Let him trust in the Lord, and stay himself upon his God."

When the Holy Spirit thus brings to memory these blessed truths, what comfort! what a precious promise! Are you called upon to undertake some stern duty, to face some great trial, to grapple with some all but insuperable obstacle; and your heart begins to faint, and your courage begins to flinch, and you would rather, like Jonah, fly from duty's stern behests, and seek shelter and refuge anywhere and everywhere except in the way that duty points out to you. You are perplexed, you are hesitating; a voice sounds in the depths of the heart, "When thou passest through the waters, they shall not overflow thee; when thou passest through the fire, it shall not kindle upon thee: the mountains may depart and the hills may be removed; but my loving-kindness shall not depart, nor shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy upon thee." "A mother may forget her infant, that she should not have compassion on the fruit of her womb; but I will not forget thee ; I will never leave thee, I will never forsake thee, saith the Lord." Now, I appeal not to argument, but I appeal to what is deeper than argument, your own heart; has not a text sometimes fallen upon the heart like a spark from the altar of God, and given you courage where you were verging on retreat, and comfort where you were frozen with desolation and despair, and hope where all was giving way, and peace where all was trouble; till cheered, sustained, strengthened, and encouraged, you have blessed God that he gave you this sweet promise, "The Spirit shall bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you"?

And then the last imprint given by this Spirit in reference to us is, "He shall show you things to come." Now this seems a difficult text. The past, the present, and the future are all equally conspicuous and apparent to that blessed and Holy Spirit. When, therefore, the promise is given, " He shall show you things to come," what does it mean? Not that he will make you prophets, but that he will help you to understand what the prophets say. It is one thing to prophesy; it is a totally different thing to interpret prophecy. He that assumes to prophesy is either a fanatic or he is inspired; but he that seeks to interpret prophecy is only regarding God's word as every bit of it his book, and therefore seeking to study it in the light of that Spirit who has promised to show you things to come. And when the Spirit shows you things to come, he does so not to gratify curiosity, not to help politicians, but to cheer you with the prospect of a great and certain reward, and to inspire and strengthen you to beat the path that leads to heaven, having respect to the recompense of reward.

And then, lastly, it is said, "He shall glorify me." Now, one test of the Holy Spirit given to you is, that all the glory of all you are you give to Christ Jesus. He that gives to a priest on earth, or to a saint or angel in heaven, what Christ alone can do; he that attributes to penance, or sufferings he undergoes, or to the good that he does, what alone is the attribute of Christ's blood and of Christ's righteousness, shows that he has not that Holy Spirit; for the promise is, "He shall glorify me.”

Have you this unction of the Holy One? Is the Spirit of God in you? Is your heart inlaid with his

grace as the most precious things are inlaid with gold? No shibboleth will do; no profession, no pretension will be accepted instead. And it is, my dear friends, a most important question, Am I a Christian? This world is not our home; it is not our rest. We are travellers. Two tremendous eternities depend upon this question, Am I a Christian? And if you be Christians, then you have the only reason for being the happiest of men here, as you have the promise that you shall be the happiest of immortals hereafter, through Christ that loved us; to whom be all the praise, and honour, and glory. Amen.

CHAPTER IV,

THE TRUE CHURCH AND MINISTRY.

FIRST of all we are warned in the chapter I have read, that certain teachers or prophets, called here "spirits," went forth into the world even in the days of the apostle John, who were not of the truth, and preached what was not the gospel, and gave evidence of their relationship to antichrist, rather than their relationship to the only Saviour, the Son of God. What does this teach us at the very outset? Why, this; that men who were ordained by the apostles, whose succession was indisputable and unquestionable; who had not an imaginary transmission of mysterious virtue, but actual relationship to the apostles; these men were teachers of error, and not teachers of truth. If the second link of that great chain so grievously faltered and failed, is it uncharitable or unreasonable to suppose that the remoter links, if such there be, are also liable to error and to failure? In other words, it teaches us the old lesson that Paul taught, "If we or an angel from heaven preach to you any other gospel, let him be anathema." One cannot help being struck with this; that throughout the Scriptures the test of relationship to an apostle is not an assumed or asserted apostolic personal succession, but the inspiration of

apostolic love, the preaching of apostolic truth, and the copy of apostolic example.

Therefore, says John to men that were living a very few years after the apostles themselves, "Believe not every spirit ;" do not accept every preacher as a truly apostolic one; but "try the spirits." Now how are we, assuming that these words are addressed to us-how are we to try a preacher ? It does not mean that every audience is to hold an assize every Sunday morning on their minister; or that you are to come to church with the inquisitive and critical spirit of literary men, instead of the teachable and docile spirit of the children of God; but it does certainly warrant this belief—that you are not to believe what the preacher says because he asserts it, you are to believe what the preacher says when he proves it, and you can authenticate what he proves by an appeal to God's holy and blessed word. It does, therefore, appear to me that throughout the whole Bible, the great test of an apostolic ministry is not an assumed, or asserted, or believed personal succession, but a holy life, a faithful exhibition of Christ crucified; and if this do not prove our relationship to the apostles, certainly history will not prove it; for history demonstrates that links innumerable have dropped; the Bible does not declare it; we are forced, therefore, to conclude, that where there is not apostolic preaching, there is not a true ministry; and where there is apostolic preaching, even if it be neither eloquent, nor powerful, nor impressive, there is at least the spirit, and we trust the mission, of our blessed Lord and Master.

Now John lays down one test, namely, "Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: every spirit"—that is the