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deemed, not all the world, but all mankind, the heathens, the savages, those who lived before He came into the world, as well as those who never heard of His name. And in the HOLY GHOST, who sanctifieth, not all mankind, not the heathens and savages, but the elect or chosen people of GOD. That is the Church, who, like you, were baptized in His name, and who, like those in old times, live in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers.

I believe in GOD the FATHER, then, means far more than I believe there is a GOD, for the devils believe so much; it means I acknowledge GOD as a FATHER, who made me and all the world, and I mean to pay Him the respect due to a father, and in a greater degree, inasmuch as He is a FATHER Almighty, and made heaven and earth. If you believe in God the Son, you must believe something more than that He was GOD the SON, and that He died to take away the power of the devil, for the very devils, when He cast them out, confessed thus much. Yet you do not suppose they were saved: to be saved yourself, you must believe more than they did; you must believe that JESUS CHRIST is our LORD, that is, our Master, one who has a right to our obedience. You must believe that He was conceived by the HOLY GHOST, or, in the words of the Nicene Creed, that He was very GOD of very GOD, because the Son of GOD is GOD. And you must believe that He was born of the Virgin Mary, because the son of a woman is a man, 66 man of the substance of His mother." This is necessary to salvation, because were He not GOD, the sacrifice of His life would never be of sufficient value to satisfy God, and were He not man, as we are, that sacrifice would not apply to us, who are not Gods, but men. That He suffered under Pontius Pilate, that He was crucified, dead, and buried, are matters of history as well as of faith; but we must believe that His soul was really parted from His body, and that it went to that unseen place, called in the Creed hell, and by our SAVIOUR Paradise, where the spirits of just men await their final sentence. We must believe this, in order that we may believe the joyful doctrine contained in the next clause. That He, as

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man, rose from the dead, and therefore that we, as men, shall rise also. We must believe that He ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of GoD, if we would think of Him as a Mediator and Advocate. And we must believe that He will come from thence at the end of the world, if we expect to be judged according to our works; or, to use the words of inspiration, if we believe "that He will give to every man according as his works shall be.”

If you believe in the HOLY GHOST, you must believe in His earthly dwelling-place, the Holy Catholic Church. That is the congregation of all faithful men throughout the world. Faithful is the word we use, that is, those who believe all the articles of the Christian faith, not some of them, neglecting the others; who are admitted into that congregation by baptism, and who continue in it by living in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in the breaking of bread, i. e., the Communion, and in prayers. You need not expect that all will be good who belong to that Church on earth, because your SAVIOUR has told you that it is like a net cast into the sea, which gathers of all kinds, the bad and the good. Nor may you expect that all who have been predestinated and elected into that Church will be saved, because you know that CHRIST chose or elected twelve, and of them one was a devil, and went to his own place; but you must consider yourself as one of the called and elected, and must therefore labour to make your calling and election sure, because you know that you were only graffed into CHRIST's Church by baptism, and are not one of the natural branches of the tree, and you may easily reason, even if S. Paul had not told you, that if GOD spared not the natural branches, that there is no reason why He should spare you. This is shown in one word in the answer that follows the Creed. You observe that God the FATHER made, and God the Son redeemed, i. e., did a thing which is now past and done; but of GOD the HOLY GHOST, it is not said that He sanctified, but that He sanctifieth. That is continually, always, day by day, employs Himself in sanctifying or making holy us, the elect people of GOD. We are none of us as yet holy in ourselves, but we are all, let us hope, daily becoming so by help of that Holy Spirit. Still

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He will not always strive with those who grieve Him by going on in sin. And we must therefore watch against any thing approaching to wrong, lest we harden our hearts and cause the HOLY SPIRIT to give us up. We cannot do or think any thing good if we are deserted by the HOLY GHOST, for we are told that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves, that we are not sufficient of ourselves to think any thing of ourselves, that our sufficiency is of God. The worst thing that can befal us in this world is, that GOD should take that HOLY SPIRIT from us, for as we were not members of CHRIST before we received Him, so we cease to be members of CHRIST after He is taken away. God's words on that subject are, except a man have, i. e., continue to possess the Spirit of CHRIST, he is none of His. And when a man ceases to be a member of CHRIST, he loses his covenanted title to salvation.

