mysterious truths which we could not have known except by a revelation from God, and which He has thought fit to communicate to us by messengers especially commissioned for that purpose. Such, for instance, as the influence of good and evil spirits over the hearts of men; the eternal rewards which are reserved for the righteous after death, and the eternal punishments which await the wicked; above all, the inestimable privileges which our Lord's death has purchased for us, and the great mystery which the Church this day commemorates, the divinity of the Three Persons of the Godhead, and the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

These two classes of doctrines are both contained in the New Testament; and both are alike essential to Christianity, though the latter alone are peculiar to it.

Indeed, it is very observable, when we consider that to teach the latter was the peculiar office of Christian preachers, how large a space has been allotted to the restatement and inculcation of the former. How very much time is spent in dwelling upon natural religion, which all men ought to have known, by the persons who were peculiarly commissioned to bring to light things "hidden from the beginning of the world."

It is very observable, since it is not exactly what we might have expected beforehand; for surely nothing would be so little calculated to excite surprise, interest, and curiosity, as this systematic

endeavour among the teachers of a new religion, to associate all that they taught with what was already known, and as much as possible to give the appearance of triteness to the most novel and striking communications.

Yet, remarkable as it may appear, it is nevertheless perfectly true, as very short consideration must convince us. Let us first look to the ministry of John the Baptist, the promised forerunner of our Lord, whose office it was "to go before the face of the Lord; to prepare His ways: to give knowledge of salvation unto His people, by the remission of sins, through the tender mercies of our God, whereby the Day-spring from on high hath visited us: to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide our feet into the way of peace'." This was the express office of John the Baptist. He was to go before the face of the Lord, and to give light to them that sit in darkness. And yet what was this wonderful doctrine that He taught? "And the people asked him, saying, What shall we do? He answereth and saith unto them, He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise. Then came also publicans to be baptised, and said unto him, Master, what shall we do? And he said unto them, Exact no more than that which is appointed you. And the soldiers likewise demanded

1 Luke i. 76-79.

of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages."

Such is the common-place answer which he gives to those whose feet he was to guide into the way of peace, to whom he was to show the dawning of the Day-spring from on high.

And we shall find exactly the same thing, if we look to the teaching of our Lord Himself. His great and first object was to make men good,-to impress on them the necessity of loving God, and their neighbour. "A certain lawyer stood up and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? and He said, What is written in the law? how readest thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind: and thy neighbour as thyself. And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do and thou shalt live." Indeed the stress which our Lord lays on natural religion, or earthly things, throughout His whole ministry, is so great, that the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, the heavenly things, seem scarcely to be put forward at all, till just before He was to go the Father; and then only in secret to those chosen companions, who had been trained for three years in His service, and had been prepared, throughout this time, by His teaching and example.

to

The same thing is also observable in the teach

ing of St. Paul, as handed down to us in the Acts of the Apostles. We find him on all occasions, whether preaching to Jews or Heathens, always pursuing the same course. He uniformly begins by showing how that degree of religious knowledge, which men had hitherto attained, was a preparation for that which he was going to communicate; that the earthly things and the heavenly things were all part of the same system; and the latter only the completion of what the former was the beginning. To the Jews, he states that the same "God who at sundry times and in divers manners, had spoken in times past unto our fathers by the Prophets, hath in these latter times spoken to us by His Son;" that the Gospel was only the fulfilling of the Law, and that the new doctrines which it added were the substance, of which the Law was the pattern. To the Greeks he says, "As I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription: To the Unknown God.' Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, Him I teach unto you. God hath made of one blood all nations to dwell upon the face of the earth; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him and find Him, although He is not far from every one of us. For in Him we live and move and have our being. As certain also of your poets have said; For we are also His offspring. Forasmuch then as we also are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold or

silver or stone, graven by art and man's device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent. Because He hath appointed a day when He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He has ordained: whereof He hath given assurance unto all men in that He hath raised Him from the dead." Such pains does St. Paul take to show the Athenians, (anxious as they were for some new thing,) that what he was about to teach was really old-was a communication from that God of whom their own poets had written; and whom good men among themselves had endeavoured to "feel after and find.”

It appears then that our Lord's forerunner, our Lord Himself, and His chosen messengers, all followed the same course; all attempted so to propose to their disciples the heavenly things, which they were to reveal, as to make them seem nothing more than a completion of the earthly things, which they ought already to have known. The lives of Christians were not to differ from the lives of other good men, except in the greatness of the pains they were to take in serving God. No new rule was given them for pleasing God without self-denial, and getting to virtue by a shorter road. The Being, whom they were to serve, was the same God who had imposed on the heathen the law of conscience, and had revealed to the Jews the law of Moses: and the things which were now required in addi