SERMO N.

1 CHRONICLES XXIX. 16, 17, 18.

“O Lord our God, all this store that we have prepared to build Thee an house for Thine holy name cometh of Thine hand, and is all Thine own. I know also, my God, that Thou triest the heart, and hast pleasure in uprightness. As for me, in the uprightness of mine heart I have willingly offered all these things: and now have I seen with joy Thy people, which are present here, to offer willingly unto Thee. O Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, our fathers, keep this for ever in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of Thy people, and prepare their heart unto Thee."

BEFORE I endeavour to draw your attention, brethren, to one or two short remarks connected with these words, and to the object for which the collection was made this morning, and is to be made this evening, viz. that of building a New Church in this district, there is one remark which cannot be too often repeated, or too often urged upon your recollection.

We live in days of deep and bitter controversy, where the best men are worst spoken of, and the holiest mysteries of the faith are openly discussed with little reverence or meekness; and this, too, not by the world of unbelievers and of careless ones, but by

men who have received the same holy baptism, and profess the same holy faith as ourselves. While I would call upon you, therefore, to abstain from doing the same, and would bid you return blessing for cursing, I would remind you that a very large proportion of existing disputes and controversies arises mainly from the imperfection and indefiniteness of terms and language. To make this plain, let me direct your attention to one or two instances.

Most of the opposition, and chief of the objections, to the great doctrine upon which all holiness of life must be built, recognised as it is by every epistle which is addressed to "saints and faithful brethren," viz. that of Baptismal Regeneration, arise from confounding the term or effects of regeneration with the term or effects of conversion or renewal. Now regeneration implies a change of state or relationship to God; conversion or renewal is a change of heart. Regeneration is at once complete and can never be repeated; conversion, even in the holiest of men, is never finished and complete on this side the grave. Regeneration is the work of God, bestowed through an outward and visible sign by the ministerial agency of man; conversion is the work of God's Holy Spirit upon the heart, the man himself co-operating with the blessed influence of God. Regeneration may be received passively, as in the case of infants; conversion must have the active concurrence of the receiver. The guilt of original and past sin is blotted out in regeneration. The effects and consequence of original sin in disposition, and inclination or proneness to sin,

is gradually, more or less, opposed and overcome in conversion.

And so again, from the imperfection of terms and phrases commonly used, the great doctrine of Justification by Faith is often represented as opposed to a judgment at the last great day, according to works. Yet why should these things be? We all know that "we are accounted righteous before God, only for the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ, by faith and not for our own works or deservings." Justification may be shortly defined as reconciliation with God: as non-imputation of sin-as the not having our sins imputed to us for Christ's sake: that as before we could not please God, so now after justification "God is not unrighteous to forget your works and labour that proceedeth of love:" "with such sacrifices He is well pleased." Justification terminates with the day of judgment; whereas rewards are for ever and ever. I will notice but one other instance of the same kind.

Nearly allied to this last error of opposing justification by faith to a reward hereafter according to our works, is that of confounding references, which there are in many parts of Scripture, to the ceremonial law of Moses with the law of Christian obedience and good works and holiness of life. As, e. g. when we read, "But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident; for, the just shall live by faith." Here we may be tempted to confound the law of Christian obedience with the Judaical law of ceremonies, to which the passage

refers, and to confine faith merely to feeling, and to make it less than a vital principle operating upon the heart, and overruling all our actions and thoughts and words. But they who do so surely forget that God has an endless difference of rewards in store for us, manifold more even than in this world. "As one

star differeth from another star in glory, so also is the resurrection of the dead." To judge angels, to sit on thrones, to have rule over ten cities, or five cities, or two cities, is no more than Daniel had announced five centuries before, when he declared, in words of inspiration, "they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmanent; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever." Woe be unto you if your faith, when weighed in the balances of the Son of God, be found only feeling, or bare assent to truths. For devils do more than this. They do not believe only, but tremble.

And now I turn shortly to consider the text: there are two points especially to be observed in the accounts which we have in several places of Holy Scripture of the rule by which offerings to God especially for the building and service of His temple are to be made; and in the examples which are given us amongst the saints of the elder or later covenant. Observe then, first, the willing spirit in which such offerings were made of old. We all know that it is the heart of man to which God mostly looks. In these days our risk rather is to make a presumed inward devotion, and what is termed spirituality of mind, usurp the place of outward acts of holy living, and to separate