text is made to recur to the mind; but whilst we gather from it an abundance of comfort, we are forced to reproach ourselves for having been cast down, or terrified, when God had put such truths upon record as should have left no place for anxiety or doubt. If Christ be wakened from his sleep, through our terror at the storm, he may not only rebuke the winds and the waves, but chide us at the same time as men "of little faith."

spake unto you when he was yet with you upon earth; Neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor drunkards, shall inherit the kingdom of God." It is the word which judges him, and it is the angel which binds him. Is it the covetous on whom has been passed a sentence against which he has nothing to urge? The angel hath said, "Remember how he spake unto you, Covetousness, which is idolatry." Is it the proud? Remember how he spake unto you, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the lowly." Is it the careless and the indifferent? "Remember how he spake unto you, What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" Is it the procrastinator, who had deferred the season of repentance ? "Remember how he spake unto you, Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation."

In each and every case the Word may judge, and the angels may bind. O that this were well laid to heart by all in the present assembly! We venture to say that it happens to all of you to have passages of Scripture powerfully brought home to the mind-you know not by what agency, and you cannot, perhaps, account for the sudden intrusion-but there they are; passages which would dissuade you from some pursuit on which you are tempted to enter, or urge you to some duty which you are tempted to neglect. It is the voice of a guardian spirit, that spirit, perhaps, which, in holy baptism, was specially appointed to attend your course, which you should con

May it not, however, be, that, where there has been wilful inattention to the word, there will not always occur this an gelic recalling of it to the mind? not, at least, whilst there is yet time for the laying it to heart? We dare not doubt this. And if the remembered words fall reproach fully on the ear, when we may yet make use of them for good, what, alas! shall it be if the words be then only recalled, when there shall no longer be "place for repentance ?" Our blessed Saviour Himself, speaking of what shall be the process of judgment at the last dreadful day, makes his word the great accuser of all such as reject him. "He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day." And when with this you connect the part which angels are to take in the awful assize on the whole race of man; for we read that "the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just:" that "the Son of Man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a fur-sider that you hear in these whispered nace of fire; "-O terrible thought, that the very beings who now watch over us as friends, good angels, not evil, shall bind up the offending, and cast them into hell!-when, we say, you connect what Christ says of his word, with what He elsewhere says of angels; the word, the condemning thing at the judgment, the angels, the ministers of vengeance; you can hardly question that the office, which celestial beings performed towards the women at the resurrection of Christ, is one which they will yet perform towards multitudes, when the earth and the sea shall have given up their dead. Is it the sensualist who is being carried away into outer darkness? and where fore is he speechless? The attendant angel hath said, "Remember how he

passages. Hearken ye diligently to this silent voice. Ye resist the Holy Ghost when ye resist the angel that would thus, by adducing Scripture, rebuke you, as the women were rebuked, for seeking

the living amongst the dead," the food of the soul amid the objects of sense. If, when secretly reminded of the truth, ye will give heed, and act forthwith on the suggested lesson-whether it prompt to prayer or to resistance, or to self-denial, or to amendment-we can promise you such assistance from above as shall carry you on towards the kingdom of Heaven. But if ye refuse, and turn a deaf ear, alas! alas! the voice may never again be heard on this side the grave. Yet the words have not perished; the words cannot perish: again, again, shall they find a

voice, but a voice which will be burdeneded sayings, "Remember how he spake with condemnation; for thus shall it in- unto you, whilst he was yet with you troduce at the judgment the long-neglect- upon earth."

SERMON III.

THE BURNING OF THE MAGICAL BOOKS.

› Many of them also which used curious arts, brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver.”—ACTS XIX. 19.

