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.

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 men, whose meanness suggested to them a likelihood of their being overlooked, and who, expecting to be separated from their Master, might fear that the separation would remove them from his care. And this evidence, the evidence that Jesus had his eye on those whom the world might neglect or despise, and that He did not require to be visibly present, whether to keep down an enemy or support a friend-ah, this was given, so that the disciples might have taken it, in all its preciousness, to themselves, when every thing came to pass which had been involved in or indicated by the directions, Go ye into the city, and there shall meet you a man bearing a pitcher of water: follow him. And wheresoever he shall go in, say ye to the good man of the house, The Mas

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 inter preters, 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 sup per 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 appropri ate the benefits of the all-sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the world.

But the sacrament of the body and blood of our blessed Redeemer is for those only who have been duly initiated by the sacrament of baptism into the visible Church. It is not the initiatory sacrament, not that through which we are first grafted into Christ, and made members of his mystical body; but that through which, having by another ordinance been born again, and received into the family of God, we are kept in that holy fellowship, and nurtured up to everlasting life. Hence the one sacrament, whose outward sign is water, is preparatory to the other sacrament, whose outward part or sign is bread and wine; and it were, indeed, the most perilous invasion of the highest privilege of Christians, were any, who had not been washed in the laver of regeneration, to intrude themselves at that table where,

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 man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his Maker?"—Joв iv 15, 16, 17.

directing the historian to insert certain sayings in his book, the Spirit of God may be considered as having appropri ated 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 appoint. ment 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 sus picions, 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

and parcel of the inspired Scripture. But we are able to show, by a simple yet incontestable proof, that, if the Spirit of God did not inspire these men, He has given to their sayings, by placing them within the inspired volume, much of the weight which his own dictation must always impart.

discourses are not to be taken as part | taken place, and that words, which he quoted as delivered to him by an unearthly voice, had indeed been breathed in so startling and impressive a manner. On every account, therefore, we caz plead for our text as having all that claim on your reverential attention which belongs to inspiration in its highest degree. Come, then, with us; and as Eliphaz There is probably but one distinct records what he saw, and what he heard, quotation in the New Testament from attend as you would to the utterances the Book of Job. St. James, indeed, of a messenger from the invisible world. refers generally to the history of Job, We do not want to make the blood run but he does not adduce any words from cold, nor to thrill you with a strange the narrative. St. Paul, however, in his and undefinable dread. But, neverthefirst Epistle to the Corinthians, has less, we would use the wild and awful quoted from the Book, and that too, circumstances of the vision to give sowith the form, "it is written," which lemnity to the truth which is brought to always serves, in the New Testament, our notice; for it may be that with you, to mark what is quoted as part of Holy as with Eliphaz, there will be a listenScripture, strictly so called. In order ing with greater abstraction and intenseto prove his proposition, "For the wis-ness of feeling, if it be from a dim and dom of this world is foolishness with flitting image, and after a deep portenGod," St. Paul states, "For it is writ- tous silence, that you hear the questions ten, He taketh the wise in their own asked, Shall mortal man be more just craftiness." Now it is in the Book of than God? shall a man be more pure Job that these words are written; and than his maker?" the observable thing is, that they are not words uttered by Job himself, but by that very person, Eliphaz the Temanite, who also delivers the words of our text. We have, therefore, what amounts to conclusive evidence, that, whatever at times the injustice and false reasoning of Eliphaz, the Spirit of God employed him, even as He afterwards did Balaam, in delivering truths for the instruction of the world.

We have desired to make this clear to you, before entering expressly or the examination of the text, because we wished to guard against any suspicion, that we might be laying too much stress on a passage for which we could not claim the full authority that belongs to what the Holy Ghost has indited. Though, indeed, if we could not thus vindicate, in general, the inspired character of the utterances of Eliphaz, there would be little room for doubting, that, in the particular instance which has to come under review, this Temanite spake by the direction of God. He recounts a vision; he records words which were mysteriously brought to him amid the deep silence of the night; and if we could not carry further our confidence in what he said, we might, at least, be sure that what he affirmed had actually

