his conduct is, but he has not guarded against it. In such case, not only is he found to be guilty of outward evil, but of inward persistent sin, and he perishes in spiritual death. Not only the outside of the cup and platter are wrong, but the inside also, he sins, not only in the sight of man, but in the sight of God; therefore, it is said that he, too, should be put to death.

The next law is that of the case of the ox whose owner has been warned but which has gored, it is said, a son or a daughter, "According to the same judgment," it is said, "it shall be done unto him." By the ox injuring a son or a daughter, or a man-servant or maid-servant, is represented a similar evil disposition, but which goes against laws and principles, that are not of so interior a character as those which have been mentioned.

There are sins unto death and sins not unto death. There may have been serious injury, yet the in jury is not so great but that it may be repaired, and expiation made. In such case the owner shall pay whatever money (silver) is put upon him. In the lighter instances he shall pay thirty shekels of silver, and then he shall be ransomed, to teach us this great truth, that in every case of disobedience, even though it be in ignorance, there is no possibility of being brought into the order of heaven, but by means of that instruction represented by the thirty shekels of silver. If a person has gone wrong he must have truth brought, he must be made intelligent in what is right, and obeying that instruction in his daily life and habits, there can be restoration made. "He must do whatever is laid upon him," it is said. In all these laws, that sublime truth is taught, that there is no means whatever of avoiding bringing the soul into true order if we would go to heaven. Some of the most injurious fallacies that affect the human race at present, are associated with the idea of a death-bed repentance, as if the new man could be formed from mere wishing. These divine laws, solemnly assure us that this cannot be done, that a man if he has fallen into disobedience against the will of God, and offended against the divine laws, must make expiation and restitution. He must by repentance do whatever Divine Truth tells him to do. When we apply common sense to the consideration of our eternal condition, we must see that it cannot be otherwise. To enter heaven, we must become heavenly.

The Lord Jesus Christ came to give us power to do good, by infusing his Holy Spirit into us. By His being divinely righteous we may become righteous. "Their righteousness is of me saith the Lord." But we must work out our salvation with

fear and trembling. Every man is condemned not for the sin which transpired 6,000 years ago, but for the sin that now rankles in his heart, and makes him disobedient. Every man is saved, not by having attributed to him the righteousness which is not his, and is utterly foreign to his own character, but by receiving that righteousness which is imparted to him by the Lord, giving him purity of heart, and therefore a love for all that is pure ;giving him humility of spirit, and therefore a preparation for the kingdom of humility;-giving him heaven while he lives, and therefore preparing him for heaven when he dies. It is this truth then which is taught when it is said, that if an ox has done harm, the man who owns him must be prepared to do whatever is laid upon him. Each man must repent for himself. Himself come into a disposition of order. He must slay the offending ox, and give an ox for an ox, along with the thirty shekels of silver. For a disobedient spirit he must give an obedient one, for ignorance he must give intelligence. For inward truth is heavenly silver, and fulness of this is represented by the number thirtythe number three and its combinations always being the symbol of what is full and complete, and perfect, in relation to truth.

Then it is said in the case of a man who has opened a pit, or has dug a pit and not covered it, and his neighbour's ox or ass having fallen therein, the owner of the pit shall make it good, and give silver unto the owner of them, and the dead beast shall be his. By making a pit, in the spiritual sense is represented conceiving a false doctrine

-a snare-a some

thing which tends to make man false; and whenever a person endeavours in this way to betray his neighbour to wrong -ensnares him in what is false and vicious, whatever the harm is, he will have to make it good, or he will never enter heaven. He must shun honestly all the ways of hypocrisy and evil; turn absolutely in life to the very opposite course to that which he has been accustomed to-hating all the snares that he has ever made to seduce others from goodness, or there is no preparation for heaven, no forgiveness, no acceptance by the Lord, "Whosoever turneth away from his wickedness and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive."

The case of an ox having killed another, and being sold for money, (silver) which has to be divided between the owners, is one that implies a disposition carried to an extreme, so as to destroy another equally valuable. This must be parted with, and a true proportion obtained: the silver must be divided between them.

Lastly, "five oxen must be given for a stolen ox, and four sheep for a stolen sheep."

