I. THAT MAN REQUIRES A BOUNDARY FOR HIS SENses. By prohibiting one tree, God declares that there must be a limitation to the gratification of the senses. This is a most important doctrine, and fearfully overlooked. But why should the senses be restricted ?

First: Because an undue influence of the senses is perilous to the spiritual interests of men. The senses, as servants, are great blessings; as sovereigns, they become great curses. Fleshly lusts "war against the soul."

Secondly: Because man has the power of fostering his senses to an undue influence. Unlike the brute, his senses are linked to the faculty of imagination. By this he can give new edge and strength to his senses. He can bring the sensual provisions of nature into new combinations, and thereby, not only strengthen old appetites but create new ones. Thus we find men on all hands becoming the mere creatures of the senses -intellect and heart running into flesh. They are "carnal."

II. THAT MAN'S MORAL NATURE IS ASSAILABLE THROUGH Thus Satan now assailed our first parents and

THE SENSES.

won the day. Thus he tempted Christ in the wilderness, and thus ever. His address is always to the passions. By sensual plays, and songs, and books, and elements, he rules the world. "Lust, when it is finished, bringeth forth sin," &c. This fact is useful for two purposes :

First: To caution us against all institutions which aim mainly at the gratification of the senses. We may rest assured, that Satan is in special connexion with these.

Secondly To caution us against making the senses the source of pleasure. It is a proof of the goodness of God that the senses yield pleasure; but it is a proof of depravity when man seeks his chief pleasure in them. Man should ever attend to them, rather as means of relief, than as sources of pleasure. He who uses them in this latter way, sinks brute-ward.

III. THAT MAN'S HIGHEST INTERESTS HAVE BEEN RUINED BY THE SENSES. "When the woman saw that the tree was

Here was

Esau, the

good for food," &c. "she took of the fruit," &c. the ruin. History teems with similar examples. Jews in the wilderness, and David, are striking illustrations. But examples are crowding about you. Men's highest interests-the interests of intellect-conscience-soul, and eternity-are everywhere being ruined by the senses.

Let us learn to flee the lusts that war against the soul; to keep under our body; ever remembering that to be carnally minded is death.

SUBJECT:-The Dawn of Guilt.

And the eyes of them both were opened and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons," &c.-Gen. iii. 7-13.

Analysis of Homily the Hundred and Tenth,

HERE is the dawn of a new era in the history of humanity. The eye of a guilty conscience now opened for the first time, and God and the universe appeared in new and terrible forms. There are three things in this passage which have ever characterized this era of guilt.

I. A CONSCIOUS LOSS OF RECTITUDE. They were "naked." It is moral nudity-nudity of soul of which they are conscious. The sinful soul is represented as "naked." (Rev. iii. 17.) Righteousness is spoken of as a garment. (Isaiah, lxi. 3.) The redeemed above are spoken of as being clothed with white raiment, &c. There are two things concerning the loss of rectitude worthy of notice.

First: They deeply felt it. Some are destitute of moral righteousness and do not feel it. "They say that they are rich," &c. Dead consciences do not feel their destitution.

Secondly: They sought to conceal it. "They sewed fig leaves," &c. Men seek to hide their sins-in religious professions, ceremonies, and the display of outward morality. But all are but as "fig leaves." They will wither and perish. Here is :

II. AN ALARMING DREAD OF GOD. "And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden," &c. &c. They endeavoured like Jonah to flee from the presence of the Lord.

First: This was unnatural. The soul was made to live in close communion with God. All its aspirations and faculties show this.

Secondly: This was irrational. There is no way of fleeing from omnipresence. Sin blinds the reason of men.

