He was the author of several historical works, besides three volumes of Sermons, and pamphlets on Church Questions of the day.

He died at his residence, 63, Gloucester Place, Portman Square, March 8th, 1862.

B

A SERMON.

MARK ix. 50.

"Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with

another."

THIS precept of Our LORD's must take its explanation from the immediately preceding context. Thrice over, in terms of thrilling, awful solemnity, he has been speaking of the fire of Hell, "that never shall be quenched." The sacrifice of our cherished lusts, He intimates, even though dear to us as a right hand, a right foot, or a right eye, is well worth the making, if we thereby escape this unquenchable fire. "For think not" (such is the scope of His argument)" that ye can escape it, with"out the mortification to which I exhort you. "The fire (which indeed is none other than "the holiness of GOD) must either consume you, or burn lusts out of you. There is no

your

"other alternative for any soul of man; for just

as it was prescribed by the Levitical law that "every sacrifice should be salted with salt, so

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every soul, inasmuch as corruption is born "and bred in it, must be salted with fire, "either that of spiritual purification, or that "of eternal judgment." By the salt in the text, then, is meant, in the first instance, the salt of mortification. And the sacrifice, with which the disciple of Christ is bidden to mingle this salt, is the sacrifice of which St. Paul speaks, when he says, "I beseech you, breth

ren, by the mercies of GOD, that ye present

your bodies a living sacrifice," the sacrifice which we offer, when we say in the words of our Communion Service; "Here we offer and

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present unto thee, O LORD, ourselves, our "souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, "and lively sacrifice unto Thee."

But the words, "Have salt in yourselves," especially when taken in connexion with what succeeds, challenge a wider than the mere contextual application. A river opens its mouth, and puts a larger interval between its banks, when, after many meanderings, it is about to empty itself into the sea. And the discourses of Our LORD, which take their occasion often

times from some slender circumstance, and flow for a verse or two in the channel of a single idea, are apt to extend themselves towards their close, and culminate in a maxim of universal application, The salt, then, in the passage before us will be not mortification merely (though this primarily), but everything which makes Christian character strong and pungent, everything which acts as a preservative of the soul from moral and spiritual corruption;-decision, integrity, firmness of purpose, resistance to the ways and principles of the world. In short, to exhort Christians to "have salt in themselves" is only another form of exhorting them to have strength of character as Christians.-But since a strong character, in the spiritual as in the natural man, is apt to come into collision with others equally strong, Our LORD, maintaining here that wonderful equilibrium which characterises all His precepts, cautions his disciples against any breach of the law of Love. Staunch they must be in their adherence to principle; but they may not be quarrelsome. "Have "salt in yourselves, and have peace one with "another."

Having thus laid a foundation for our dis