And, lastly; live above this world, as partakers of the new creation. He that is "the beginning of the creation of God" is knitting together in one His mystical body, making up the number of His elect; and to this end is He working in each one of us, cleansing and renewing us after His own image. All things about us teem with a new perfection. For a while it must needs be that our eyes are holden were they but opened, we should understand that even now we are in the heavenly city. Its walls stand round about us; and they that were seen in Dothan walk in its streets of gold. We know not how nigh are the great realities of the world unseen; how truly they are here, though we see them not; how closely and awfully we are related to them by our regeneration. Therefore be it our care to live under an habitual consciousness that we are new creatures, striving day by day to disentangle ourselves from the clinging toils by which this old and fallen world draws us to itself, and having our "life hid with Christ in God." And, as a way to this severer life of faith, live according to the rule of His Church on earth. She bids you to confession, and prayer, and praise, to thanksgiving, and homage. She bids you to fasts and festivals, to sorrow and rejoicing. What are all her chants, and oblations, and solemn assemblies, but the voices, and songs, and gather ings, and marriage-feastings of the new creation? They are earthly shadows of an heavenly gladness. Brethren, look through them; and, as through a veil and in a parable, you shall see Christ your Lord, changing old things into new. They do but slightly veil His unseen presence from the eye of flesh. To the eye of faith they are as transparent as the light of noon. The whole Church is a sacrament of His presence; and in all parts of it, the man that seeks Him in purity of heart shall see Him with open face. D SERMON III. ON FALLING FROM THE GRACE OF BAPTISM. ST. LUKE xvii. 32. "Remember Lot's wife." THIS warning, taken from the familiar history of the Jews, is a part of our Lord's answer to those that asked when the kingdom of God should come. He warned them that it should come with no outward and visible tokens-with few forerunning signs; and even those such as the faithful alone should read. "As it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise, also, as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed. In that day, he which shall be upon the house-top, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away; and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back. Remember Lot's wife." Now, in thus calling up to their recollection the judgments of God in old time, our Lord teaches us to recognise the mysterious movements of His providential order, and to learn the broad analogies by which they are controlled. The flood of waters, and the overthrow of Sodom, were forerunning types of judgments yet to come. In the spirit of prophetic warning He thus foreshewed the overthrow of Jerusalem, and the hair-breadth escape which was then awaiting them. But all these, including this also, were no more than types foreshortened, as it were, one behind the other, of His last coming at the end of the world. As they were for suddenness and severity, so, beyond all, shall the last coming be. As the escape of Lot, and of the remnant who were faithful in Jerusalem, even so also shall be the saving of the righteous; for the righteous shall "scarcely be saved." As the judgment on Lot's wife, so likewise shall be the doom of apostate Christians. And this is the only point we will now dwell upon. 1 St. Luke xvii. 26-32. character; we see in it an example of the just wrath of God against those who, having been once mercifully delivered, shall afterwards fall back. She was, by a distinguishing election of God, and by the hands of angels, saved from the overthrow of the wicked. We, We, by the same deep counsel of God, have been translated from death to life. She perished in the very way of safety. Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. Lot's wife is an example of those who fall from baptismal grace. As, for instance, of those who, having been made partakers of salvation by baptism into the Church of Christ, fall away from it through the overmastering power of sin. That a man may fall finally, and without hope, from grace given, is broadly written in holy Scripture. Men would fain have it otherwise; and some beguile themselves by the dream, that they magnify the mercies of God in contending that the gifts of grace are indefectible. Let them beware how they offer strange fire upon God's altar. God will be served only of that which His Spirit hath consecrated to Himself. "When the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and doeth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doeth, shall he live? All his righteousness that he hath done shall not be men |