He adds, If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin, that is, the one great sin of rejecting the salvation of God in Christ; but now they have no cloke for their sin. The manifestation of Christ has been "that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed." It has left them without excuse.

For the rejection of Christ

He that hateth Me hateth

has been the rejection of God. My Father also. For to love Christ is to love God. He is the Image of the invisible God.

If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin; but now have they both seen and hated both Me and My Father. Our Lord here states it first of His words, and then of His works; in both of them is the manifestation of God the trial and test of the souls of men; it is the appeal to the inward conscience with which each is born; whether or not it is capable of the renewal of God, and of the life which is in God. And therefore this manifestation of Christ becomes in every place the seal of salvation or of death. It is so now, and will be unto the end; for the words of Christ are spread abroad wherever His Name is known; and wherever His words are there are His works also, in the marvellous operations of His grace.

And this the rejection of the Gospel is foretold in the Old Testament: But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated Me without a cause. "They that hate Me without a cause," says Christ in the Psalms, are more than the hairs of Mine head; they that would destroy Me guiltless are mighty.""

All these things took place while our Lord was with

6 Ps. xl. 15.

His disciples in the flesh; but they could not understand them, nor see therein the mysterious economy of God "manifest in the flesh" until the Spirit was given. Then were they knit together "in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship," and became in themselves the "City set on an hill," and were "the Light of the world." Then was the power manifested which is of God, "Who only doeth wondrous things;" for among those who put Him to death were many who were found willing to die for Him and the truth of His Gospel. But when the Comforter is come, Whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, Which proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of Me. And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with Me from the beginning.

What, then, is the great lesson which this Festival would inculcate? it is the Holy Catholic Church, built on the foundation of the twelve Apostles, come down to be most intimately near to those who by faith and love inherit the promises; while the Epistle would impress upon us the great danger of our falling away from this high inheritance. St. Jude, after having been, perhaps together with St. Simon, the companion of Christ, even from his childhood; having become afterwards the witness of His miracles and hearer of His discourses; having been chosen by Him for an Apostle, and gifted with the Holy Ghost and the indwelling of God; having learned in very deed and truth the blissful reality of that manifestation of Christ to the soul of which he had inquired, yet comes at last to leave the world with one awful record of his Apostleship, to endure unto the end; it is this short Epistle; wherein he appears, as it were, to labour to find words and figures sufficiently strong, to leave as a warning,

of the peril of those who have received the Unspeakable Gift. Among our Lord's twelve Apostles there were two of the same name of Judas, both chosen to be, as it were, angels of light; one continuing to be really such, and the other ending most miserably: both, as it were, calling out to us to remind us of our danger; the one by his warning words, the other by his sad example. St. Jude's Epistle is altogether of admonition, and stern, mournful prophecy of evil; but these evils he urges as incentives to us of more earnest care and diligence, beginning and ending with words of encouragement, if we thus live. "But, ye beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God." This is, as it were, his one lesson of advice for this day.

There were also we know two Apostles of the name of Simon the one whom we celebrate on this Saints'-day, and the other Simon Peter; both alike full of the zeal of God; as it appears in one case from his name of Zelotes, or the Zealot; in the other as is shown by all his actions: but there is this difference between them, that one is the most memorable, the other the least known of all the Apostles. For of Simon Zelotes nothing is recorded. But both are alike among the twelve foundations of the City of God, both sitting on thrones in the regeneration together with Christ. For God is pleased to work sometimes by means seen of men for all generations, sometimes altogether unknown and in secret. All alike are His, all alike accepted of Him, if they seek for the honour which. cometh from God only, in faith, whose praise is not of men, but of God. He will manifest Himself unto them, and they will be content to be like Himself unknown to the world, having a "life hid with Christ in God."

SERMON XC.

All Saints' Day.

Rev. vii. 2-12. St. Matt. v. I-12.

THEY WHICH SHALL BE ACCOUNTED WORTHY.

Ye are come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the Living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels. To the general assembly and Church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, and to GOD the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect.-HEB. xii. 22, 23.

WE pray in the Burial Service that it may please God

"shortly to accomplish the number of His elect." This expression," the number of God's elect," is described in the beginning of the passage from the Revelation which forms the Epistle for to-day. It is set forth in the temporal Israel and the closing of that dispensation, which is given us as the image and pattern of the true, so much so that Heaven itself is described as the "Jerusalem which is above." And therefore in the Apocalypse, on the destruction of Jerusalem, God is described, in figures mostly taken from the Old Testament, as waiting till He had filled up the number of His redeemed, that "remnant" of His elect, predestined and known of Him, of whom not a

hair of their head shall perish in that destruction. All shall be as pre-ordained of God" in measure, and number, and weight." And after this, the description of the sealed of Israel, the Epistle proceeds to speak of the gathering in from all nations unto the end. And oh! my brethren, that you and I may be of that blissful multitude!

And I saw another angel, says St. John, ascending from the east having the seal of the living God; and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth, and the sea, saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. And I heard the number of them which were sealed; and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel. This passage is so awful, and at the same time so exceedingly beautiful and sublime, that one fears to lower or limit it by any human explanation; it is a subject rather for devout meditation and prayer. For even unto us in like manner has come "the Messenger of the covenant" ascending from the East, as the rising Sun with healing on His wings: we have been sealed on the forehead with the seal of the living God, the cross of Christ signed on our foreheads at our Baptism; and our souls have been sealed with the anointing of the Holy One. But as then they were "not all Israel that were of Israel," oh, that we may find this our calling and election of God in Heaven!-that we may be of that predestined number known of God, when all shall be found to be in exact fulness, completion, and perf ection, however indefinite and uncertain things may now appear. For such is represented in the exactness of the numbers, the hundred and forty and four, the Patriarchal and