you walk while

ye

have the light, lest darkness come upon you; for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light."

And you, my brethren, who have known the truth, put on fresh alacrity, and exercise your strength, that your conversation may be in all things as becometh the gospel. Think “what manner of persons ye ought to be in all holy conversation and godliness." "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them." But what exhortation can I give so suitable as that which immediately follows the words of our text? "Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep, sleep in the night; and they that be drunken, are drunken in the night. But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet the hope of salvation. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him." The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.

Amen."

XII.

SALT THAT IS GENUINE-SALT THAT IS
SALTLESS.

"Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned? It is neither fit for the land, nor yet for the dunghill; but men cast it out. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear."-LUKE xiv. 34, 35.

AMONG the substances that enter into the composition of this globe of earth, salt is a very important one, being of essential use in the economy of the world, and eminently conducive to the preservation of human life. It may be regarded as the grand conservative principle of nature, whose office is to keep this earth, the habitation of man, in a wholesome state, to check the progress of decay and corruption, and promote the health and wellbeing of the animal world. To fit it for these important purposes, the All-wise Creator, who communicates to every element its peculiar character, has given it the quality of being soluble in water, and has thus made it capable of diffusing itself over the whole globe, impregnating the various departments of nature, and penetrating the finest fibres of vegetable and animal substances a hidden agent that, by means of the element that holds it in solution, conveys its salutary influence to every region of creation. Suspended in strong infusion in the ocean, it preserves its

immense reservoirs from putrefaction, and makes them the means of conveying health to the shores they wash, and salubrity to the atmosphere that rises above them; while it further serves, by increasing the gravity of the waters, to aid in buoying up the tribes that inhabit and the ships that navigate them. It is largely deposited in the heart of the earth, in rocks and strata. It is also found to enter into the composition of plants, some of which yield it in large quantities, and even to form an ingredient in the bodies of animals. If this element were withdrawn, the great deep, we have reason to think, would become a putrid pool, the air would consequently be a pestilential vapour, and vegetable and animal life would quickly be extinct. I need scarcely add that, in a separate form, extracted from the briny waters, or from the bowels of the earth, it serves many important purposes that it preserves the food of man from premature decay, and thus enables him to pursue his course on the sea, or in regions where no fresh supplies can be found; that, when administered in smaller quantity, it gives a relish to that which would otherwise be unsavoury; that, besides seasoning his food, it stimulates and assists his digestive powers, and in certain forms becomes a valuable medicine. veying the important uses to which it is subservient, we readily assent to the declaration with which the text opens, "Salt is good;" nor need we dispute the statement that follows, "But if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned? It is neither fit for the land, nor yet for the dunghill." If salt lose its appropriate quality, that in which consists its whole value, no other substance can restore that quality; itself the preserving and restorative principle, if it

In sur

lose this power, it has no other quality to recommend it, and there is no other agent whence it can receive it again. It becomes utterly worthless, whether as a stimulant or as a manure- -fit only to be cast out and trodden under foot of men.

Such is our Lord's declaration taken literally. But I need not say that this is not the lesson He meant to teach us, but only the medium through which the lesson is conveyed-not the truth intended, but its illustration-not the jewel, but the casket in which it is contained. It was not a fact in natural history our Lord had in view, but a fact in practical religion and in spiritual experience. And the peculiar and universal importance of the truth conveyed in this metaphor, He intimates in the words, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." It becomes us to inquire into a truth so emphatically enforced by Him whose words shall endure even when heaven and earth shall pass away.

The metaphor of salt is sometimes used to denote the doctrine of the gospel—“The truth as it is in Jesus." This seems its meaning in the words, "Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another;" and in the words, "Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt." But in the passage before us our Lord is speaking, not of the doctrine of the gospel, but of the men who profess it: His words refer to the Christian character, considered in itself and in its influence on others. In the preceding context He admonishes the multitude of the high demands He makes on His disciples, and of the necessity, before embarking in His service, of serious consideration, and of the entire renunciation of selfish aims; and this admonition He follows up in the text by warning them, that, if the distinctive peculiarities of the

Christian character be lost, all is lost that is worthy to bear the name. In a similar manner, the metaphor is applied in the sermon on the mount, not to His doctrine but to His disciples, "Ye are the salt of the earth; but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted?" The words before us, then, declare the excellence and usefulness of the Christian character, as exemplified in those who maintain it faithfully and consistently; and the loss of all excellence, the shipwreck of all valuable attainments and of all good hope, in those who forsake and abandon the principles and spirit with which they once started on the Christian race.

I. The excellence and usefulness of the Christian character. The disciples of Christ are destined to the same office in the moral world that salt supplies in the natural—namely, to check the progress of corruption, and diffuse salubrity and health; and while they preserve their appropriate character, they fulfil this high destination. Sound in principle and exemplary in conduct themselves, they serve to arrest corruption in others; savouring the things of God, they communicate the same unction to others; active and beneficent, they extend a beneficial influence around them.

The faithful followers of Christ are like "good salt," in respect of those principles of truth which they embrace and maintain. For error corrupts the mind, and, insinuating itself through its faculties, "will eat as doth a canker," and blend in all its communications; truth is the healing salt that arrests its progress and defeats the operation of the poison. Now the mind of man, in this our fallen state, is predisposed to error; and its vitiated affections lead it often