ration of man's estate, and all fitness and rightness and holiness, and all power and strength and majesty, and all grace and joy and blessedness, with which the world shall be filled, and man's estate most nobly endowed, must come from creation's first Designer and Architect, who is also creation's Redeemer and Preserver for ever and ever. O always misguided and misguiding man, why wilt thou go astray from Him who is the beginning of the creation of God? why wilt thou set thine affections upon thine own handy works, which are but like hovels in the midst of splendid ruins? when thou mightest by looking to Jesus, and longing for his appearance, become the denizen of the city of God, and thence go forth, rightly taught and practised, to become, under Christ, the reclaimer of desolate regions, to subdue them, and to have them under thy dominion, to behold and rejoice in the labour of thy hand. It seems to me as if I saw, in the long established prerogative of Papal Rome to be the centre of arts, ano, ther token of Jerusalem, that future city of God, which, as it is the light of the world, and the treasury of its wealth, so also is it the model of all beauty, and of all perfection, to which city builded of God all inferior places shall look for their style of art and workmanship; even as paradise was the perfection of the earth, the temple of Solomon the noblest structure in the world, and the clothing of the high priest the very perfection of beauty and glory, as having been all designed by the mind of God. Let no man look upon these things as dreams unworthy of spiritual entertainment, but as dim shadows and meagre outlines of a glorious state of things yet to be, which shews but uncertainly from this far-off point of view, and seen through the murky atmosphere of mortality where we dwell.

Furthermore our good Shepherd doth counsel his thoughtless servant to anoint his eyes with eye-salve that he may see; that he might see his true condition; for he saw nothing of the wretchedness with which he was surrounded. He was blind to his condition; he knew not that he was naked, nor felt that he was miserable. He was living in the vile dwellings of sense, and was not ashamed. He was clothed with the garments of hypocrisy and vanity, and knew it not, because he was blind;

the eye of his understanding being darkened by the wickedness that was in him. Therefore said the Lord, " Anoint thine eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see.' "The light of the body is the eye. If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light." Without the eye to look upon it, creation is almost as if it were not; and surely to the eye of the mind, in its natural estate, God is indeed as if he were not. Nothing is more certain than that the inward sight of man is dark, and discerneth not the beauty of the Lord. The eye here spoken of is doubtless the eye of conscience, which converseth with the mind of God as revealed to us in his holy word, and in the person of his dear Son, who is the image of the invisible God, the first born of every creature. If man would discern the glory of God, he must see it in the glorious face of Jesus Christ; with whom, alas! nature, dead in trespasses and sins, hath little sympathy: for He is unto her as a root out of a dry ground, without form or comeliness, or desirable beauty. And why is He in whom God beholdeth himself full and perfect thus uncomely and unsavoury to the taste of man? Because man hath ceased to resemble God, and come to resemble the devil. Pride, selfishness, malice, and worldly-mindedness, have degraded him to the pit of hell whom God formed for the city of heaven. But he who opened the eyes of the blind, he who forgave sin, he who created man's soul, and redeemed man's soul, so that it should with open countenance see and rejoice in God, hath an unction, the unction of the Holy One, which can, and doth, unseal the eye of conscience: so that the whole light of God shall burst upon our vision; that spiritual world, that perfection of beauty, riches of grace, and fulness of goodness, which God is, and never ceaseth to be." Anoint thine eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see." It is in our power to do so the healing salve is at our hand; Christ hath wrought out this salvation: we are in darkness only through our own hatred of the light; we will not come unto the light. Christ hath purchased purity of heart for every man, that every man may see God.

And what is that eye-salve? It is the washing of regeneration, and the purifying of the Holy Ghost, shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Lord. And what