Thirdly: This was fruitless. God found Adam out. "And the Lord called unto Adam, and said unto him, where art thou?" God's voice will reach the sinner into whatever depths of solitude he may pass. There is:

"The woman

III. A MISERABLE SUBTERFUGE FOR SIN. thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." And the woman said, "The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat." What prevarication you have here! Each transferred the sinful act to the wrong cause. The woman was the occasion of Adam's act, but not the cause; and Satan was the occasion of the woman's act, but not the cause. It is the essential characteristic of moral mind that, it is the cause of its own actions. Each must have known and felt that the act was the act of self. But this transferring of our own blame to others has ever marked the history of sin. Some plead circumstances, some their organization, and some the conduct of others. The sinner has ever had many refuges of lies.

SUBJECT: The Priests in the midst of Jordan; or Moral Firmness.

"And the priests that bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, stood firm on dry ground, in the midst of Jordan." &c.—Joshua, iii. 17.

Analysis of Homily the Hundred and Eleventh.

While we reprobate the practice of making the historic events of the Israelites types of the events of Christian life, we are at all times justified in making use of their history, as we

make use of other branches of knowledge—as illustrations of great truths. If we look, therefore, at their journey in the wilderness, as illustrating the journey of human life, the narrative before us will supply three great facts concerning it :

The Jews in

but there was So it is with The passage perilous, ne

God directs

First: The future difficulty in life's journey. their journey had surmounted many difficulties, one before them yet-the overflowing Jordan. us. The Jordan of death is before us all. through it, to us, as to the Jews, is strange, cessary; we cannot reach Canaan without it. Secondly: The true guide in life's journey. Joshua what the people were to do, (7 and 8). God guided them in two ways: 1. By the external symbol-the ark. 2. By human effort-"the priests." What the ark and the priests were to these men then, Christianity and true teachers are to humanity now-God's means of guiding it on its journey. A guide must know the way; God alone knows the winding and endless path of souls.

Thirdly: The final deliverance in life's journey. "All the people were passed clean over," &c. "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." But the point to which we would now draw particular attention, is the sublime calmness of these priests-these leaders of the people; they stood firm in the midst of the waters till all passed over. The circumstances suggest two remarks about their firmness.

I. THAT IT WAS RATIONAL IN ITS FOUNDATION. What was its foundation? The answer to this question will enable us to see what moral firmness really is. 1. It was not stolid indifference. Some men are lauded for their composure, who ought to be denounced for their stoicism. 2. It was not confidence in their own power to keep back the mountain of water. 3. It was not, of course, faith in the laws of All men have a fixed and practical faith in the laws of nature. The mariner-agriculturist-physician, &c. All trust these. But these men were firm in defiance of the laws of nature.

nature.

It was the law of nature that the Jordan should roll on and whelm them in destruction. What then was the foundation of their firmness? The WORD of God. He had told them through Joshua, that they were to do so, and they would be safe (v. 13). Now, our position is, that it is more rational to trust the word of God, than the laws of nature.

First: Because His words bind him to action, the laws of nature do not. He may continue to act according to what are called the "laws of nature," or he may not. That is, He may produce B by the instrumentality of A, or he may produce B by the instrumentality of C, or any other force; or he may produce B independently of any secondary force whatever-directly. But HIS WORD allows him no such option. The absolute rectitude of His being binds him to carry it out.

Secondly Because deviation from His word would be a far more serious thing to the universe, than deviation from the laws of nature. He may reverse every natural law; roll the wheels of nature backward without infringing any moral principle, or injuring any sentient being. But were he to deviate from his word what stupendous evils would ensue ! Virtue would be at an end, moral government would be disobeyed, the grand barrier between right and wrong, truth and error, heaven and hell, would be broken down; and anarchy and misery would deluge the moral creation.

The

Thirdly Because He has departed from the laws of nature, but has never swerved an iota from his word. history of Moses, Elijah, Christ, furnishes numerous instances of deviation from the laws of nature, but the history of the universe, from its earliest dawn, supplies not a single instance of deviation from his word. "Heaven and earth shall pass away," &c.

Two inferences necessarily flow from the foregoing considerations: 1. That it is more reasonable to walk by faith than by sight. Our senses and our reason deceive us, and have deceived millions, but the word of God is infallible. 2. That apparent impossibilities can never be pleaded against