applicable, there came the announcement that none of them were to suppose that they were safe, because they were the sons of Abraham, for God was able from the very stones beneath their feet to raise up children unto Abraham. He therefore bade them look forward to the time when the axe should fall upon the barren tree, and the flame burst forth to consume its fruitless branches. If that was the lesson then taught, and if our Lord confirmed it when he said, "Ye shall all likewise perish," I know not, if these words are taken in their plain natural signification, who among us can dare to prophesy smooth things, and say "peace, peace," when there is no peace. There is not one of us who is authorized for a single moment to believe that the word of the Lord reaches not to him or to her. If so, how is it brethren, with ourselves? Has repentance been making its perfect work with any one of us? Has its silenced, for instance, the words of the blasphemer? Has it taught him who rejoiced to speak the words of uncleanness and wantonness to cast away that sin, and to use the tongue God hath given him in glorifying his Maker? Has it curbed the impatience of the proud and scornful spirit? Has it struck its false balance from the hands of the deceiver, or torn the sensualist from his lusts? Has it made the disobedient child return to the home that he had abanboned? Has it brought him, through misery, like that which the prodigal endured, back again to his Father's arms? Has it taught him to smooth the furrows of care which he hath planted upon his Father's brow? Has it taught him to ask pardon of those whom he has grieved? It is for yourselves, brethren, to pursue the inquiry in every walk of life, through every scene of this earth's pilgrimage; carry on the search with unsparing energy; carry it into the most secret recesses of your own heart. The world around you may think it is all fair and safe; you may have a fair reputation with those among whom you dwell; you may be honoured and beloved of men, but if he "to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid," were to enter into judgment with you, he would drag forth from the recesses of your heart the sin by which each one is most easily beset; he would show where your danger is; and if you deal honestly with yourselves, you must know each one of you this moment where your danger is. Have you then directed your watchfulness, your prayer, against that danger? or have you held parley with the enemy? have you sought for opportunities to strengthen his power over you? Have you yielded yourselves a willing victim to him, that so the stamp of his power may be impressed more deeply upon your brow, and that you yourself may become a stranger even in the midst of your glorious inheritance? Say not, brethren, that this is carrying to an extravagant extreme, that which in itself may be admitted to be a Christian duty. Rather call to mind that well known saying of a great man in our own country who acknowledged that he never saw a criminal dragged to the place of execution but the question came to his own heart, "If all I have ever thought or wished to do that was evil were known, should I not be as that man is? It was no wild imaginative spirit that suggested that inquiry; it was one who well knew the strength of man's intellect and the weakness of man's heart. "I speak then, brethren, as unto wise men; judge ye what I say." Judge ye if the solemn warning which fell from the lips of our Lord be not one, which each of us should take home to his own heart, with an instant earnest desire that, having that warning, we may obey it. He who gave the warning gave it not without the means of fleeing from the danger against which he warns us. Prayer to him; his Holy Word which he has given us as our guide; the Blessed Spirit which he has given us as our Comforter; those means of grace which flow forth in fulness to satisfy all our wants;— these are with us. Turn not away, then, from this stronghold of your hope; but finding within its gracious precincts your best defence and your surest solace, may you feel that the special petition of this day's collect has not been uttered in vain; and since you have acknowledged that God is “the Protector of all that trust in him,” that "without him nothing is strong, nothing is holy," and have therefore besought him to increase and multiply upon you his mercy, that, he being your Ruler and Guide, you may so pass through things temporal that you lose not things eternal; then let it be followed by the conviction that you are day by day living under his controlling power, that day by day you are exhibiting in your own lives your growth in grace, in steadfastness, and in every good word and work; that so when things temporal shall have passed away, and things eternal shall be revealed, when, after all the changes and chances of this mortal life, we who have passed through the grave and the gate of death shall be again summoned to meet our God in judgment, then you may remember that you gathered together in the courts of his sanctuary at home, that you rejoiced, even though sojourners abroad, to meet in his presence, and pour out in the language and in the supplications of your fatherland, those petitions which, for his Blessed Son's sake, you believe will be heard; and remember, too, to your everlasting joy, that you did not meet here or elsewhere to plead the gracious merits of that Son in vain; that you did not meet here, or elsewhere listen to the warning which the word of that Son proclaims, or receive his gracious promises in vain; but that having passed through things temporal, you will in very deed obtain things eternal, for Jesus Christ's sake. 568 Paris Exhibition Sermons. Delivered in the Church of the Oratoire, Rue St. Honore, under the sanction of the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of London. No. 1, Rev. J. Sinclair, M.A.