upon His brethren. For what gives moment to these ordinances is, that they are the appointed means whereby the Head of man's race joins Himself to His brethren. They are the "joints and bands," whereby the whole body has nourishment ministered. This is a divine and supernatural work supernatural, therefore, and divine must be the means through which it is effected. And these means are declared in the express words of Scripture to be the Sacraments of grace. "As many

of you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ." And again, "we being many are one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread." And again, Our Lord says in St. John's Gospel, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of God, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you." He spoke not of course of natural efficacy, or a carnal banquet, but of that spiritual participation of His flesh and blood, which is bestowed on those who "discern the Lord's body." It is because He is the only channel through whom fallen man can commune with the Father; that those Sacramental ordinances whereby we are "found in Him" are essential to our welfare.

And hence is the ministry of men required. Instruction might be had from books or private study; but the circumstance which renders the ministry of men indispensable is the necessity of that union with the body of Christ, whereby we participate in the new nature which He has be

stowed upon humanity. "For He gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ." By this means are the children of the first Adam rescued from the debasement of the fall, and grafted one after another into the body of the Second. This is the work of God's spirit, using as His instrument the hands of men. For "by one spirit are we all baptized into one body."

Does it seem strange that so momentous a work as man's spiritual recovery should be brought about through means so simple as the washing of water, or the consecrated elements of bread and wine? I answer, that our birth into the new man is throughout strange and supernatural; it is not that natural intercourse which our first parent possessed with the author of his being. What wonder, then, that the means by which it is effected should be strange and mysterious? How marvellous is that earthly derivation which connects us with Adam: how singular is it that all his descendants should be the perpetual reproduction of his fallen being. We see this, and therefore believe it. And shall we be surprised if the law of our union with the second Adam is equally mysterious? "Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."

One difference there is, however, between the law of natural descent, and the law of spiritual

union, between the bond which attaches us to the first man, and that which connects us with the last is not like the first,

Our union with Adam is

second, namely, that the independent of our will. natural, as we did not bring it about, so we cannot end it our union with Christ is supernatural, but it is in our power to break it off by unbelief or by sin. Its maintenance depends upon those acts of Christ, whereby He joins Himself to us in Sacraments; but it depends also upon our faith and love. Therefore should all Christian men co-operate in that work, for which the Christian ministry was ordained. For by all acts of common worship do men maintain their part in that body of Christ, to which in Sacraments they are specially admitted.

But though this work requires the participation of the individuals who would profit by it, yet is it a common work and needs the intervention of those who have common authority. For men cannot apply Christ's merits to themselves by their private will, unless He first applies His merits to them from without by His public ministry. Else would the first movement towards their recovery be internal and spontaneous, as the Pelagians teach, instead of resting on that efficacy of the New Head of our race, which implies the existence of a Church, and the influence of an external Saviour. Hence the need of Sacramental rites, and of the perpetual sacrifice, and of a ministry of recon

ciliation, and of an earthly absolution. All these depend upon the truth that the Intercession of the one great High Priest is a reality which we cannot appropriate to ourselves by the mere exercise of our thoughts, but which He must bestow upon us through some actual channel of intervention. Let us have but a deep sense of the greatness of that loss which was entailed upon us by the fall, of the immensity of that interval which separates us from God, and of the absolute necessity of His gracious interference, through whom only we are re-united to our offended Creator, and we shall be in no danger of supposing that we can dispense with those means whereby He joins us to Himself. The value of the Christian ministry must stand or fall according as men value the mediation of Christ. To deem highly of the means of grace is to attach great weight to the presence and efficacy of the New Head of humanity. And this is the true mode of holding communion with the unseen world; it is the real imparting of God's nature, the antidote to the fall, the "feast of fat things well refined," to which prophets and kings looked forth with rapturous expectation.

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SERMON XIX.

THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM.

[Preached before the University of Oxford, March 10th, 1850.]

I. ST. JOHN, iv. 2, 3.

"Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of God; and this is that spirit of Anti-Christ, whereof ye have heard that it should come.”

HERE is a statement brought before us of the utmost moment-how we are to discriminate between God's Spirit and that which is opposed to Him, between Christ and Anti-Christ, between truth and error. Its importance is enhanced by its place, amidst the latest portions of Scripture; and by the earnestness with which the warning is repeated by the holy Apostle. He returns to it in the seventh verse of his second Epistle: "Many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an Anti-Christ."