VIOUR ?

true heavenly refection, the Substance of your SAHow should you, then, be meet for the spiritual festivity of heaven ?

IV. The Divine Presence in Heaven. The heavenly inhabitants, in some sense, behold GOD. S. Matt. v. 8; 1 S. John iii. 2, 3; Isa. xxxiii. 17; 1 Cor. xiii. 12. They come to the presence of JESUS. Heb. xii. 24; 2 Cor. v. 3; Phil. i. 23. Do you then seek now to see GOD, as far as He can now be seen? to understand His excellences, as far as is possible? Ps. xxvii. 8; Exod. xxxiii. 18. Do you contemplate Him in the face of JESUS CHRIST? 1 S. Pet. i. 8. Do you pray with David, Ps. cxix. 18; and do you search the Scriptures, that you may behold there the Divine perfections? Do you take pleasure in this? Do you delight in drawing nigh to CHRIST through prayer, and Holy Communion? If you delight in these things, you have a token of meetness. But if the thought of GOD is unwelcome; perhaps, terrible; if you have no regard to the love of CHRIST,-if you come not to the FATHER by Him, nor feel your need of Him, nor seek His knowledge and grace, what pleasure could you find in heaven? If you have no love of GOD, if you have a distaste for divine things, how should you find happiness where GoD and His attributes are displayed continually and eternally?

We must, then, be meet for the inheritance, or it would be misery to us. But may not God give us this taste hereafter, when it will be time enough? No: the Apostle says, not ἱκανώσοντι, but ἱκανώσαντι. As we die, we shall arise. Rev. xxii. 11. If we leave this world dead to the next; without love of saints or

holiness, of GOD, His Will, Word, Worship, Sacraments, we must arise in misery: for heaven itself would be misery could we obtain it. Yet a condemnation more dreadful would be ours. The unmeet for

heaven are the meet for hell!

O let us examine ourselves, dear brethren, by these and like criteria, whether we be truly meet! Of some unmeetness all, perhaps, will be convicted. Where shall meetness be sought? The text tells us. GOD makes us meet. To Him we must repair: not expecting any sudden or violent change; but by patient attendance on His means,-His Worship, Word, Ordinances, Sacraments, we may in faith humbly hope that we shall "daily increase in His HOLY SPIRIT more and more, till we come to His everlasting kingdom." (Confirmation Service.) S. Mark iv. 28.

And now let us echo the Apostle's ascription, "Thanks be to GOD!" if unmeet, that He offers us meetness; if meet, that He has made us so. Zech. iv. 6; Ps. cxv. 1.

LXVII.

Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity.

Subject. The use of the wicked.

Text. Prov. xvi. 4.

"The LORD hath made all things for

Himself; yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.”

פָּעַל .Principal Word

NOTHING Secures the plain Christian from error on any text so completely as a knowledge of Holy Scripture, and of the doctrines accepted by the Church. This is particularly the case with such texts as this, which the second Lesson for the day brings before us, and which might prove a stumbling block to the unlearned Christian. Guided by these lights, let us investigate

I. What the text does not mean. It does not mean that GOD created men or angels evil for the purpose of punishing them everlastingly. Such an opinion was never received in the Church. And it is even palpably contrary to the direct testimony of Holy Scripture. Gen. i. 31; Eccles. vii. 29. (See Outline for Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity, I.) Had the angels been made evil, they could not have entered heaven. Rev. xxi. 27. "As sin is not in Him, so sin is not from Him; but what is not from Him is not His

work; but what was never in His work, was never in His predestination." (Fulgent. ad Monim. 1.) "If thou knowest that GOD is good, thou believest (for it is impiety to do otherwise) that He doth not make evil. Again, if we acknowledge that God is just (for this it would also be impious to deny) as He assigns rewards to the good, so doth He punishments to the evil; which are evils to those who suffer them. Wherefore, if no man incurs punishment unjustly, as we must necessarily believe, since we believe the universe to be governed by Divine Providence; then God is by no means the author of the first kind of evils; of this second kind He is." (S. August. de Lib. Arb. I. 1.) Yet even of this He is only so far the Author as to use the evil which Satan brought into the world for the good purposes of Providence. He did not make anything for punishment or pain. Ezek. xviii. 23, 32; Lam. iii. 33; Mic. vii. 18; S. Luke xix. 41. To think He did is to compare Him to His enemy, whose pleasure it is to multiply sin and misery. "Thou sparest all, O LORD, because they are Thine; because Thou lovest souls. Good and gentle, O LORD, in all things is Thy Spirit. Thou chastenest those who err, Thou addressest them with admonition on their sins, that, abandoning their wickedness, they may believe in Thee. By no means then is it to be thought that the most merciful Creator is the cause of the perdition of ungodly men, who are unwilling to be converted to Him by repentance; but every one of them shall perish in his own sin; for every one is bound by the cords of his own sins; and 'the soul that sinneth, it shall die.'" (S. Jerome in Lam. III.)

Let none then say, "GOD made me wicked, and there is no remedy. It is His will, I cannot resist, I cannot help sinning, because it is ordained." This is profane folly. S. James i. 13, 14; Ecclus. xv. 11–20. And let no man learn desperation from the text, and say, "I see my sinfulness; but to what purpose? I cannot escape condemnation. I was made for the day of evil, for torment everlasting. Preach not repentance, GOD will not let me repent. Tell me not of a SAVIOUR, for it is His pleasure to condemn me. Do what I will, my fate is certain. Let me take my fill of the world while I may, and torment me not before the time." The text gives no warrant to fancies like these. It cannot contradict those plain, unmistakable testimonies, Ezek. xviii. 23, 32; 1 Tim. ii. 4; 2 S. Pet. iii. 9.

II. What the text does mean. There are two constructions of it.

1. The LORD hath planned, contrived, designed, adjusted, all things for Himself. GOD hath so contrived the arrangements of Providence, that all things work His will. And, as it might be objected, "The wicked man does not, for he opposes it ;" the wise man replies, "Yea, even the wicked for the day of evil." He was not created wicked, or forced to be wicked; his wickedness is his own; but he shall not obstruct the work; he shall even do it; and when he has done it, GOD will cast him away. So did He with the King of Assyria; Isa. x. So with the wicked Jewish nation. Acts ii. 23; iii. 18; iv. 28; Ps. lxxvi. 10. He glorifies His power by using the wicked; His justice by condemning them. He contrives them for the day of