Let us be warned by this awful possibility; but, in the mean time, let us thank GOD for the four privileges He has given to His Church. 1st. The Communion of Saints, and do not let us confuse that, as so many do, with (2nd) the Catholic Church. The Church is that body governed by the Apostles' successors, and living in the Apostles' laws; in virtue of our being members of the Church we enjoy the privilege of the Communion of Saints; that is, joint interest and friendly union with the holy men of old, who are dead, and whose souls are in Paradise, as well as with those who are still upon earth, and in whose prayers we partake; the ministration of the angels, who do minister to us, though we may not worship them, and, above all, the fellowship of JESUS CHRIST. Ye have fellowship, says S. John, with us, and truly our fellowship is with the FATHER, and His SON JESUS CHRIST. As members of the Church, and in that capacity alone, we enjoy forgiveness of sins in baptism, as I before explained in baptism. As members of the Church, we alone are certified (3rd) of the resurrection of the body, because it is only by being buried with Him in baptism that we are certified of rising with Him. And, lastly, as true members of the Church, unforsaken by the HOLY GHOST, we alone can enjoy the prospect (4th) of life everlasting, because to such only it

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will be a privilege or advantage, to those who are cast out it will be the greatest of all evils.

This is the Catholic faith, which, except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved. And that not because the Church has pronounced the sentence, but because every one of these things is taken from the Bible, to every one of them separately God has added a damnatory clause, and on the whole, CHRIST has placed the seal of the text, "he that believeth not shall be damned."

This is why the Church makes it imperative that all her members shall learn the Creed. Just consider what an awful thing it would be for a person, on his deathbed, to be ignorant of GOD the FATHER, his Creator, GOD the SON, his only Redeemer, and GOD the HOLY GHOST, his only Comforter. Now the Church considers us as if we were all on our death-beds, or at least only a little way from them. The services of the Visitation of the Sick and the Burial of the Dead, come very close after Baptism and the Catechism. As we should wish to die, so would the Church have us live; if it be an awful thought to pass into eternity in wilful ignorance or negligence of the truths of the Gospel, is it not also an awful thought that people should spend this, their time of trial, in such ignorance and negligence. Let us do so no more, let us learn the Creed, let us study the Creed and see what it means, and let us act up to the Creed, i.e., let us have a lively faith, if we have been ignorant, let us be ignorant no longer. You know that without faith it is impossible to please GOD; see and examine then what faith is, amend what has hitherto been deficient in it, and join with heart and soul in that petition of the Litany which beseeches GOD to give us true repentance, to forgive us not only our sins, but our negligences and ignorances also, and to endue us with the grace of His HOLY SPIRIT, that we may amend our lives according to His holy word.

PRAYER.

"The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much."S. James v. 16.

HITHERTO I have been bringing to your recollection the promises that you have made to GOD, or rather those which have been made in your name, and which you will shortly declare before the congregation, as I trust you have long felt, and often before professed, though not quite so publicly, that you acknowledge and take them for your own.

These promises, we have seen, are repentance, faith, and duty, as shown by the Creed and the Commandments. In examining these, as we have done lately, it must have occurred to us how very much more comprehensive, and how very much more difficult to perform these promises really are, than at first sight they appear. That repentance, without which we shall all perish, is something more than being sorry for our sins. That faith, without which it is impossible to please GOD, is something more than believing that there is such a person as CHRIST; and that obedience, the fruit of faith and the works meet for repentance, is more than keeping the mere letter of the law. The more we examine into these things, the more difficult we shall find it to perform them. No one thinks his duty in this world an easy thing, or his faith a matter of easy learning, or his repentance a thing to be taken up and gone through in a few days, and those, perhaps, his last days, except the man is so ignorant as not to know what faith, duty, and repentance are. It does not require the inspiration, or even