more and more. My mouth shall daily speak of Thy righteousness and salvation: for I know no end thereof. I will go forth in the strength of the Lord God: and will make mention of Thy righteousness only. Thou, O God, hast taught me from my youth up until now: therefore will I tell of Thy wondrous works. Forsake me not, O God, in mine old age, when I am grey-headed until I have shewed Thy strength unto this generation, and Thy power to all them that are yet for to come1. And again, Truly God is loving unto Israel: even unto such as are of a clean heart. Nevertheless my feet were almost gone, my treadings had well-nigh slipped.

So

foolish was I and ignorant: even as it were a beast before Thee. Nevertheless I am alway by Thee for Thou hast holden me by Thy right hand. Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel and after that receive me with glory. Whom have I in Heaven but Thee; and there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of Thee. My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever. For lo, they that forsake Thee shall perish: Thou hast destroyed all them that commit fornication against Thee. But

i Psalm lxxi. 14-18.

k Psalm lxxiii. 1, 2.

it is good for me to hold fast by God, to put my trust in the Lord God: and to speak of all Thy works in the gates of the daughter of Zion1.

1 Psalm lxxiii. 22-28.

SERMON XXV.

PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY ON MONDAY IN WHITSUN WEEK, 1843.

JOHN iii. 19-21.

And this is the condemnation, that Light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than Light, because their deeds were evil.

For every one that doeth evil hateth the Light, neither cometh to the Light, lest his deeds should be reproved.

But he that doeth truth cometh to the Light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.

THE blessed Apostle who records these words is justly called 'the Divine,' in that he above all others dwells upon the Mysteries of Divinity. Others tell of the miraculous Birth of Jesus, but St. John begins with the everlasting Glory of the Word. Others speak of making disciples by Baptism, he speaks of being born of water and of the Spirit. Others speak of the institu

tion of the Holy Communion, he of its lifegiving mystery.

Blessed above mankind in the intimate communion and friendship of the Incarnate Word, blessed above mankind in the dying legacy of Jesus, (in which some have seen a type of his place in the kingdom of Heaven,) blessed above mankind in the contemplation of the highest revelations of eternal truth, he walked in a light whose very reflection is dazzling to us. When he tells what his eyes have seen and his hands have handled, we are perplexed at the very simplicity of his words.

Foolish and hasty men take single texts from his writings, and explain them by themselves according to their own notions. But surely, if there are any writings unfit for such use, they are his. The single truths he utters, placed in due order and array, are like the heavenly host surrounding the throne of God. But to take one of them apart, and make it supersede every other view, is like the error to which St. John himself was for a moment tempted, when he fell down before the Angel. The single truth itself refuses, as the Angel did, an undue homage; but when that homage comes of self-importance and self-will, and

not of simplicity, the remonstrance is not heard.

Perhaps, however, the subject suggested for this day's meditation by the Gospel for the day is one in which there is less danger of error than in some others. There seems little to be done beyond bringing together some of the principal points suggested by different passages of Holy Writ, to afford us distinct and profitable matter of thought.

The difficulty we are apt to find in this subject is not one to be solved by merely informing our understandings; it must be cleared up, if ever it is cleared up to us, by the cleansing of the heart. Yet as the Holy Scriptures are open to us all, it may be of use to look over again and again what they teach us in this matter, if perchance we may already have, or may yet win from the Father of Lights, some such beginning of love to the Light as may lead us to seek it more earnestly and walk by it more faithfully.

Now, although in the creation great honour is put upon light, in that it was called into being by the express word of God, and was the sole work of the first day, and though it is the chief blessing, maintenance, and security of our natural life, still