the fire that shall not be quenched-" every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt." He who would escape the undying fire must anticipate it; he who would be free from that imperishable corruption must take now that which shall be a preventative to it. He must take his life now, and present it to God. The fire of God's holness, the salt of self-denial, will be the two sanctifying principles. The fire of God's holiness by its power melting, refining, our coarser nature, purging out all that is corruptible, purifying all that remains, aided by the action of self-denial, which, like the salt, at once akin to and antagonistic to the fire, aids the work now by the voluntary surrender of all that tempts to sin, and prevents the action of the fire being eternal hereafter, by preventing that selfishness which is the source of all our sin, and breeds the endless corruption on which the wrath of God is poured out for ever and ever. We are very far from having gone to the extent of this subject. But, brethren, can we not make an effort to make our lives Divine, to give them up to God, to consecrate them with the salt of self-denial, which is the covenant of renunciation of evil between us and God? Can we not pray that the fire of God may descend upon us, not to destroy us, but so to consume the sacrifice prepared in our hearts, that from henceforth we may burn with a holy love-that on the altar of our lives the fire of self-sacrifice may be ever burning, may never be put out? And do we want a Priest to offer this sacrifice of ourselves? We have such an High Priest; one who Himself was made perfect through suffering; and now, in the might of that sacrifice of Himself, holds back for awhile all the powers of Death and Hell that sinners may have time to repent, and pleads for a fallen world. While He still stands as our Intercessor at the right hand of God, shall we not approach, not in words, dear brethren, but, in honest reality of purpose and life, pray Him to give us grace to bear the salting of that holy fire now, to purge and to purify us by it; and when in the New Jerusalem the Saints themselves are gathered for an offering, that He would present us faultless before His Father's throne? XXIII. SALT IN OURSELVES. S. MARK ix. 50. Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another. OUR Lord passes from the fire that never shall be quenched to the fire that salts,—from that remote fire to the mildest salt which contains fire. And in so doing He indicates in the form of a command how that salting with fire is to influence us in ourselves, and affect our conduct to others: in short, how this salt is to influence the discharge of our duty both to God and man. I. As to salt in ourselves. (1.) We remember that this salt is the principle of self-denial. Saturating our lives with the renunciation of Self, which is the renunciation of evil and the antidote to corruption, it fulfils the type of the salt which was sprinkled on every sacrifice by the command of God, to be the token of His covenant with His people. So that a sacrifice offered to God in the Jewish law without salt was an abomination, and so a life professedly dedicated to His service without self-denial is a mockery and an offence. This state of self denial we saw showed itself most perfectly in the life and death of the Son of God, who came from heaven, not to do His own will, but the will of Him that sent Him, and who, though obedient unto death, found that self-denial His very meat that supported Him in life, and the means of His victory, exaltation, and glory in His death. And mark, before passing on to the next point, how it was that Christ was able to offer such a sacrifice, what it was He offered, and how. It was not the "thousands of rams nor ten thousands of rivers of oil," it was not anything outside of Himself or short of Himself that He offered, but Himself entirely; and that He might do it, that He might like other priests have something, some victim, to offer, that He might have that to offer in which all men, the greatest and the least alike, might be able in their degree to follow Him, He came into the world, as S. Paul tells us, in fulfilment of the Scripture, “Sacrifice and meat offering thou wouldest not, but a Body hast thou prepared me." He came into the world, not as a spirit, not as a phantom, not as an appearance, not as God revealed in some form of angelic mould hitherto unheard of by man; but He took man's nature in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, of her substance, and was found in fashion like a man. That Holy Body was never defiled by sin, nor degraded by self-indulgence,-tempted by Satan with allurements and terrors, buffeted, wounded, bruised, rent by the cruelty of man in every action of mind and heart and hand, it was a pure offering salted with self-denial, of sweet savour before the - mercy-seat of God. (2.) That salt, our Lord tells us, must flavour our life. It is this which will enable us to do in our degree what He did; it is this which will enable us to listen and to obey when S. Paul says, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service," Christ's Body; our bodies; each the material for sacrifice. How is it with ours? Do you see, brethren, bodies, not only soul and spirit, but bodies. The work is so very practical, so material some people would say. But never mind the word, look at the fact. Your bodies are demanded as a sacrifice in the name of the Lord. Not only the spirit which by the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit wishes to serve God always, nor the soul which with its intellectual powers stretches out towards the spirit when the Divine light illumines it, and turns obstinately downward to chase objects of self-will, or to pry into "chambers of unclean imagery," when it turns away from that light; no, nor the soul, again, which in its warm affections becomes at times so godlike in the yearnings of its love, so degraded, so beastlike when that love becomes simply the passionate and the lewd, so fiend-like when, with inverted action, it pours itself forth in the power of hate; no, it is neither soul nor spirit that S. Paul specifies here, but the body, the creaturely body, the shell, the prison-house, as well as the tool or instrument of the soul and spirit, that is to be dedicated as a sacrifice to God, sanctified by the salt of self-denial. And |