preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling-block." For God had so long trained the Jews, and showed His power to them by working miracles in the wilderness, and the land of Canaan, by their Lawgiver, their Judges, and their Prophets; that now, when He came to save their souls, as the Holy One of God, to Whom all the Prophets bare witness, they would not believe in Him without signs. So it is with this Jew; a miracle will convince him, but nothing less; he seems to stand erect before Christ, knowing not himself or God; but our Lord is ever looking to the heart, and desiring to heal the soul of this man, for he is more near to eternal death than his son is to the death of the body.

The nobleman saith unto Him, Sir, come down ere my child die. He thought not of God, in Whose Presence he stood; he thought not of his own unworthiness; he thought only of his child, My child will die unless you make haste to come; and our Lord, as it were with reluctance and unwillingness, granted his request, and more than he had asked. He thought that Christ must come down before He could heal the child, and that when his child was dead there would be no hope, or power of restoration. Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way,-He that setteth the proud afar off waits on the sick slave of a humble heathen, but comes not to the dying son of a proud Jewish courtier. "Go thy way,"-thy son liveth. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way. Even this imperfect belief our Lord saw working in his heart, and blessed it and gave it increase. And as he was now going down, his servants met him, and told him, saying, Thy son liveth. Then inquired he of them the hour when he began to amend. Though believing, yet still inquiring, as one weak in faith and needing con

firmation. And they, his servants, said unto Him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him. As if they had said, in answer, you ask when he was beginning to amend, there was no beginning to amend, but suddenly, as if arrested by a Divine hand, the fever was gone. So the father knew that it was at the same hour in the which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth; and himself believed, and his whole house. Under the pressure of affliction he prayed, and praying obtained, and the miracle could not be doubted, and it was known to his whole house, which were constrained to believe. Thus did our Lord, in His loving-kindness, descend to meet their imperfect faith, and began with the Jews in their weakness. This is again, adds St. John, the second miracle that Jesus did, when He was come out of Judæa into Galilee. What therefore is the lesson we are taught on this Sunday By the Gospel we learn how tenderly and mercifully our Lord watches over every spark of faith. He will not quench the smoking flax. Although "not many noble are called," though the pride of this world, and beyond all things religious pride, as that of the Jew, makes it very hard for such to humble themselves and believe, yet, when God's hand is heavy on those they love, even then, if they ask, they shall receive. His ear is ever listening; His eye ever watching for them. And from this we may be encouraged to go on from such a beginning, to put on the "strength of the Lord," and as St. Paul says in the Epistle, "the whole armour of God."

We do not, as the Jew, expect to see signs and wonders, but why not? It is because we expect something infinitely greater than any outward signs or wonders can be. We are engaged in a spiritual warfare with spiritual enemies which are about our path, and our bed, day and

night. Sleeping or waking, at home or abroad, with others or when alone, when in business or at our prayers, they are ever with us while we are in the body, for our body occasions the darkness, and we cannot see them. Nay, I doubt not, my brethren, they are about us even here, and whispering at the ear in God's house even such thoughts as would, if heard aloud, startle both ourselves and each other. No outward sign, in the heavens or the earth, nay, not even miraculous deliverance from sickness, can be so marvellous as that we should overcome in this warfare such enemies. If we saw them, and knew them, we should say this. Yet, though we cannot see them, we can easily know their presence. That we should fall before them is but a matter of course,-many do,-we shall do so,-to-day, to-morrow, at this hour, and at all times, we shall fall, excepting, so far as by prayer and watching, we "put on the whole armour of God, that" we "may be able to withstand in the evil day."

VOL. II.

B

SERMON LXIX.

The Twenty-Second Sunday after Trinity.

Phil. i. 3-11. St. Matt. xviii. 21-35.

THE LOVE OF CHRISTIANS.

A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.—ST. JOHN xiii. 34.

THERE is something peculiarly gentle and affectionate

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in St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians; it is marked throughout with what we might call brotherly affection. So much was this the feeling of St. Paul towards these converts that we find him receiving support from them when he would not from other Churches. "Even in Thes

salonica," he says, "ye sent once and again unto my necessity." And full of interest is the account, in the Acts of the Apostles, of his sojourn with them; it was with them that on the Sabbath day he went out of the city by a river side, and sat down and taught them. They witnessed his being beaten with many stripes, and thrust with Silas into the inner prison. What a thousand tender recollections must he have had of them in all his painful travels; of his first and early stay with them; of their first knowledge and love of Christ, that wakening of the

soul to things eternal like the first streaks of morning; what sympathy in their mutual afflictions and trials; what love and joy at their common deliverances, as when the angel opened the prison doors. Dear to him indeed. must have been all his thoughts of his beloved Philippians, like the smiles and tears of an infant to its mother, who had borne so much for it. What hopes, what fellowship of prayers! All this is expressed in the opening of this Epistle.

I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, (always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy,) for your fellowship in the Gospel from the first day until now; being confident of this very thing, that He Who hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ: even as it is meet for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart, inasmuch as both in my bonds, and in the defence and confirmation of the Gospel, ye are all partakers of my grace.

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For God my record how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ.

Blessed Paul, a stranger and a captive in the great heathen Rome, the hearts of other men at such a time, when about to suffer and die, will turn to their home; but thou hadst on earth no home but in the hearts of these thy first children in the faith, "thy beautiful flock" by the still waters. But the light of the angel in thy midnight prison at Philippi was not so calm and bright as is the love, in the midst of thy bonds and imprisonment, which breathes throughout this sweet and Divine Epistle. Easy were thy chains and light thy sufferings when prayer bound thee more and more, in the tender mercies of Jesus Christ, to the objects of thy care and love with such hope and repose. And here we