practice. The wine of the kingdom, the fruits of the new vintage, must not be put into old bottles. An attempt to do this has sometimes ended in a fearful loss. Your life comes from Christ. There must be no incongruity. The grave-clothes of death must not be the apparel of the living man.

Why do we press this subject on the attention? Because we have seen men trying to unite things that are distinct, confounding the Law with the Gospel, and mingling grace with works. Remember "by grace are ye saved," and remember also that sanctification is not the cause but the effect of being saved.

We have seen Churches supplementing the truths of Christianity by the rites of Judaism, putting the new cloth to the old garment, or bringing out for wear the old vestments of that by-gone economy. Christianity is from God; let not man mar it by his additions. God's work and man's are widely different. The "new wine must be put into new bottles, that both may be preserved."

NEW REVELATIONS OF OLD TRUTHS.

"The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee."-JEREMIAH Xxxi. 3.

We have symbols in the sanctuary this morning. What does that white cloth cover? The broken body and blood of Christ. To you who believe, these are more than the mere elements of bread and wine. "The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ ?" Through these symbols there are fresh revelations made to you of the everlasting love of God: you see its divinest expression in sacrifice, in that oblation presented on Calvary, which was made as the atonement for your sins. I often feel the utter poverty of words, in my endeavours to speak to you of the love of God as revealed in the death of Christ. It is a great relief to present to you symbols: they are tremulous with feeling, they have a power of expression to which the heart responds. They present the truth in those forms which are like fresh appearances and new utterances to us; it is as

if we heard a Divine voice saying to us, "Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love."

This new revelation of an old truth was made to the prophet in the darkest day of the nation's history; after this there are bright visions of the future, so that his sleep was sweet to him.

Our subject is "New Revelations of Old Truths." We have then to remind you—

I. That a revelation has been made to us of Divine truth. Men recognise the principle of authority in religion, but they look for it in the human, not in the Divine, in the Church or the sect. They ask, "What is truth? and where is the truth to be found?" One Church says "Lo here!" and another, "Lo there!" Men in the wilderness are often deceived by the appearances of realities, by the semblance of living waters and verdant pastures, by the vision of a resting place in the distance; but after toiling on they become wearied by their pursuit of the mere shadow that had allured them. The lights of earth may be mistaken for the lights of heaven. The traveller who has lost his way, and finds himself in the darkness, is sometimes misled, through one of those strange, yet bright exhalations, which hovers over waste and miry places, and he does not find out his mistake till he finds out his danger. Men who have strange longings after the truth, but who have only read its dim prophecies, lift up their troubled faces to the heavens, and see the star that is to guide them in their long

journey. After being led by it, and when near the object of their pursuit, they turn aside to ask information of the world's wise men, or the scribes and rabbins of the Church. They cannot get the information they want; they seem to be farther from the truth than they were before, till again looking up, they see the star over the place where they find the Christ.

So

In a strange land, when the shadows of evening come on, the traveller has sometimes the consciousness that he is passing through the fairest scenes, he instinctively feels that the darkness is hiding from him the most wonderful revelations of nature. we sometimes feel that we are in the presence of great truths, that have yet to be revealed to us. We feel, long before we understand. Our hearts burn within us, when we listen to words, the full meaning of which we do not comprehend. How strange it is, that when we have listened to the words of truth, we sometimes feel as if visions we had dimly seen were realised, or our confused thoughts were put into shape, and expressed in words, as if this was what we had heard before, or were on the point of thinking out for ourselves. Truth seems like the language of childhood, as if we were familiar with its tones, and had lived a former life, where we had heard its voice before. The heart recognises it as Divine.

We can find no rest amid the wanderings of error and the perplexities of ignorance, till we have found

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the truth. When we have found Christ, it is like the light breaking into the sky when the sun arises. God's method of salvation is revealed in the Gospel, and believing that, we receive the truth. The soul cannot see without light. The spiritual nature alone has spiritual discernment. There must be sympathy to let us into the meaning of truth, just as purity enables us to see God, and love to know God. The heart helps us when the understanding is at fault, when perplexed by sophistries, and wearied with difficulties, it rises up and says, I feel, I am conscious, I know. The word is a revelation to you; God,-Christ, the Holy Ghost,-the Gospel, are as much realities to you, as to men who claim to belong to a Church that is the sole depository of the truth, and whose ministers are the only interpreters of the truth. The light shines into your heart, you see the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus. You have the Spirit to teach you, and to lead you into all truth. You have no warrant to go to another man and say, "Thus saith the Lord," but you may say, "The Lord said to me, Yea I have loved thee with an everlasting love."

II. We have new revelations of an old truth.

We cannot attach too much importance to the aspect in which God reveals Himself in the Gospel. Love is not so much one of His attributes, as the supreme expression of them all. God is love. The very last revelation we should have looked for in this