In other words more efforts must be made to come back from a state of disorder into the order of heaven-more efforts for every act of disobedience by means of which a man wanders away from God's commands, than would have been necessary to stand in his original condition. It is not true that the greater the sinner, the greater the saint. Sin blunts the perceptions of the soul, dulls the affections, and weakens the powers of virtue. There is no case of exception. We must be born again. We must attend to the divine admonition, "If your righteousness exceed not the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees ye shall in NO CASE enter into the kingdom of heaven." Why call ye me Lord, Lord," He says, "and do not the things that I say?" It is by doing that our nature is fixed.

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If, unhappily, we have been disposed not only to have no disposition for what is good ourselves, but to steal from our neighbour, or indispose him to be obedient, when Divine Truth opens upon our souls, we must honestly and truly determine to lead a new life, to cease to do evil, to learn to do well. Now it will cost us great effort, great earnestness-much more trouble than it would have done. We must pay five oxen for an ox. We have strayed far away from what we might have been. We must travel every foot back.

But what of that, we shall have the Saviour for our Guide, and Defender and Friend, and Heaven for our Home. Arise, let us go hence.

SERMON XXIII.

A MAN SMITING HIS SERVANT THAT HE DIE.

"And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money. "-Exodus xxi. 20, 21.

The passage we have just read struck the Bishop of Natal unfavourably in these two aspects-first of all, that God should have appeared to sanction slavery, for the servant that is spoken of here and elsewhere in this chapter you will perceive is essentially a slave one bought for money, and who might be sold for money; and in the second place, that when under certain circumstances the smiting of the servant should be attended with death, there should yet be no punishment, because it is said the slave was "his money." These things seemed to the Bishop to present such a defective state of moral right, such an offence against the Divine Law, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them," that, he concluded it could not be from God, and the unhappy result seems to have been, that all regard for the Word of God, as a Divine Revelation, was broken down in the mind of this distinguished Prelate.

But let us endeavour to supply what the Bishop was lacking, only in common with a vast number of others. The true view of the Word of God had never been had by him. And when his imperfect view, the notion that so large a number still entertain, because they have never deeply pondered the matterthe notion which teaches that the Word of God is simply to be regarded as a literary Work, like any other book-came to be be rigidly tested, it broke down. When the mind that holds such a view dares to investigate, and to think, and to be determined not to be bound by any prejudice or prepossession, the time will surely come when that man's faith will break down as certainly as did Bishop Colenso's.

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And the reason is, that such a person has got a wrong conception of the Word altogether. He views it as he would view the book of any human author. Such a view is totally contrary to the very character of a divine book. For a divine book must be like every other divine work-spiritual in its nature. God is a spirit, and whatsoever he does is spiritual. It must be like every other divine work, more beautiful, more dignified, more thoroughly full of heavenly wisdom, the more deeply you examine it. Man's works are distinguished from God's works by this-that man's works are most comely on the outside. He labours to make them beautiful and perfect to the eye of the outside observer. God's works are most perfect and beautiful inside, because they proceed from the perfection of God within, and, therefore, must necessarily be most perfect as they are nearest to Him. Just take as an exemplification of this truth, the statue of the sculptor, and God's real man. If you regard the work of the artist, however beautiful it may be, however perfectly chiselled and formed may be the features; and the limbs, however expressive of majesty, delicacy and grandeur; however much it may seem almost as if the mouth were about to speak, yet go beneath the outside and you will find nothing but roughness and death. Take, however, the human being, he is covered by a beautiful skin it is true, a wondrous tissue, at once a protection, a beauty, and a mirror on which are portrayed the thousand hues of mind; but if you wish to find the greater perfection of the body you must go beneath the skin, and see the delicate texture of the brain, interwoven with its involutions and convolutions. Trace the blood vessels-the veins and the arteries, and all the organs of nourishment, growth, and secretion. These form a collection of prodigies of wisdom, and beauty, and use. The body is of God, the statue is of man.

Again, take a piece of human needlework, and however daintily it may be done, and however fine it may look, if you put it under the microscope you will see that the fine threads are rough and ragged, and far from being so beautiful as they seemed to the naked eye. But take the wing of a butterfly and subject that to the same inspection. The more closely you look the more beautiful it is; the more brilliant are the colours; the more delicate the feather like projections; and that which seemed to be comparatively coarse to the naked eye, when subjected to this minute inspection, becomes the most delicate and lovely that can be conceived. Here is God's work-there is man's work.