connexion, treason against the Most High God, and rebellion against human governments. And far be it from me, my dear young friends, to draw an exact parallel between these two cases, though I think it must be admitted that they are very closely associated in the chapter before us. And so they are in history generally, and especially with those passages of it now transacting in Paris. A Sunday, and one, too, hallowed by remembrances the most touching, is selected as the fittest of all days for a general election! And yet the Parisians are held up by some as deserving of British sympathy. But to return. Certain men it would appear, had crept even into the professing church, who turned the grace of God into lasciviousness, thus repudiating the sovereignty of that Lord who had called them to holiness; and they are consequently rebuked, and held up as a warning to those who really loved the common Saviour.

It is worthy of especial remark how inevitably loose living results from disaffection towards the powers that be. In the same breath it is charged upon these filthy dreamers that they "defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities;" and I think you will generally find that our noisiest democrats in the present day are men of unbridled passions, who, if not actually identified with socialists and infidels as a body, compose no inconsiderable part of their unhallowed conclaves, meet at their halls, and unite with them wherever and whenever their destructive notions come into conflict with the conservatism of loyalty and order. The analysis of this spirit wears a threefold aspect-theological, social, and self-seeking.

"They have gone in the way of Cain," choosing their own scheme and modes of worship. If they allow that God ought to be honored at all, they must serve him as they please, and without consulting his own directions on the subject. He may tell them that "without shedding of blood," there is no remission; but they must claim the liberty of approaching him through some other medium, thus virtually renouncing his authority altogether.

Their rebellion, too, has a social character: "they perish in the gainsaying of Core." This is its ecclesiastical bearing, breaking forth in enmity against the ministers and stewards of God's truth. It has also, as I have already shewn, a civil

character, arraying itself against the magnates and magistracy of the land, and even against the throne itself.

And now comes the key to all these forms of disloyalty. "They have run greedily after the error of Balaam for reward," "Having men's persons in admiration because of advantage." If you wish to reach truth by a royal road, my dear young friends, go at once to your Bibles. Patriotism, as the world falsely calls it, has its price. Liberty, equality, fraternity, are propounded as the fool's Utopia simply and solely "because of advantage." Do not be deluded, therefore, by the idea that those are your best friends, who are really only their own. Take away from them all hope of aggrandizement, and you will make sad havoc with the professions of such heady, high-minded, and selfish agitators.

You must not think that I am going to inculcate slavish obedience to human authority. You may differ in your opinions from those who hold authority over you, and I should be the last person on earth to urge upon you any real compromise of principle merely for the sake of floating quietly down the stream of affairs. But differing and contending are widely distinct from each other. If therefore you must do the latter, take the advice of Jude, and "contend" only, but as earnestly as you please, for the faith once delivered to the saints. Look at your position at the present moment in the light of this noble epistle; and forego all bitterness, and wrath, and clamour, and evil-thinking and speaking, in the contemplation of these "Three Points of the Christian's Charter"-a common Cause, a common Rallying point, and a common Duty.

In that gloomy world where "the light itself is as darkness," we are told that there is "no order." But order, it has been well said, is "Heaven's first law." The maintenance of order, therefore, as opposed to that reckless disregard of Divine and human authority so prevalent in the present day, is the great cause which should engage the exertions and the prayers of all. For are there not just such characters, and is there not the self-same spirit, abroad in the world, as are described in this epistle? Some of the men there spoken of, it is true, attempted to throw the cloak of religious profession around their laxities in creed and practice; but as regarded others, their conduct was too outrageous to admit of this disguise. And even in the present day

we have "religious" democrats--men who, notwithstanding they belong to Christian churches, and even hold high office in them, are forward in the ranks of those who look upon governments, and even thrones, as objects for contumely, and derision, and attack-who can fraternize with foreign rebels, and decry and denounce time-honored and time-tested institutions, for no other reason than that they have counter-crotchets of their own to set up against them.

