shall sit still to partake of the feast-the joy of their Lord; the rest shall stand speechless, and be cast out into outer darkness, where shall be weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth. You may read your Bible, and pray over it till you die—you may wait on the preached Word every Sabbath-day, and sit down at every sacrament till you die; yet, if you do not find Christ in the ordinances-if he do not reveal himself to your soul in the preached Word-in the broken bread and poured-out wine-if you are not brought to cleave to him—to look to him—to believe in him—to cry out with inward adoration: "My Lord, and my God"—"how great is his goodness! how great is his beauty!"-then the outward observance of the ordinances is all in vain to you. You have come to the well of salvation, but have gone away with the pitcher empty; and however proud and boastful you may now be of your bodily exercise, you will find in that day that it profits little, and that you will stand speechless before the King. II. External observances can never stand in the stead of sanctification to the believer. If it be a common thing for awakened minds to seek for peace in their external observances to make a Christ of them, and rest in them as their means of acceptance with God-it is also a common thing for those who have been, brought into Christ, and enjoy the peace of believing, to place mere external observances in the stead of growth in holiness. Every believer among you knows how fain the old heart within you would substitute the hearing of sermons, and the repeating of prayers, in place of that faith which worketh by love, and which overcometh the world. Now, the great reason why the believer is often tempted to do this is, that he loves the ordinances. Unconverted souls seldom take delight in the ordinances of Christ. They see no beauty in Jesus-they see no form nor comeliness in him-they hide their faces from him. Why should you wonder, then, that they take no delight in praying to him continually-in praising him daily-in calling him blessed? Why should you wonder that the preaching of the cross is foolishness to them-that his tabernacles are not amiable in their eyes-that they forsake the assembling of themselves together? They never knew the Saviour-they never loved him-how, then, should they love the memorials which he has left behind him? K When you are weeping by the chiselled monument of a departed friend, you do not wonder that the careless crowd pass by without a tear. They did not know the virtues of your departed friend-they do not know the fragrance of his memory. Just so the world care not for the house of prayer-the sprinkled water-the broken bread-the poured-out wine; for they never knew the excellency of Jesus. But with believers it is far otherwise. You have been divinely taught your need of Jesus; and therefore you delight to hear Christ preached. You have seen the beauty of Christ crucified; and therefore you love the place where he is evidently set forth. You love the very name of Jesus-it is as ointment poured forth; therefore you could join for ever in the melody of his praises. The Sabbath-day-of which you once said: “What a weariness is it!" and, "When will it be over, that we may set forth corn?"-is now a " delight," and "honourable”— the sweetest day of all the seven. The ordinances, which were once a dull and sickening routine, are now green pastures and waters of stillness to your soul; and surely this is a blessed change. But still you are in the body-heaven is not yet gained-Satan is hovering near; and since he cannot destroy the work of God in your soul, therefore he tries all the more to spoil it. He cannot stem the current ; therefore he tries to turn it aside. He cannot drive back God's arrow; and therefore he tries to make it turn awry, and spend its strength in vain. When he finds that you love the ordinances, and it is in vain to tempt you to forsake them, he lets you love them; ay, he helps you to love them more and more. He becomes an angel of light-he helps in the decoration of the house of God-he throws around its services a fascinating beauty-hurries you on from one house of God to another-from prayer-meetings to sermonhearing from sermons to sacraments. And why does he do all this? He does all this just that he may make this the whole of your sanctification-that outward ordinances may be the all in all of your religion-that in your anxiety to preserve the shell, you may let fall the kernel. over If there be one of you, then, in whose heart God hath wrought the amazing change of turning you from loathing to loving his ordinances, let me beseech you to be jealous your heart with godly jealousy. Pause this hour, and see if, in your haste and anxious pursuit of the ordinances, you have not left the pursuit of that holiness without which the ordinances are sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. I have a message from God unto thee. It is written: "He is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of man, but of God." He is not a Christian which is one outwardly, neither is that baptism which is merely the outward washing of the body; but he is a Christian which is one inwardly, and true baptism is that of the heart— when the heart is washed from all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit; whose praise is not of men, but of God. Remember, I beseech you, that the ordinances are means to an end; they are stepping-stones, by which you may arrive at a landing-place. Is your soul sitting down in the ordinances, and saying, It is enough? Are you so satisfied that you can enjoy the ordinances of Christ, that you desire no higher attainments?