value them, but for His promise Who has said, "Where two or three are gathered together in My Name, there am I in the midst of them?" He Who is by Nature every where present, is present here in a special manner by grace. He was in the Temple, as much before He filled it with that unutterable glory which "filled the house of the Lord; so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud." But by that visible sight of glory He shadowed out His invisible grace. These visible Churches are not so holy, as may be the hearts of Christians. Christ, by His Spirit, dwells in them, when we come to worship here in spirit and in truth, but with the soul of the Christian He unites Himself, dwelling in her in holiness, that she may dwell in Him everlastingly.

Yet these temples of God have their value, as visible witnesses to His unseen Presence, ensigns and way-posts to the unseen world, amid the din and distractions and absorbing whirl of things seen; folds, wherein we may be gathered to worship Christ, hear His voice, learn ourselves to follow Him, be fed by Him with His own Body and Blood.

Blessed emblems are they of the heavenly Jerusalem, and of the peace and rest above; blessed are they, as vestibules, wherein, if we worship here in faith and love, we may be prepared to enter into the palace of the Great King; resting-places amid a weary and barren land; refreshment to the weary and thirsty soul; pictures, in their rest, of the everlasting rest and peace in God.

Look chiefly then to that kingdom of God which

f 1 Kings viii. 10, 11.

is within you; look to build to your Lord a temple within your souls, there to commune with Him, there to listen to Him, there long to receive Him; thither by faith, and love, and longing, invite Him. These outward temples are but raised for the sake of that more glorious temple, with which God Himself unites Himself. That temple for God thou buildest by every prayer; for He says, "My house shall be called a house of prayer," and by prayer we call God to us, on Whom we call. We build it by keeping His commandments through His Grace; for He says, "If a man love Me, he will keep My commandments, and My Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode in him." That temple we prepare by casting out from us thoughts, words, and deeds, at variance with His holy Will. We build up its walls, when we gather up our whole souls to love what He loves, and flee what He hates; that so they may be whole and entire to contain Him, and wilfully harbour nothing which displeaseth Him.

Since, then, my brethren, "in Him we do live, and move, and have our being," surely we ought by our own wills "to live, move, and be, in" and to Him. In Him we must be by the very law of our being, since out of Him we could not be, nor exist; we must live, encircled, and enwrapt, and enfolded in and by His Being; we belong to Him, we are encompassed by Him. Every breath we draw is through Him. But more blessedly we may be in Him by grace. He is the life of our soul, the Being of our being. He wills to knit us to Himself. Not

more surely does our blood circulate through our

сс

frames, than the life of our souls may flow into us continually from the Spirit of God, never decayed, ever renewed. With Him thou mayest ever be; He will walk with thee by the way; He will talk with thee in thy secret heart; He will be with thee as thy Friend; by night or by day He will not be separated from thee. He will teach thee through all who teach. Through every dispensation of His Providence He will instruct thee. He will teach thee to pray by His Spirit within thee. In every trouble He will be with thee, nearer than the trouble nearest to thy heart, for He will be within thee. He will kindle thee with love, He will strengthen thy faith; He will be Himself thy hope.

All which He gives thee now, shall be the more precious, because they will not be without Himself, but will be tokens of His Presence. He will be "all in all" things to thee now, the very good of all good, the joy of all pleasure, the sweetness of all things sweet, the life of thy life. He will be the essence of all good here, that He may be thine All hereafter, when "all" will be again "very good," because all will be full of Him.

SERMON XXII.

THE SACREDNESS OF MARRIAGE.

EPHESIANS v. 33.

"This is a great mystery; but I speak concerning

Christ and the Church."

Poor are

GREAT indeed and holy is the mystery of marriage.a Great and poor are all the things of man. the things of man, as they belong to this earth; great are they, as they are the shadows of things unseen, the foretaste, in some measure, of things eternal.

Great is the mystery of holy union. God Himself Is, the Holy Blessed Three, and yet is One. His Eternal Being is One, Simple, Indivisible Essence, without parts, without passion. The Three Persons in the Co-Equal Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are eternally; the Son everlastingly Begotten of the Father, and the Holy Ghost proceeding from Both; yet Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are perfectly a Preached in the Communion Service, after a marriage, as contemplated in the Marriage Service.

One. "They are not three Gods, but One God." And this is the Eternal Bliss of God, that, although Three in Person, They are in perfectness One God, and "God is love."

And man and

But for the fall,

In some shadow of this oneness God willed eternally to make us, His creatures. Even in Paradise God instituted that two should be one. He made the oneness the closer, in that He took from Adam part of his very self; that as, in the All-holy Trinity, the Son is from the Father co-eternally, that oneness should be shadowed out, as far as it could be, in His creature; and the woman was formed not apart, as other creatures were, not as daughter only, but of the very substance, and strength, and firmness of the man. woman were again to become one. there would have been no passion in love and loving intercourse; no shame, no distress, no pain in childbearing; but there would have been perfect union of love. For in Paradise too God said, "They twain shall be one flesh." One they were, by origin one of the other; one they should be in their offspring; one they should be, in that they were to live through life for one another alone; one they should be in the oneness of mutual love, and their one will, whereby their souls should be knit together in one; one through the blessing of Almighty God, Who made them what He declared them, no more twain, but one.

After the fall, all was changed. The fire and poison of the forbidden fruit ran through the whole of man. What was innocent and pure then, would be shameless now. There was nothing then to be ashamed of, because they had not then by sin changed