-On the Beautiful in Creation. G. R. Gleig, M.A.-The True God, and Life Eternal. R. Bickersteth, M.A.-Redemption, the Ground for Anticipating every Blessing. PARIS EXHIBITION SERMONS. NO. VIII. THE HAPPINESS APART FROM THE HOPE OF RESURRECTION. A Sermon DELIVERED ON SUNDAY AFTERNOON, JULY 8, 1855, BY THE REV. JAMES MURRAY, M.A. (Prebendary of St. Paul's, and Rector of St. Dunstan's in the East.) IN THE CHURCH OF THE ORATOIRE, RUE ST. HONORE, PARIS. "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable."-1 Cor. XV. 19. It was the intention of the holy Apostle, in this chapter,, to establish in the minds of Christian converts at Corinth, the truth of the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. A greater or more important doctrine could not be submitted for their consideration or for ours, as it is the groundwork and foundation of our holy religion. Without this the sufferings and death of Christ, undergone for sinful men would be in vain, and the system of instruction which he came to deliver, would be better in degree only, than that of any wise teacher of the ancient world. Without this, our hopes and expectations must have been confined within the narrow sphere of our present earthly state. St. Paul commences his argument with stating the facts of the resurrection of Christ, to which he brings an array of evidence, even "a cloud of witnesses," and then breaks forth and says, "Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen; and if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and you faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is Christ not raised: and if Christ be yet raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable." The whole chapter deserves the most serious and attentive consideration. In it you will see the certainty of a future resurrection enforced by the closest reasoning, and in plain, yet eloquent language, such as must have produced a powerful impression on those to whom it was addressed. Among the errors which appear to have crept into the Corinthian church, and against which this great teacher had to watch and to warn, was that derived from the Sadducees who denied the doctrine of a resurrection. Some of the early professing Christians at Corinth had probably belonged to the sect of the Sadducees, and had insinuated some of the poison into the Corinthian church. It was then with a view of clearing away all misunderstanding on this vital point of our religion, that St. Paul addressed them with the argument before us against a subtle and fatal form of error. He bids them stand upon their guard, to take care how they be deceived, for "evil communications corrupt good manners." It was natural for one so concerned as this good apostle, was for the well being of others to touch upon the sad consequences which must ensue to himself as well as to his beloved brethren, were they to give up this prospect 594 of another and a better life, to which they had hitherto looked for ward. This doctrine of the Sadducees, which represents all who sleep in the grave as utterly and for ever dead, holds out a cheerless and melancholy prospect to all, but especially to us, the disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, for if in this life only we had hope in him-if we could not look beyond this vale of tears to a brighter and more animating scene, then we who are exposed to so many and great calamities for his name's sake, were of all men most to be pitied; amidst such evils as we are summoned to endure, nothing could support and comfort us except the blessed hope of everlasting life which God hath given us in his Son Jesus Christ. The early Christians had indeed much to suffer; and who more than the author of the text? They had cheerfully engaged to encounter poverty, oppression, persecution, even death itself, in defence of the gospel; and were they now, in listening to doubts like these to cancel the reward? Were they to sow plentifully and to reap nothing? Were they doomed to tread only in the earthly footsteps of their Lord and Master, and not to follow him to a home eternal in the heavens ? "If in this life only" they had "hope in Christ," they were "of all men most miserable." Now, not only are the persons thus specially addressed pronounced unhappy, on such a supposition, but they are "of all men most miserable;" consequently, they who have not this hope in Christ, this anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast, are unhappy likewise, though perhaps in a less degree and under fewer aggravations. And this brings me, my brethren, to ourselves and to our cases; for, though we have not with the acceptance of the gospel, the same hard conditions imposed upon us which the early Christians had, though we have not the comforts of life denied us on account of our creed, yet we must remember that there are solemn conditions binding us in common with those whom the |