Now there can be no dispute that we have, in the narrative of Eliphaz, the account of an apparition: a purely spiritual being, such as an angel, assumed a visible though indescribable form, and stood before Eliphaz in the stillness of the night. It is generally regarded as proof of a weak and superstitious mind, to put faith in what are termed ghost stories, tales of apparitions, whether of the dead, or of unknown visitants from the spiritual world. But we do not see why so much of scepticism and ridicule should be afloat on the matter of alleged apparitions. We see nothing, whether in the statements of Scripture, or the deductions of reason, from which to decide that there cannot be apparitions ; that the invisible state may never communicate with the visible through the instrumentality of phantoms, strange ard boding forms that are manifestly not of this earth. And if you cannot show, either from revelation, or from the nature of things, that apparitions are impossible, of course the truth or falsehood of any alleged case is simply dependent on testimony-no amount of testimony could make me believe that a known impossibility had taken place; but any thing short of a known impossibility might be substantiated by evidence;

which takes greater hold on the imagi nation, or more exquisitely portrays what might be supposed a case of apparition. If every subsequent tale of supernatural appearance be invention or fable, at least the fable is modelled after a true story; and we should have Scripture from which to prove that there might come an apparation, if we had no human record whatsoever that any had been seen.

and certainly, therefore, an apparition in any book, whether of fiction or fact, may be substantiated, for no one will ever prove the actual impossibility. There may easily be a weak and fond credulity in regard of ghosts and apparitions; but there may be also, we believe, a cold and hard scepticism: and knowing how thin is the vail which hangs between the visible and invisible worlds, and how transparent that vail is to spiritual beings, though impervious to mortal sight, it might be better for us to be classed with the credulous-if it be credulity to yield on sufficient testimony-than with those who are too enlightened to be superstitious, if superstition be the thinking that God, for wise purposes, may sometimes draw aside the vail, or make it transparent on this side as well as on the other.

Neither should we wonder if much of that dogged resistance, which is opposed to the best authenticated narratives of apparitions, may be traced to men's repugnance to the being brought into contact with the invisible world. They instinctively shrink from communion with a state, which their irrepressible fears people with dark and fitful imagery; and it is, therefore, with them a sort of self-defence, to take refuge in a thorough scorn of the possibility, that spirits, which are verily around them, might assume human shape, and become on a sudden visible and vocal.

It is moreover worth observing, that the Bible, so far from discountenancing the notion of apparitions, may be said to give it the weight of its testimony, and that too in more than one instance. We have already remarked that no more thorough case of apparition can be even imagined, than is put upon record in the narrative of Eliphaz. You could not find, in the most marvellous of ghost stories, more of supernatural demonstration, nor more of that paralyzing effect, which, ever since sin separated between man and God, appears produced, even on the best, by visitations from the spiritual world. The passing of the spirit before the face of Eliphaz; the standing up of the hair of his flesh; the indistinctness, yet truth of the image, so that no straining of the eye could make the form definite, nor any cause it to disperse; and then, after a solemn pause, the deep oracular voice, burdened with weighty question-why, there is nothing

Besides for it might with some justice be said that what happened in early days, when revelation was scant, and God supplied the want by immedi ate intercourse, ought not to be taken in proof of what may happen in laterif you observe what is recorded of the apostles of Christ, you will find that the notion of apparitions was not only commonly entertained, but that it passed unrebuked by our Savior Himself. When Christ approached his disciples, walking on the sea, we read, "They were troubled, saying, It is a spirit, and they cried out for fear." They evidently supposed that there might be an apparition, that a spirit might assume human form; and though you may say that this arose only from the ignorance and superstition of the disciples, it is, at least, observable that our Lord proceeded immediately to quiet their apprehensions, but not to correct their mistake" Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid."

On the occasion, moreover, of his own Resurrection, he gave yet stronger countenance to the notion that spirits might appear. When he stood suddenly in the midst of the assembled disciples, having entered the chambers though the doors were closed, "they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit." That Christ should have obtained admission, notwithstanding the barred entrance, was a similar phenomenon to his treading the waters as though they had been a solid pavement; and the disciples took refuge in the same supposition, that it was no human being, such as one of themselves, but a spectral thing, which could thus set at nought the laws to which matter is subject. And though it does not appear that, on this occasion, they expressed their apprehensions, Christ knew their thoughts, and at once