This occurred at Ephesus, a celebrat-dress: they were perhaps more likely ed city of Asia Minor, which contained than men who had never meddled with that magnificent temple of Diana, which occult arts, to feel the force of such an was reckoned amongst the wonders of the evidence of superhuman might. In world. The Ephesians, it appears, were short, the Ephesians, because accustomgreatly addicted to the study of curious ed to produce strange results by some arts, to magic, sorcery, and judicial as- species or another of witchcraft, would trology, so that Ephesian letters" be- naturally ascribe miracles to a similar came a proverbial expression for cabalis- agency; hence, the miracles, which tic, or magical, characters. The Gospel, were to serve as their credentials of as preached by St. Paul, made great way christianity, required to be more than in Ephesus, and a very flourishing church commonly potent, such as were not in rewarded his labors. The Ephesians, any degree imitable, whether through according to the common course of the the dexterity of the juggler, or the inDivine dealings, were attacked in the cantations of the sorcerer. And it seems way which their habits and pursuits to us one of those instances, not the less maiked out as most promising. In no remarkable because easily overlooked, place does there seem to have been so of the carefulness with which God adapts great a display of supernatural energy; means to an end, that, in a city in which, as though men, much addicted to witch- of all others, faise miracles were likely craft, to the attempting unlawful inter- to abound, and improper arts made the course with potent but invisió'e beings, mind familiar with strange phenomena, were likely to be most wrought upon by the powers granted to the preachers of evidence of intimate connection with christianity were of extraordinary extent, spiritual agents. You read that "God suthcing to place an apostle at an imwrought special miracles by the hands of measurable distance from the most conPaul, so that from his body were brought summate magician. unto the sick handkerchief, or aparans and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them, **

It mast have been very striking to the Ephesian magicians, to find that St. Paal cos'd thas apparently comman cate. a sort of magical vutue to articles of

It is moreover, evident that the hold gained on the Epesians was gained by and through the demonstration of the schemarty of St. Paul's power to that possessed by any dealer in unlawful arts. lathe verses which immediately precede our text, you have the sccount of a sin

gular occurrence, which appears to have had much to do with the obtaining for christianity a firm footing in Ephesus. You read that certain Jews, who travel led the country as exorcists, persons, that is, who professed to cast out the evil spirits which had then frequent possession of men's bodies, took upon them to employ the name of the Lord Jesus in their endeavors to eject demons, having observed with what success it was used by St. Paul. Amongst others who made the wicked and insolent attempt, for such it surely was, to endeavor to weave a spell from a name which they openly blasphemed, were the "seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew." As though they thought that numbers would give force to the adjuration, these seven appear to have gone together to a man demoniacally possessed, and to have addressed the foul spirit in the name of Jesus Christ. The spirit, however, answered, "Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?" Thus the demon professed himself ready to submit to Jesus, or Paul, his accredited messenger; but he knew of no right which these exorcists had to dispossess him by the name whose potency he acknowledged. He was not, however, content with thus refusing to be exorcised: he took a signal revenge, causing the man, in whom he dwelt, to put forth supernatural strength, so that he leaped upon the seven men, and overcame them, and forced them to flee "out of the house naked and wounded."

great promptness on the conviction: they laid open all the mysteries of their witchcraft, they "came, and confessed, and showed their deeds;" and then, fired with a holy indignation at the nefarious practices in which they had long indulged, and abhorring the very books which contained the rules and secrets of their arts, they gathered together the curious and costly volumes, and publicly burned them; thus evidencing their sincerity by no trifling sacrifice, for when they counted the price of these books, "they found it fifty thousand pieces of silver."

Now there are certain points of view, under which if this conduct of the Ephesians be surveyed, it will appear singularly deserving of being both admired and imitated. We believe of this incident of the burning of the magical books, as of the rest of scriptural history, that it has been "written for our admonition," and ought not to be passed over with a mere cursory notice. We shall accordingly proceed to the endeavoring to extract from it such lessons as there shall seem ground for supposing it intended to furnish.

It is unnecessary for us to inquire what those arts may have been, in which the Ephesians are said to have greatly excelled. There seems no reason for doubting, that, as we have stated already, they were of the nature of magic, sorcery, or witchcraft; though we cannot profess accurately to define what such terms might import. The Ephesians, as some in all ages have done, probably laid claim to intercourse with invisible beings, and professed to derive from that intercourse acquaintance with, and power over, future events. And though the very name of witchcraft be now held in contempt, and the supposition of communion with evil spirits scouted as a fable of what are called the dark ages, we own that we have difficulty in believing, that all which has passed by the names of magic and sorcery may be resolved into sleight of hand, deception, and trick. The visible world and the invisible are

