple, which immediately precedes the passage I have just read to you, the text itself has no obscurity whatever. It is the simple enunciation of a command which we are all bound to obey; and the general drift and connexion of the context will, in spite of those parts, whose meaning is less obvious, be so far clear to the careful reader of his Bible, that he will be at no loss to discover the kind of circumstances, under which the discharge of the duty here prescribed becomes especially needful.

Those persons who have made it their business to defend our Holy Religion from the assaults of un

of that freedom from pride, and contentiousness, and ambition, which is indispensable to those who desire to be greatest in the kingdom of God; after admonishing them of the peril in which they stand, who, by their evil tempers, put stumbling-blocks in the way of the weakest of God's servants; and of the necessity of making any surrender rather than incur such a risk; He concludes by declaring that as every burnt-offering under the law was first salted with salt, and then consumed by fire: so every one who has been instructed in the doctrine of the Gospel, if, when he is tried, he be found not sincere, shall be destroyed by the eternal fire of Divine Wrath. "Salt," He adds, "is good: but if the salt have lost its saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another." The doctrine, that is, wherein I have instructed you, will make you wise and good, will save you from the corruptions of the world, and enable you to teach others to preserve themselves unto life eternal. But if you, thus instructed, shall, instead of teaching others, fall away yourselves, either through hope or fear of any earthly thing, you will become the most unprofitable, and inexcusable of men. Take heed, therefore, that ye continue steadfast in the faith yourselves, and let no ambitious designs, no foolish contentions among yourselves, or fear of outward

suffering or persecution, hinder the propagation of the truth among others.

Here, then, was the rule for the first disciples of the Lord, and in them for us. They were to have salt in themselves,-to have within them a fixed and settled principle, pervading their whole character, and preserving them untainted, and uncorrupted, amid surrounding evil. And with this distinctive mark about them, which could not but, in great measure, render them different from the mass of mankind, and even (in proportion as they had more or less of it) different from those who received like faith with them, they were to have peace one with another: to be free from jealousy at others' privileges, and from envying their attainments; to be ready to give them credit for the same purity of motive by which they were actuated themselves; to temper their zeal with discretion and charity; to be humble about themselves, and to think more highly of others than of themselves; and to postpone all personal considerations to the advancement of their Master's cause, and making His religion lovely in the eyes of men. They were to have peace one with another, because else, their labours would be all in vain; for a kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation. They were to have peace one with another, because, else, offences must needs come, and their Lord had pro