we think it lawful to infer, as well from the nature of the case, as from the resemblance of the proceeding to that which had occurred but three days before, when the two disciples were dispatched for the ass and the colt. You can hardly fail to admit, that the same principle must have been at work in the two cases-so similarly are the chances of mistake and repulse multiplied, and, with these, the chances of insult; our Lord is evidently carrying on a system, a system, if we may use the expression, of humiliating errands, as though He would thereby prepare his followers to face persecution in its more awful forms. And we do earnestly desire of you to bear this in mind; for men, who are not appointed to great achievements and endurances, are very apt to feel as though there were not enough, in the trials and duties of a lowly station, for the nurture and exercise of high Christian graces. Whereas, if it were by merely following a man bearing a pitcher of water that Apostles were trained for the worst onsets of evil, there may be no such school for the producing strong faith as that in which the lessons are of the most every-day kind. It is a remarkable saying of our blessed Lord, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me." "Take up his cross daily "¡ -then there is a cross to be borne every day the cross is not to be carried only on great occasions; the cross is to be carried daily a true Christian will find the cross, nay, cannot miss the cross, in the events, the duties, the trials, of every day-else how is he to "take up his cross daily!" how to follow Christ daily? Ah, we are too apt to think that taking up the cross, and following Christ, are singular things, things for peculiar seasons and extraordinary circumstances. Let us learn, and let us remember, that, on the contrary, they may, they must, be of every day occurrence; and let it serve to explain how they may be of daily occurrence, that, when Christ would school his disciples to face the perils of following Him as He ascended Mount Calvary, He set them to face the unpleasantness of following a man bearing a pitcher of water. : But there is more than this to be said in regard of the complicated way in which Christ directed his disciples to the guest-chamber where He had determined to eat the last supper. Hə was not only exercising the faith of the disciples, by sending them on an errand which seemed unnecessarily intricate, and to involve great exposure to insult and repulse-He was giving strong evidence of his thorough acquaintance with every thing that was to happen, and of his power over the minds whether of strangers or of friends. In proportion as there seemed a great many chances against the right room being found by the disciples, was the proof, as you must all admit, when the room was nevertheless found, that the prescience, or foreknowledge, of Christ extended to minute or inconsiderable particulars. You must consider it as a prophecy, on the part of Christ, that the man would be met, bearing a pitcher of water; that, if followed, he would enter the right house; that the master of this house, on being asked by the disciples, would show them "a large upper-room furnished and prepared," where they might make ready for the eating the passover. But it was a prophecy of no ordinary kind. It was a prophecy which seemed to take delight in putting difficulties in the way of its own precise accomplishment. It would not have been accomplished by the mere finding the house -it would have been defeated, had the house been found through any other means than the meeting the man, or had the man been discovered through any other sign than the pitcher of water: yea, and it would have been defeated, defeated in the details, which were given, as it might have seemed, with such unnecessary and perilous minuteness, if the master of the house had made the least objection, or if it had not been an upper-room which he showed the disciples, or if that room had not been large, or if it had not been furnished and prepared. If Christ had merely sent the disciples to a particular house, telling them that they would there find a guest-chamber, there might, or there might not have been prophecy; the master of the house might have been one of Christ's adherents, and Christ might previously have held with Him some private communication, arranging for the celebration of the passover. But our Lord put it beyond controversy and for which He had not provided? If He foresaw the man with the pitcher, He must have foreseen Himself with the cross-and surely, if He thoroughly foreknew what was coming upon Him, this very circumstance should have sufficed to prove Him more than human; and, if more than human, what was there to be staggered at in the shame of his cross? that there was no pre-arranged scheme, | ed by what befel Christ, if nothing bebut that He was distinctly exercising fel Him which He had not expected, his own prophetic power, by making the whole thing turn on the meeting a man with a pitcher of water. For though you may say that this might have been part of a plot or confederacy, our Lord having agreed with the householder that his servant should be standing, with a particular burden, at a particular place, and at a particular time, yet, surely, on the least reflection, you must allow that no sagacious person, who had thought it worth while to make a plot at all, would have made one so likely to be defeated-for what more likely than that, in the streets of a crowded city, several persons would be met, about the same time, with so common a thing as a pitcher of water? or than that the disciples, loitering a little on the road, or going a different way, would just miss the encounter on which the whole thing depended? The supposition of any thing of plot, or confederacy, is excluded by the commonness of the specified occurrences; and then, on the other hand, this very commonness should serve to make what must have been prophecy all the more wonderful; for to be able to foresee, with most perfect distinctness, that the man would be met, that the disciples would follow the right person, that they would be taken to the right house, that they would be shown the right room— nay, you may speak of the marvellousness of foreseeing an empire's rise, or an empire's fall; but there might really be greater scope for the keen conjecture, or the sagacious guess, of a farsighted man, in the probable revolutions of states, than in the pitcher of water, and the furnished guest-chamber. Besides, it was beautifully adapted to the circumstances of the disciples, that Christ showed that his foreknowledge extended to trifles. These disciples were likely to