This was quickly noised abroad, and produced, we are told, great effects among both the Jews and Greeks who were dwelling at Ephesus; "and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified." To men accustomed to make use of charms and incantations, the evidence thus given of the sacredness of Christ's name, and of the peril of employing it to any but those who believed in his mission, would naturally be very convincing: it was just the sort of evidence which their habits made them most capable of appreciating, and by which therefore they were most likely to be overcome. Ac-in very close contact: there is indeed a cordingly, it seems at once to have taught numbers the necessity of submitting to Christ, and renouncing those arts of magic and sorcery, through which they had perhaps endeavored to hold intercourse with spirits They acted with

VOL. II.

veil on our eyes, preventing our gazing on spiritual beings and things; but we doubt not that whatsoever passes upon earth is open to the view of higher and immaterial creatures. And as we are sure that a man of piety and prayer en

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lists good angels on his side, and engages all, if no change have perceptibly passed them to perform towards him the minis-on my hopes, desires, and fears. Regentrations of kindness, we know not why erated in baptism, I may indeed have been there cannot be such a thing as a man daily renewed,"* and never, therefore, whose wickedness has caused his being have needed conversion. But if I have abandoned by the Spirit of God, and who, ever lived a worldly life, and then hearkin this his desertion, has thrown open to ened to the dictates of religion, the transievil angels the chambers of his soul, and tion may have been silently and impermade himself so completely their instru- ceptibly effected, but must be demonment, that they may use him in the strable from strong contrasts between uttering or working strange things, what I am and what I once was. which shall have all the air of prophecy or miracle.

But whatever your opinion be as to the precise nature of sorcery, and the degree to which it might be carried, we may be sure that the books, which the Ephesian converts so resolutely burnt, contained the mysteries of the art, the rules by whose study and application men were to acquire what, at least, might resemble superhuman power and skill. And what we have first to remark on the burning of these books, is that it manifested great detestation of their contents, though hitherto the Ephesians had specially delighted in reading and applying them. There could have been no stronger evidence of the reality of their conversion, than was given by their committing these volumes to the flames. They thus showed a thorough consciousness of the unlawfulness of the arts of which the books treated, and an abhorrence of the practices therein described. And it is always a great sign of the genuineness, the sincerity, of religion, when a man proves that the things, in which he once took delight, are regarded by him with hatred and aversion. It is given as the characteristic of vital christianity, that he in whom it dwells, has become" a new creature." There is nothing which may take the place of this characteristic, or make up for its want. It matters not whether a man can describe the process of his conversion, or fix its exact date: he may have been truly converted, and yet be ignorant how and when it was done. But it is quite indispensable that there should be evidences of moral renewal: light and darkness are not more opposed than the state of the converted and that of the unconverted; and though I may not know the moment or the manner of my being translated from the one to the other, there is more than room for doubt- : ing whether I can have been translated at ¦

We have always therefore to require of men, who, once worldly, now think themselves converted, that they rest content with no evidence but that of a great moral change; not satisfied, because there may have been something of external reform, but searching for proof of such alteration in character, that they hate what they loved, and love what they hated. Such a proof the Ephesians gave, when they burnt their costly treatises on magic. They had been specially addicted to magic: by and through magic they had specially offended God, and periled their souls: so soon, therefore, as Christianity had won its way to their hearts, it was against magic that they showed a holy indignation; it was magic which they proved themselves resolved to abandon. The moral change was thus satisfactorily evidenced; the thing which had been most delighted in was the thing most abhorred; and no proof could be stronger, that the men were new creatures in Christ.

We ask the like proof from those of you who suppose themselves" renewed it. the spirit of their mind." Have you burnt your books on magic? We do not accuse you of having, like the Ephesians, practised the arts of the sorcerer: ye have not woven spells, nor muttered incantations. Ye have had nothing to do with the mysteries of enchantment, or with the foul rites of necromancy, dazzling the living or disturbing the dead. But, nevertheless, ye have been in communion with “the god of this world," "the prince of the power of the air: " ye have submitted to his illusions, and surrendered yourselves to his service. If, in some peculiar sense, the sorcerer or the magician give himself up to the devil, and make himself his instrument, there is a broader sense in which every one of us by nature holds intercourse

Collect for Christmas-Day.