-Remember the word that is written: "This is not your rest." Would you not say he was a foolish traveller, who should take every inn he came to for his home-who should take up his settled rest, and instead of preparing himself for hard journeying on the morrow, should begin to take the ease and enjoyment of the house as his all? Take heed that you be not this foolish traveller. The ordinances are intended by God to be but the inns and refectories where the traveller Zion-ward, weary in welldoing, and faint in faith, may betake him to tarry for a night, that, being refreshed with bread and wine, he may, with new alacrity, press forward on his journey home as upon eagles' wings. Take, then, this one rule of life along with you, founded on these blessed words: "He is not a Jew which is one outwardly "that if your outward religion is helping on your inward religion-if your hearing of Christ on the Sabbath-day makes you grow more like Christ through all the week-if the words of grace and joy which you drink in at the house of God lead your heart to love more, and your hand to do more-then, and then only, are you using the ordinances of God aright. There is not a more miserably deceived soul in the world than that soul among you who, like Herod, hears the preached Gospel gladly, and yet, like Herod, lives in sin. You love the Sabbath-day-you love the house of God— you love to hear Christ preached in all his freeness and in all his fulness; yes, you think you could listen for ever if only Christ be the theme-you love to sit down at sacraments, and to commemorate the death of your Lord. And is this all-is this all your holiness? Does your religion end here? Is this all that believing in Jesus has done for you? Remember, I beseech you, that the ordinances of Christ are not means of enjoyment, but means of grace; and though it is said that the travellers in the Valley of Baca dig up wells, which are filled with the rain from on high, yet it is also said: "They go from strength to strength." Awake, then, my friends, and let it no more be said of us, that our religion is confined to the house of God and to the Sabbath-day. Let us draw water with joy from these wells, just in order that we may travel the wilderness with joy and strength, and love and hope-blessed in ourselves, and a blessing to all about us. And if we speak thus to those of you whose religion seems to go no farther than the ordinances, what shall we say to those of you who contradict the very use and end of the ordinances in your lives? Is it possible you can delight in worldliness, and vanity, and covetousness, and pride, and luxury? Is it possible that the very lips which are so ready to sing praises, or to join in prayers, are also ready to speak the words of guile-of malice of envy of bitterness? Awake, we beseech you; we are not ignorant of Satan's devices. To you he hath made himself an angel of light. Remember it is written: "If any among you seemeth to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion, and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." "For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh: but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God!" Amen. Preached before the Presbytery of Dundee, SERMON XXII. CHRIST'S COMPASSION ON THE MULTITUDES. "And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the Gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd. Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest."-MATT. ix. 35-38. I. "When Jesus saw, he was moved with compassion." From Matt. iv. 23, we learn, that when Jesus first entered on the ministry, Galilee was the scene of his labours: "He went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the Gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people." And we learn also (verse 25), that great multitudes followed him. Chapters v., vi., and vii., contain a specimen of what he taught and preached; chapters viii. and ix. of the manner in which he healed; and now, at verse 35, we are told that he had gone over all the cities and villages of Galilee he had finished his survey; and "when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion." Galilee was at that time a thickly peopled country-its towns and villages swarmed with inhabitants; so that it got the name of "Galilee of the nations," or populous Galilee. What I wish you to observe, then, is, that it was an actual survey of the crowded cities of the over-peopled villages-of the crowds that followed him-it was an actual sight and survey of these things, that moved the Saviour's compassion. eye affected his heart: "When he saw, he was moved with compassion." His 1. This shows that Christ was truly man. The whole Bible shows that Christ was truly God-" that he was with God, and was God"-that he was "God over all, blessed for ever." But this event shows that he was as truly man. It is the part of a man to be overcome by what he sees. When you sit by the fire of a winter evening-when you hear the pelting of the pitiless storm-the |