imagine, that, being poor and mean persons, they should be overlooked by Christ, when separated from them, and, perhaps, exalted to glory. And the showing them that his eye was on the movements of the Roman governor, or on the secret gatherings of the Pharisees, would not have sufficed to prevent, or destroy, this imagination; for Pilate and the Pharisees occupied prominent places, and might be expected to fix Christ's attention. But that his eye was threading the crowded thoroughfares of the city, that it was noting a servant with a pitcher of water, observing accurately when this servant left his master's house, when he reached the well, and when he would be at a particular spot on his way back-ah, this was not merely wonderful foreknowledge; this was foreknowledge applying itself to the insignificant and unknown : Peter and John might have obtained little comfort from Christ's proving to them that He watched a Cæsar on the throne; but it ought to have been surprisingly cheering to them, his proving that He watched a poor slave at the fountain. And whatever tended to prove to the Then, again, observe that whatever disciples their Master's thorough ac- power was here put forth by Christ, was quaintance with every future contin- put forth without his being in contact gency, ought to have tended to the pre- with the party on whom it was exerted. paring them for the approaching days Had He goue Himself to the houseof disaster and separation. For how holder, and in person demanded the accould they think that any thing, which commodation which He needed, the rewas about to happen to Christ, would sult might have been ascribed to his happen by chance, without having been presence; there was no resisting, it accurately foreknown by Him, and fore- might have been said, one whose word ordained, when He showed that his pre- was always "with power." Whereas, science extended to such inconsiderable the householder surrendered his proparticulars as were involved in the er- perty on the strength of the message, rand on which they had been sent?"The Master saith," as the owners had And what right had they to be stagger surrendered the ass and the colt, on be ing told, "The Lord hath need of them." | ter saith, Where is the guest-chamber, Christ acted, that is, upon parties who where I shall eat the passover with my were at a distance from Him, thus giv- disciples ?" ing incontrovertible proof, that his visible presence was not necessary in order to the exercise of his power. What a comfort should this have been to the disciples, informing and assuring them that Christ's removal from them would in no degree interfere with his protection and guardianship; if from Bethany Christ could make the householder in Jerusalem throw open his guest-chamber, Peter might have learnt that, from heaven, Christ could make the prisondoors fly open for his escape. And should we be warranted in assigning any thing of a more typical or symbolical meaning to the directions which were thus issued by our Lord? Indeed, in so doing, we should not be without the sanction of eminent interpreters, whilst the accuracy and beauty of the type must readily commend themselves to every thoughtful mind. It was not for the mere purpose of celebrating the passover that our blessed Lord sought a guest-chamber where He might eat his last supper with his disciples. Then and there was He to institute that commemorative, that sacrificial rite, in and through which the Church, in all ages, was to feed on his body, and drink of his precious blood. The supper was to be concluded by his taking bread, and blessing it into the sacramental representative of his flesh, wine into the sacramental representative of his blood; and by the issuing of a solemn injunction that the like should ever after be done in devout remembrance of Himself. Thus, in that guest-chamber, was the feast on the paschal lamb to be virtually abolished; but only that there might be ordained in its stead a profounder and more pregnant mystery, the feast on the true Paschal Lamb, partaking of which the faithful, to the end of time, might apprehend and appropriate the benefits of the all-sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the world. Were not then all the details of the errand before us, even when you leave out the exercise of the faith of the disciples, every way worthy of the wisdom and goodness of our Lord, expressive of his tender consideration for the circumstances of his followers, and of his desire to afford them the instruction and encouragement which might best fit them for coming duties and trials? Indeed, it is easy to imagine how, when his death was near at hand, Christ might have wrought miracles, and uttered prophecies, more august in their character, and more adapted to the excitement of amazement and awe. He might have darkened the air with portents and prodigies, and have brought up from the future magnificent processions of thrones and principalities. But there would not have been, in these gorgeous or appalling displays, the sort of evidence which was needed by disquieted and dispirited But the sacrament of the body and men, whose meanness suggested to them blood of our blessed Redeemer is for a likelihood of their being overlooked, those only who have been duly initiated and who, expecting to be separated from by the sacrament of baptism into the their Master, might fear that the sepa- visible Church. It is not the initiatory ration would remove them from his care. sacrament, not that through which we And this evidence, the evidence that are first grafted into Christ, and made Jesus had his eye on those whom the members of his mystical body; but that world might neglect or despise, and through which, having by another ordithat He did not require to be visibly nance been born again, and received present, whether to keep down an enemy into the family of God, we are kept in or support a friend-ah, this was given, that holy fellowship, and nurtured up to so that the disciples might have taken everlasting life. Hence the one sacrait, in all its preciousness, to themselves, ment, whose outward sign is water, is prewhen every thing came to pass which paratory to the other sacrament, whose had been involved in or indicated by the outward part or sign is bread and wine; directions, "Go ye into the city, and and it were, indeed, the most perilous there shall meet you a man bearing a invasion of the highest privilege of pitcher of water: follow him. And Christians, were any, who had not been wheresoever he shall go in, say ye to washed in the laver of regeneration, to the good man of the house, The Mas-intrude themselves at that table where, in awful remembrance, and effectual significance, there is distributed that flesh which is meat indeed, and that blood which is drink indeed. But was not all this, in a measure, shadowed out-or, if not intentionally shadowed out, may it not be lawfully traced-in Christ's directions to his disciples on which we have discoursed? How were the disciples to find out the guest-chamber? By following a man "bearing a pitcher of water." The water was, it as were, to lead them into the guest-chamber, the chamber where they were to find the body and blood of their Lord. You may pronounce this nothing but an accidental coincidence, if, indeed, you will presume to speak of any thing as accidental, undesigned, and insignificant, in the actions and appointments of Christ. But we cannot help counting the coincidence too exact, and too definite, to have not been intended at least, if we may not use it in confirmation, we may in illustration of a doctrine. The disciples, indeed, may have attached no symbolical meaning to the pitcher of water: they were in quest only of a room in which to eat the passover, and knew nothing of the solemn rite about to be instituted. Hence, to them there would be nothing in the pitcher of water, but a mark by which to know into what house to enter. But to ourselves, who are looking for the guest-chamber, not as the place where the paschal lamb may be eaten, but as that where Christ is to give of his own body and blood, the pitcher of water may well serve as a memento that it is baptism which admits us into Christian privileges, that they, who find a place at the supper of the Lord, must have met the man with the water, and have followed that man-must have been presented to the minister of the Church, and have received from him the initiatory sacrament; and then have submitted meekly to the guidance of the Church, till introduced to those deeper recesses of the sanctuary, where Christ spreads his rich banquet for such as call upon his name. Thus may there have been, in the directions for finding the guest-chamber, a standing intimation of the process through which should be sought an entrance to that upper room, where Christ and his members shall finally sit down, that they may eat together at the marriage supper. For the communion of the body and blood of the Redeemer is itself to "show forth the Lord's death" only "till He come," and shall give place, as the passover gave place to it, to a richer banquet, in a yet higher apartment of the heavenly kingdom. That apartment, too, like the upper room in Jerusalem, is large, and furnished, and prepared-large enough to admit us all, furnished and prepared with whatsoever can minister to happiness. And having been admitted by baptism into the Church below, having sought continued supplies of grace in the upper room, at the altar where the Master is "evidently set forth, crucified among us-ay, having thus, in the simplicity of faith and obedience, submitted ourselves to Christ's ordinances, because they are his ordinances, as did the disciples to his directions, because they were his directions, we may humbly hope to pass hereafter into that yet loftier abode-more truly "the large upper room "—where Christ shall everlastingly give his people of his fulness, and make them drink of his pleasures as out of a river. SERMON IV. THE SPECTRE'S SERMON A TRUISM. "Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up: It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof an image was before mine eyes, there was silence, and I heard a voice, saying, Shall mortal mau be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his Maker?"-JOB iv. 15, 16, 17. directing the historian to insert certain sayings in his book, the Spirit of God may be considered as having appropriated those sayings, and given them in a measure the stamp of his approval. Every one must, of course, be aware that, whilst the Bible is throughout to be implicitly depended on, as neither recording historically anything but facts, nor delivering didactically anything but truths, it does not follow that every pas- We here speak especially of the saysage may, in the strictest sense, be taken ings of holy men of old. It would as the word of God. In the historical not, of course, be easy to show-nay, parts of Scripture, the sayings, as well we do not suppose it to be true-that, as the actions of various persons are re-in all which the saints, whether of the gistered; and whilst in many instances old or the new dispensation, are recordthe actions are such as God did not ap-ed to have said, we may look for the utprove, in others the sayings are such as He did not inspire. It does not then follow, that, because words are found in the Bible, they may be taken as announcing some truth on which the preacher may safely proceed to discourse. They may be the words of a man in whom the Spirit of God did not dwell, of a heathen whose creed was falsehood, or of a blasphemer who despised all authority. In such cases, what is termed the inspiration of Scripture warrants nothing but the faithfulness of the record: we are sure that the sayings set down were actually uttered: the pen of the historian was guided by God's Spirit, but only in regard of the strict office of the historian, that of registering with accuracy certain occurrences. And, of course, if the inspiration extend only to the man who records, and not to him who utters a saying, the saying itself may not be necessarily truth, though the Bible itself undividedly is. In the majority of instances, indeed, we doubt not that the two things concur-the speaker was directed what to say, as well as the historian what to record-or rather, by terances of men immediately and literally inspired. But, nevertheless, we think that, in preserving their sayings, and causing them to be transmitted to all future days, the Spirit of God has so far sanctioned them by his authority, that they should be received by us with much of that reverence which is due to express and explicit revelation. We make these general remarks, because our text is the utterance of an individual for whom we cannot perhaps claim, on indubitable testimony, that he spake by the Spirit of God. It is Eliphaz the Temanite who speaks, one of those three friends of the afflicted Patriarch Job, who “had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him," but who virtually did little but upbraid the sufferer, aggravating his griefs by injurious suspicions, and false accusations. We are naturally so disposed to feel angry with men who dealt, to all appearance, so harshly with one whose sorrow and patience should have secured him the most tender sympathy, that it would not be difficult to persuade ourselves that their |