mean these words of Scripture? They mean this; that the High Priest Jesus Christ doth with the oil of holiness, and of gladness, which he possesseth, bring us into the temple of God, that we may behold his beauty, and reverently inquire of his name. And what again do these words mean? They mean, that Jesus Christ hath by his work in flesh condemned sin, and conquered death in flesh, and is able by the Holy Spirit to communicate unto men the capacity of tearing asunder the veils of sin and death, and looking as he did upon the very face of God, and beholding his beauty, and loving to behold it. It is that Christ Jesus who of old skilfully made the soul of man to be God's own likeness: so that, in seeing itself, it should see God; in exercising itself, it should exercise the will of God; hath now, through his work in flesh, received power to banish forth from it all fear and faintness, error and darkness, doubt and distress, dismay and despair, with other forms of hell, and restore to it its ancient being, its first features, its primeval glory; so that it shall again resemble God, think as God thinketh, feel as God feeleth, and do as He doeth. This is the eye-salve, even the Holy Ghost elaborated by the human nature of Christ into such a healing substance, as being applied to us shall, like the ointment, eat out the speck, and purge away the obscuration, and let the wonderful organ of God look once more upon the goodly world of God's own being and workmanship, which it was made to know, and to possess, and to enjoy. The eye-salve of the physician doth not make the eye; nor is it made for the eye in its sound and healthy state, but for the eye obscured and obstructed by disease, and deprived of its excellent function of beholding and admiring the creation of God. Then doth the physician cast about for some kindly mixture able to eat out, or carry away the foreign substance which makes the whole body to be dark. And though such unguents do generally occasion pain, the patient willingly submitteth, that he may again look upon the holy light. Even so, the eye-salve of the conscience is not to make the conscience; for the conscience being made by God can never be destroyed: nor is it for the conscience in a healthy state, able to look into, to understand, and rejoice over the being of God; but it is prepared of Christ

for cleansing away that film which sin first brought over, and ever deepens upon the eye of the soul. Christ hath prepared an unction of the Holy One capable of healing us, which, indeed, troubleth and affecteth somewhat the present state of the diseased soul, but must be patiently endured for the excellent knowledge, and wisdom, and revelation of God's own mind, which the conscience doth thereafter continually feed upon. O but it is a mighty work, this work of cleansing the conscience, and it is a wondrous power of God through which it is performed; and such aspects of the Divine goodness it doth reveal; and such secret hidden springs of health and joy it opens up, as no one who hath not felt the same is able to understand, or even to believe. Hear how the Apostle Paul speaketh hereof: "Making mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: the eyes of your underderstanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places" (Eph. i. 16-20).

Such is the counsel of the good Shepherd unto one of his ministers, who had arrived at such a pitch of loathsome and disgusting wickedness as that he should say of him, "I will spue thee out of my mouth." When we consider his worthlessness, and the worthiness of that Master whose patience he had so abused, we may well wonder that his counsel should be couched in such gracious and generous terms. Well may it be said of Jesus as it is of God, "He giveth liberally, and upbraideth not." If ever there was cause of upbraiding and withholding, it was in this unworthy minister. But so far is Jesus from being a hard Master, as men think, that he is willing to forgive seven times, yea seventy times seven; for he is good, and his mercy endureth for ever." Nor that he is an indulger of wickedness, or that he can look upon it without detestation and abhorrence, but that he is very tender-hearted, and pitiful, and loath, very loath to afflict the children of

He is about to

men, whom he loveth even to the death. bring discipline, to come in severity upon his licentious and profligate servant; but first he would ensue the method of grace, that by repentance judgment might, if possible, be prevented. Ah me, how it afflicts me, O dear Lord, that thou shouldest be so misunderstood, and misrepresented by the children of men. O that they were wise, that they knew what a loving gracious Lord they have in thee. Judgment is indeed thy strange work; God sent thee not to condemn the world, but that through thee the world might have life. And lest when thou comest with chastisement thou shouldest be mistaken, as if thou hadst laid aside thy love, thou usherest it in with assurances, that therein thy love is shewn forth no less, yea and more than in blessing: for to bless is congenial to thy nature; to afflict, and to bring pain, thou inclinest not: therefore, before dealing with this thy minister in the way of chastisement, thou dost warn him that it is also in the way of love, saying, "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent." This brings us to the fifth part of the charge; to wit, discipline.

5. The Discipline.

Nothing can be more certain than this, that evil is not of God, but of the world. Suffering, and sorrow, and death, are not the works of God, though they be in the works of God; neither doth God co-operate with them, but against them. No one may say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God. Not the temptation, not the evil, but the good is from God. "Do not err, my beloved brethren, every good gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." If, then, it be so that all the adversities and afflictions of man's estate, are not of the Father, but of the world, what end doth God produce by them, and to what use of goodness doth he turn them? The answer is, he useth them for the chastisement of his people, that they may be partakers of his holiness. Now that these whips and scourges of man's estate are through the wickedness of man's being come to be, God doth appropiate them for the ends of perfecting that being. He made his own Son perfect through sufferings." Whom he loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth