are full of inward misgivings and forebodings: terrors of GoD or man, they know not what or why, seem to "set themselves in array against them."

Or, it may be, fearful judgments come upon them, sickness, loss of friends, poverty, disappointment, dishonour; and those judgments not seldom so ordered, that there is no mistaking the crime for which they were sent: as when the Jews, who crucified CHRIST, were in great numbers crucified themselves round Jerusalem by the Roman emperor or when the Egyptians, who had murdered the young children of the Israelites, had their firstborn smitten by an Angel: or, as in this very case of Ahab, that in the same plot of ground which had tempted Ahab and Jezebel to so grievous sin, the blood of them both should be shed, I mean both of Jezebel and of Ahab's son, and their bodies cast out to the dogs.

By all these, and many more sorts of warnings, the Almighty and merciful Judge has dealt in all ages even with grievous sinners; much more with those who, in the main, have been striving to please HIM; by such warnings He deals with us: our experience, open and secret, is full of them, if we will but consider: and who can say, how much depends on our manner of receiving them?

..

Some there have been, among sinners, who have taken the chastenings and alarms of the MOST HIGH in a kind of sullen affronted way, as Cain, when the token being given of the LORD'S preferring Abel, he was 'very wroth, and his countenance fell." Some have noticed it scoffingly, as the Sodomites, when Lot. reasoned with them; "This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge." Some have been angry and tyrannical, and have openly challenged God's messengers, as Pharaoh to Moses; "Get thee hence, let me see thy face no more; for in the day that thou seest my face, thou shalt die."

Again, we have known often of ways of receiving God's warnings, more quiet and outwardly respectful, but not in the end much more profitable than those. Here in the text Ahab does not threaten Elijah. He only speaks to him in a complaining sort of tone, as if he, the king, was himself suffering a hardship: he cries out like one greatly aggrieved, "Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?"

But what does it all come to? When he hears

of the dreadful judgment hanging over him, he rends his clothes, puts sackcloth on his loins, and goes softly, that is, humbly and timidly, like a very penitent person. And even this small outward beginning is so far pleasing to ALMIGHTY GOD, that, in consideration of it, He promises to bring the utter destruction of his house not in his own, Ahab's days, but in his son's days. Who knows how much greater mercy might have been shown him, had his repentance continued and grown deeper?

Belshazzar, that king of Babylon to whom the fearful handwriting came, seems to have been simply frightened by it: he sent for Daniel, listened to his alarming explanation, and gave him the reward promised. But we read nothing of Belshazzar's repenting; and he was slain that very night.

As for Herod, when he was so often reproved by the Baptist, there must have been for a while better hopes of him. For he did many things upon hearing St. John: he sent for him and communed with him often: St. Mark's word is, "He heard him gladly." But, alas! what signified such hearing as that of Herod, which left him just where he was, in his sin, not so much as meaning or attempting to break off his unlawful marriage?

May God of His great mercy deliver us from that, and from all these evil and unworthy ways of receiving His blessed and merciful warnings: and grant us rather to lie down with David, humbling ourselves in the very dust, when His Servants the Prophets come to us, and speak against sin, and our conscience tells us, "Ye are the men!"

May He grant us to weep bitterly with St. Peter, at the LORD's turning to look upon us!

He does turn to look upon us, whensoever and wheresoever His Providence, secret and open, checks us for our sins. He finds us, as Elijah found Ahab, not as an enemy, though his first sternness may well alarm such as we are, but as our true and only sufficient Friend.

Is any man sick? let him lose no time, but at once begin considering with himself, for what cause this sickness is sent upon him what evil purposes or corrupt practices he had been harbouring, which by such a gracious visitation the LORD would stay and cure within him.

Is any bereaved of dear friends? let the bitterness call his sin to remembrance, that he may begin to live so as not to be separated for ever from them.

Has any lost his substance, or any proportion of it? let him repent of the covetousness or greediness, the luxury or extravagance, which his money before had tempted him into.

Is any troubled with sad and distressing doubts, not knowing with whom or where to worship? what he must do to have his sins forgiven? Repentance is his only remedy, CHRIST his only safeguard; let him truly repent and come to CHRIST, by coming to those among his appointed Pastors, to whose care God's Providence seems most clearly to commend him.

Let him not with Ahab count Elijah his enemy; but let him be so far the enemy of his own corrupt flesh, as to do what Elijah bids him, to punish his old sins, and tame his wilful

nature.

He who was so gracious to Ahab's brief outward repentance, He will surely accept and cherish you, truly humbling yourselves before HIM.

SERMON CCLX.

CATHOLIC FAITH WITHOUT RESPECT OF PERSONS.
FOR THE ELEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY."

1 COR. xv. 11.

"Therefore whether it were I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed." THERE is something very remarkable in the tone of this verse, especially as it comes in only by the way, and occasionally; so we should speak of it, if we read it in merely human writings: we should say that it dropped as it were from the Apostle while he was thinking of something else.

Now such are the very expressions, which disclose most entirely, both in writing and in conversation, the true, habitual mind of the speaker: the constant flow of his thoughts and feelings and when we meet with them in the writings of an inspired Apostle, no doubt they set before us, with even more clearness and certainty, the Mind of the Spirit, whereof he was full.

They seem, as was said, to drop by chance from the speaker. But Faith, which knows that nothing can come by chance-more especially in the holy and divine Scriptures-that every jot and tittle has its meaning: Faith looks well to every such saying, lest something be there contained which GOD would have known, but which there is danger of our forgetting, or missing altogether. Just as those who are in company with one whom they deservedly hold in veneration, watch what seems to fall from him by chance, knowing that of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh, and delighting to find out how much more his words mean than he himself was aware of when he spoke them.

Such a saying is this of St. Paul's: you have been taught so and so, by me and by others: but "whether it were I or they, so we speak, and so ye believed." It seems to be merely a way of passing from one part of his argument or statement to another: but consider it attentively, and you will find that it involves two great truths, intimately connected with sound belief and true reverence.

First, "whether it were I or they," it makes very little matter. The person of the teacher is comparatively a thing of small

consequence.

Secondly, there was in the things taught, when he wrote, absolute unity. "So we teach, and so ye believed." Their teaching was all Catholic instruction, the faith of their hearers was all Catholic Faith.

On the one hand, personal differences between one teacher and another are to an eye like that of the Apostle insignificant : on the other hand, Unity of Faith and teaching is all in all, Let us endeavour to reflect steadily on each of these sentiments, so contrary to the way of the world.

For the world has for many years, if not always, been inclined to say, If he is a good and a wise man, what signifies his doctrine? And again, it holds that God has so made us, that agreement in doctrine, unity of Faith, is impossible; and of course, men add, He meant us to understand, that diversities in such matters are not unpleasing to Him.

Now with regard to the first, the personal authority of the teacher, it will be understood at once that St. Paul, in speaking lightly of it, did not mean to undervalue all kinds of authority, but only that which men choose out for themselves to be guided by. The ALMIGHTY FATHER and Teacher of us all has so framed us, that we cannot, if we would, without doing violence to our very inmost feelings, we cannot be altogether unmindful of the persons of our teachers, in judging of what they teach. On the contrary, the very principle, the first step in all learning, must be implicit confidence in the teacher. We trust him, not because he is wise and good, but because he is our parent, or in the place of a parent, and because we cannot help trusting him. We do it, of course, without asking why or wherefore that would be as unnatural, as for a hungry child