I have often wondered, and I dare say some of you may have done the same, where our disaffected professors, in the present day, find a warrant for their opposition to the powers that be. I think, indeed I am sure, that they have no authority for it in the New Testament. Whatever may be said of our Saviour's theory of taxation, we have the great fact placed evidently before us that he paid tribute to Cæsar. No "conscientious scruples " were raised in the breast of Him who was Conscience itself embodied. He made no passionate appeal to those who hung upon his gracious words, inciting them to mutiny against a government that could extort the payment. And yet, from that exchequer into which, of his deep poverty, he thus cast his mite, how large a sum flowed forth for purposes of which it were a shame to speak. The religion which could even deify the emperor himself, and erect temples to the gods many and lords many of old Rome, was surely bad enough to call for the immediate organization of an anti State-Church league, had such a littleness formed any part of His high mission; for you perhaps remember what Juvenal says upon the subject:

"The majesty of Riches all avow

Most holy; although Cursed Money! thou
Hast neither temple, yet, nor altar here,
Like those our country fondly loves to rear,
To Faith, or Virtue, Peace or Victory,
Or Concord, vocal with the twittering cry
Of birds, oft visiting their progeny."

It seems to be a discovery peculiar to our own day, that we are at liberty to withhold our allegiance from a government as soon as it applies any of its resources to objects with which we think it ought not to interfere. But should it not give us pause to find our authorities and examples in the days of Christ and his

successors, yielding cheerful and unmurmuring compliance to the demands of such men as Tiberius and Nero? The commands of Paul, and of Peter, are absolute and unconditional, not only to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates and to submit to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether to the king or to his deputies; but to “render tribute" also, without entering into very nice calculations as to the portion of it which might go towards deifying the defunct nursling of the infamous Poppæa, or carrying out the decree of the Senate, that she was to have a priest, an altar, and sacrifices for her sole use and benefit! And these injunctions, I imagine, extend to all time and to every soul" without exception, qualification, or compromise, civil or religious.

But supposing, my dear young friends, that there may be many things which we believe to require modification or removal in the laws and institutions of our happy land, is it at all seemly to wrangle about these, when by so doing, we are cheering on a reckless crew who neither fear God nor regard man? "God has called us to peace," and it is certainly no part of our duty (to quote a very homely proverb,) to make distress, distraction. And, after all, we may be wrong. Think seriously of this. Matters of opinion are surely of less moment than matters of command. The standard around which we are to rally is not the Banner of Dissent, or Churchism, or Chartism, but "The Common Salvation." If we must live in an atmosphere of contention, of agitation, or provocation, let us " provoke to love and to good works." Let us think nothing really great or glorious but the emancipation of each and all from the love and power of sin. Never did bigotry appear so truly little as it does at the present moment. And never did the living oracles appear so great. Take then your stand upon "The Common Salvation," and determine with the magnanimous apostle of the Gentiles, to know nothing among men but Jesus Christ and him crucified.

And this resolution let it be your aim, my dear young friends, to manifest, by zealously combining in a common duty-the duty of contending for the one faith of God's saints in every age and country. When we look at the extreme views held by different denominations of Christians on religious and political matters,

and all the "fly-gods," the buzzing, stinging, noisy, little Baalzebubs, that swarm between them-notions, and figments, and prejudices, and crooked crotchets, exalted to the rank of deities in the imaginations of those who hold them, we might almost think that there were no great points upon which the believers in one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, could agree. But is this the case?

Many of you, perhaps, know that there exists amongst us a compact of holy, peace-loving men, under the name of "The Evangelical Alliance," consenting to differ, without wrangling, upon many points of lesser moment, but all "holding the Head." Like their Great Master, they seek to sow the principles of peace rather than the elements of confusion, and if they strive at all, strive only to agree, and to manifest not in word merely, but in deed and in truth, the beauty of that holiness which springs from the fealty of love towards Him who was without sin. They ask, they expect, no compromise, even in those prejudices which a matured experience may melt away, or a growing assimilation to the Great Master lead us to look upon with wonder and sorrow. All that they require of you is, that you should maintain the faith once delivered to the saints, believing, loving, and living out, the great principles of gospel truth.

Will you not, then, join at once this brotherhood of worthy men? Who, indeed, calling himself a Christian, should refuse to do it?"Is there not a cause" when men of all creeds are bringing their little, narrow, party, bigotries into collision, to the serious damage of the great cause of Christianity-when for the sake of a few favorite notions, they are driving headlong towards republicanism, latitudinarianism, and downright infidelity, or speaking of a loose, a reckless, a visionary rationalism, as a "movement in the right direction?" Of all the civil wars that have disgraced the earth, a civil war in Christianity is inconceivably the worst. Yet "to this complexion we must come at last," if we spurn the warning voice so startingly, so pointedly, addressed to us by Jude, and contend for the tiny prejudices which education, or position, or accident, may have planted in our natures, instead of the faith once delivered to the saints.

And now, my dear friends, unto Him who is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of